MacGuyver

I just stumbled upon www.RateMyProfessors.com ... anyone ever heard of this? Students put in thier ratings on teachers. I liked it becuase I could kind of get a vibe for what my teacher will be like from another students perspective. Although that doesnt necessarily mean that I'll share that perspective, but at least I have a little bit of an idea of what it will be like. Cool beans... I guess.

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Sweetpea

Wow, that is fantastic, i am a senior now, but i could have used it these past few years . . . every proff. wants something different from their students . . . it's tough guessing what each one wants . . . so i can see where a site like that would be very sucessful !

thanks for sharing,
sweetpea

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Jimellow

It's a neat site.

Obviously, the ratings aren't totally "legit," in that poor students are likely going to trash the teacher even if he/she was a good teacher and the student was the one needing improvement.

As a teacher, this site would really annoy (maybe even anger) me, because I would think it could affect one's reputation, and standing to a lesser extent. Granted, the people doing the reviewing aren't exactly "credible critics" in all cases, but still it would be upsetting to a be good (but hard) professor that gets torn up by students that didn't due too well in class due to lack of study, and not lack of quality teaching.

Neat site though. I look at it, and it might have influenced who I took for a class a few times, but I take the reviews with a grain of salt, as ultimately the reviewers are often students holding a grudge.

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reiii

Yeah the site has generally mislead me, I hear some colleges make the teacher evaluations public. Now THAT would give you a good idea about a teacher.

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Suave

Yeah its cool. But JimMellow, they do the same thing with teaching evaluations, so it's not like you'd be seeing anything new on that site.

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WriterZero

I heard about this back when I was in school. It made the paper there and was causing a big stir among the students and professors there. And yeah, like Jimellow said, you need to take the ratings with a grain of salt, because they are equal parts about the professor and about the student who wrote them.

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gremlinx8

I love this website so much and I use it to try and find the best teacher to take classes from. The only bad thing is sometimes, the ratings aren't so true. One person left a rating saying that a monkey with a piece of chalk could teach better than the teacher, and I ended up with a 98% in that class.

warrrreagl

Hey, I'm rated on that website! My overall quality is a smiley face (good quality). My overall average is a 4.0 out of 5.0, while my "ease" is a 2.5 out of 5.0. However, my "hotness" total is 0.....

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WriterZero

They have a hotness rating? O_o

I apparently haven't gone to that site in a long time.

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Averett

Holy Shit! My alma matter is actually on there! Wow! I'm totally going to rate my old professors


This is so awesome. Ahhh.... theres evil Dr. Tai and evil Mrs. Osborne. Grr.

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ninety09

I've been using RateMyTeachers.com for a few years and I really like it. Comes in very handy when chosing classes.

aa1037

my web design professor at Syracuse U actually started something similar to this, but it is not as widespread. his goal is to sell the design to individual schools and have them moderate their own version of the site. it's much more intimate, offering ratings on things like food places, shops, etc. http://www.ratemyclass.com

Xenomorph

I've used the site to make some pretty major decisions.

One of the professors I had unwittingly signed up for had horrific ratings for as far back as the free portion of the site will take you, so I dropped the class 10 minutes after I picked it up. The students at my school are actually quite forgiving...probably 3/4 of the profs here have yellow smileys.

I put up my own ratings for teachers when I'm done with them, too.

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Carno

Hah, that site is awesome. Most of my professors are on there. The ratings for my professors seem pretty correct..

the420star

this is pretty neat, kinda like myprofessorsucks.com thanks for the post

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BigGov

Yes, very much like www.myprofessorsucks.com, however, I don't like the results as much. I've found the results for myprofessorsucks.com to be very spot on, while the descriptions for ratemyprofessors.com seem lacking.

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Untitled

I've used it before... though its been wrong a few times, in my opinion, about my professors...

Vincentt

I haven't used it all that much, as I choose based on when the class is offered over who is teaching. Maybe this isn't so great though, as I have had some horrid professors.

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Redjake

I don't use it to base opinions on my professors before I choose them, but I use it during the semester to see if my opinion corresponds to everyone else's about the professor. Sometimes it's way off, but for the most part, it's pretty darn accurate. At my university you have to worry about getting the class you need, moreso than worrying about which professor to take for the class you already have.

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maleficent

I've been out of college forever... but just for grins, I checked out my alma mater... gack, 18 years after graduation, some of the professors that tortured me then, are still there, and it doesn't look like their teaching style has improved any...

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jbw97361

I use it every term when choosing who to take classes from (if there is a choice in the matter). It is amazing how right on many of the descriptions of poor teaching styles are. On the other hand, people seem to be generally nice, as long as you are not a horrible professor.

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Frowning Budah

The college paper use to do a rating system on the professors. I had it even better my wife had been going to the University for about 4 years before I started so she pretty much directed me to the good and the easy and away from the crappy. I still managed to make some mistakes.

WriterZero

Gotta take it all with a grain of salt. I looked up a horrible professor I had, who taught in a method that catered to a tiny unit of student groupies that followed her around and screwed over everyone else. I even had to take up my final grade she gave me with administration and they agreed it was biased, had my work reviewed by two other professors in the field, and upped my grade substantially. But her reviews were good.

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CSflim

Sounds like a cool idea....except it is US only.

Anyone know of a similar site that accomodates the rest of the world? (Specifically Ireland).

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sapiens

I dislike these types of sites and course evals in general. I think that students who have just taken a course are poor judges of the quality of the course:
Their judgments may be heavily influenced by:
1. their expected grades.
2. how entertaining the professor is.
3. recent events (exams they did poorly on or really well on).
4. professors making an announcement right before handing out evaluations that the final is optional or that he or she will drop the lowest test grade.
5. professors bringing bagels, coffee, pizza, or candy on the day of the evaluations.

I suppose these types of sites are better than official course evals because they have little influence on tenure, but evals by students in general...ugh.

I think that a course should be evaluated based on the amount you learned and how useful the information is to you rather than your grade or how entertaining the professor was. Universities should follow up with students a few years later. Ask them what courses they remember, what courses they still find useful today, etc.