News Editor
@TheShannonWiley
Despite many students logging onto RateMyProfessors.com as they pick and schedule classes for the spring semester, many professors have expressed dislike, if not mixed feelings about the teacher-reviewing site, one even describing it as “vulnerable to slander, personal attacks, gossip, reputation smears, cheapen(ing) the learning process (and) disrespect(ing) professional educators and scholars.”
“It is a source for many students who do poorly to blame and slander professors for their (the students’ failings and to do so anonymously,” one SU faculty member said through an anonymous survey. “It is not an accurate measure of a class or a professor.”
With four million monthly users and 14 million anonymous ratings of 1.3 million professors and 7,000 colleges and universities across the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom, RateMyProfessors.com is the largest online spot for teacher ratings.
The website was created for and by college students, saying on their About page that “choosing the best courses and professors is a right of passage for every student and connecting with peers on the site has become a key way for millions of students to navigate this process.”
The page explains that RateMyProfessors.com allows students to do what they have always done, which is talking to each other to find out who is a “great” professor and who “you might want to avoid.”
In the anonymous survey referenced above which was sent out to all full and part-time SU faculty members, 40 responded.
47.5 percent of those responses said that RateMyProfessors.com was a negative resource, while 40 percent said that they were undecided and only 12.5 percent said that they thought it was a positive resource.
Many of the specified complaints with the site included the website being a place for students to “vent” over receiving a bad grade and students taking reviews too seriously.
“I think that too often, it is like the middle school ‘slam book,’” one responder said. “Students who get pissed off for any reason can tear apart the teacher. It is anonymous, but it seems almost libelous. Yes, a teacher can post a response, or have a very negative one yanked, but it still is far from a balanced site. And other teachers look at colleagues' ratings…. It just seems like an immature, sensationalistic way to demonize us.”