RateMyProfessors.com is a large online destination for rating professors from colleges and universities across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. This student-generated site allows students to go online and post comments and ratings regarding a professor. Professors are rated on how easy, helpful and clear their teaching methods are, and the student’s interest in the class.
Students communicate with each other to discuss and select the best professors and courses, and this site helps centralize this information and more. This site helps prepare students for the classes they are going to take by reading what previous students have said about the classes and the professors. Students are consumers who attend college to receive knowledge and an education from professors. Therefore, it is important to remember that students have the freedom to speak and express what they want about their professors if they desire to.
Associate professor of Theatre Michael Swanson has stated his thoughts toward students using this site about him. “I wouldn’t want to restrict our freedom of expression to ban those postings. My concerns about such postings are that they could be libelous, as can any such communication,” Swanson said. “Student evaluations need to be considered alongside peer and administrative evaluations for a more complete picture of a faculty member’s teaching qualities. As long as students understand that and keep it in perspective, I have no particular problem with the website.”
Although this is a practical site for college students to use when determining what professor to take for classes, it poses some problems.
Sophomore Wendy Harriman stated her reasoning for this. “The site could be beneficial, but it can make you go into class already with a possible negative opinion about that professor,” Harriman said.
Rating a professor only on clarity, helpfulness and easiness is not sufficient enough. Giving a professor a high score because they were an “easy grader” or they were rated as “hot” does not give an overall reasonable evaluation of how the professor taught the class.
Senior Julia Ward has discussed how the site could be misleading and biased. “Someone who is compelled to write a statement about their professor online probably either had a great experience with that professor or a terrible one,” Ward said. “So, the ratings might not be indicative of the average student’s impression of that professor.”
Sophomore Kristen Brosie has also stated that the students who comment do not provide you with enough information. “I don’t like the website because there are only a couple of people who base their opinions off of it,” Brosie stated. “A professor I was looking at had only three ratings.”
Also, professors like Dr. T. Evan Smith, associate professor and chair of psychology, have stated that they do not use this site when making decisions about what to do in the classroom. “I use students’ comments on in-class evaluations for that purpose,” Smith stated.
RateMyProfessors.com is similar to other reference websites. Use it as a quick reference, but take it with a grain of salt.
It is better to use word-of-mouth advice from friends and fellow students to figure out which professors to take for a class. This way they can give you a more informed decision, in person, about the overall performance of the professor and their class.
Professors generally do not mind if you post things about them online as long as you do not defame them and their abilities and you attempt to portray them in a true light.