Students can rate your professor and campus on Rate My Professors. You can check out other students’ feedback and evaluations. Rate My Professors is available on App too so that you can download.
As the name suggests, RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) is a professor review service. John Swapceinski, a software engineer from Menlo Park, California, founded it in May 1999.
Students from colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom can rate teachers and campuses on the site. It was first introduced in 2001 by teacherratings.com, which was then known as RateMyProfessors.
After that, Patrick Nagle and William DeSantis bought Rate My Professor. However, in 2007, they sold it again to Viacom’s MTVU, which is MTV’s campus channel. Viacom was in charge of the site for over ten years.
Cheddar announced in 2018 that it had purchased Rate My Professor from Viacom. Rate My Teachers is the largest web-based platform for ranking professors and institutions from all around the world.
Are the Reviews on Rate My Professors True?
Despite the fact that institutions do not use them, ratings on RateMyProfessors.com definitely have a significant impact on teachers’ reputations among students. Given this, it’s worth considering whether it’s fair for internet reviews to have such a major impact on professors’ perceived teaching skills. The aggregate accuracy of these ratings determines whether or not it is appropriate for online reviews to impact professor reputations. While the accuracy of subjective comments can never be perfect, analysts were able to acquire access to official university course assessments to use as a comparison point.
The outcomes of these benchmarks are unexpected. The Journal of Education for Business presented a study that included data from 5 universities and 1,167 faculty members on several different aspects of RateMyProfessors assessments. The study discovered that RateMyProfessors summary ratings “correlate highly” with official course evaluation summaries, among other things. These findings were able to be replicated in a Lander University study: “The ease of use of the website was found to be significantly connected with the actual grades assigned. Furthermore, website ratings for clarity and usefulness were highly linked with… the institutionally administered… forms.
The same link was discovered in other investigations as well. Although accuracy is dependent on a number of circumstances, these studies show that the outcomes of official course evaluations, which university administrations recognise as accurate, are frequently reflected in Rate My Professors rankings. This will, of course, vary from professor to professor based on the number of reviews left. Some researchers have discovered that ten reviews is a reasonable quantity to reach a rough consensus, but others have discovered accuracy with just one review, however more is usually preferable.
Course Evaluations
Course Evaluations to be made public by the universities. Although RateMyProfessors has a high level of accuracy when compared to university course assessments, colleges may increase accuracy even more by making their own course ratings public. Universities, in my opinion, have no justification for not disclosing this information. The majority of universities do not provide justifications for concealing course evaluation results, but the few that I saw do not hold water. Vice Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs Elizabeth Graddy at USC attributes online replies to “university privacy concerns” and “incivility.”
To be fair, this is a compelling justification for withholding particular student responses to open-ended questions, but course evaluations often contain few, if any, open-ended questions. Course evaluations are typically done on bubble sheets with 10–20 multiple choice questions about the class and professor, in my experience. The privacy argument against releasing multiple choice data is illogical.
Conclusion
Universities should undoubtedly share course assessments. But if they don’t, RateMyProfessors is the only way for students to learn about a professor they’ve never met. As a result, I recommend that students take a look at the reviews if they wish to. These students, contrary to popular assumption, are pretty safe when reading RateMyProfessors reviews because they are fairly accurate. They should be mindful. However, of the implications that reviews can have on student mentality and performance (both positive and bad).
RateMyProfessors isn’t without flaws. Some potential issues include the ability for dishonest teachers. To underhandedly rank themselves and the ability for students to submit multiple ratings. However, because analysts have determined that reviews are often correct, these are most likely exceptional incidents. The majority of professor pages with at least a few reviews are likely to be reliable. This website has the potential to significantly alter college enrolment and student interest in their professors and course material. I hope that all of this information aids you in making an informed choice concerning courses. Best of luck with your professor search, and may the enrollment gods always be on your side!
