From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 23:11:19 -0500

Anyone who has taken a look at Rate My Professors knows that opinions
vary all over the map. One will often read assessments of the same
professors that are miles apart. So, which students are we to
trust--or administrators or other students should trust? Does majority
rule here apply?

Sandy Thatcher


> From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 03:30:35 +0000
>
>> Let me ask Kevin, in return, how useful he thinks student evaluations
>> of teachers are, as at the "Rate Your Professors" site where
>> professors are, among other things, rated for their "hotness."
>
>
> I won't presume to speak for Kevin, but I'll throw out my own answer to
> this question, for what it's worth:
>
> Student reviews of professors' "hotness" are, of course, not academically
> useful at all. However, student reviews that assess such things as a
> professor's tendency to be adequately prepared for class, to show up on
> time, to explain difficult principles clearly and accurately, to foster
> useful and productive in-class discussion, to speak intelligibly, to
> evaluate student work fairly and helpfully, to return graded work within a
> reasonable period of time, to communicate class expectations clearly, and
> to deliver the promised content of the course in a disciplined and
> effective way -- these would all be extremely useful to other students who
> are trying to decide which section of a class to sign up for.
>
> Similarly, I think a forum in which authors share their experiences with
> journals along analogous lines (and I think it's pretty clear what those
> lines might be) would be extremely helpful as well.
>
> One in which authors rate the hotness of editors would be much less
> useful, of course.
>
> ---
> Rick Anderson
> Interim Dean, J. Willard Marriott Library
> University of Utah
> [log in to unmask]