From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2013 19:51:38 +0100

Anyone who taught in a university is aware that such evaluations can be very
useful. It is not difficult to pick out the malcontents and people who just
want to cause problems, annoying though these are.

All or at least most publishers crave feedback. That is one of the reasons
they hold expensive editorial board meetings. BioMed Central answer all
complaints about their journals at a senior management level on a particular
afternoon every week. When I was a publisher for a list of journals I always
replied to any complaints that reached me at once and instigated an enquiry.
BMC make sure that complaints always reach senior people. It is not in the
interest of publishers dependent on good relations with the academic
community if they are to discourage evaluation.

It seems to me that the problem will be who runs the site. If it someone
like our moderator everyone except some very extreme people will be happy.
If it is a single person like Jeffrey Beall it is good if, like Jeffrey,
they strive to be fair. If it is someone who has vendetta against publishers
in general or particular publishers what good will the site do? I am not
sure how many people will have seen the formal evaluations of The Charleston
Advisor of online electronic resources. The reviews of services and products
in TCA are scrutinised by a varied editorial board quite carefully
[admission - I am one of them]. I am not suggesting something formal like
this - it is one extreme of what is possible. The big problem is of course
how to make such a venture sustainable. I am sure Ann could tell us the
amount of work involved.

Anthony

-----Original Message-----
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]