Websites provide outlet for course criticism

KUSHAL DAVE/YH

"Never get stuck with a bad teacher again!" promises CollegePro-Net, one of several websites attempting to build bulletin boards filled with evaluations of courses from universities across the country. Ah, if only it were so easy! The phenomenon has raised a variety of issues about the evaluation of teachers, the power and limitations of online speech, and the proper role of generic websites in the lives of college students.

CollegePro-Net, like its brethren Grade-it.com and CollegeStudent.com, is hoping college students will be lured onto their sites by the prospect of a class-choosing panacea, meanwhile earning the site's creators money from advertising. Grade-it.com in particular was started by students at Tulane University and has had more than 60,000 users, currently serving 13 schools and planing to expand through the use of on-site representatives into five more schoolsincluding Yale. A fourth site, Digitaldiscussion.com, lacks advertising so far.

Lies, damn lies, and websites

The Chronicle of Higher Education, in an article published last Wed., Sept. 29, (http://chronicle.com/free/99/09/99092901t.htm) found a mixed response among the professors it questioned about the new course evaluation sites. The key issue seemed to be credibility: do the sites present a negatively-biased, petty or even inaccurate view of what happens in the classroom?

Robert Dunne, who teaches the popular Computers and the Law courses and is Co-Director of the Center for Internet Studies at Yale, thought that the sites lacked credibility. "I don't think this sort of site is likely to have much effect on anything important, to tell you the truth," he said. "People who read what's posted there and actually believe it is likely to be a fair evaluation of a faculty member's competence or a course's quality probably also believe the stuff the supermarket tabloids publish. If they chose not to take one of my courses I'd be delighted." He added, "The `Net provides the ability to publish all sorts of things and I think people realize that much of it is nonsense."

Philip Nichols, a professor at the Wharton School of Business and one of the professors rated online, saw some merit in these projects. "There is often something to be learned even in the strangest of criticisms," he said. "It might not change the way that someone teaches, but it is good to have the information. A person who chooses to wear the same suit every day should be aware that she will lose the student who is more interested in clothing than in learning."

Nichols does not feel, though, that too much emphasis should be placed upon such evaluations. "I hope that good teachers do not change their pedagogy simply to cater to a few students who post odd grievances in such a public forum," he said.

Micah Harper of Grade-it.com defended the quality of the evaluations his site publishes. "I don't really think that it is worth a student's time to submit false or malicious course evaluations," he said. He does, however, check for suspicious or repeated submissions, and he reads every comment by hand as much as possible. "I try to censor as little as possible, but some comments are just not useful information. The purpose of the evaluations is to help students choose classes, and if the information in an eval is not useful to that end, it can be deleted."

Legally, he stands on firm ground. Various court cases have found that websites are passive transmitters of information, not liable for the comments contained on them.

The editor is mightier than the discussion board?

Navin Manglani, PC '00, former editor of the Yale College Course Critique, felt that his publication is better suited to the task at hand and doubts that the online efforts will be successful. To him, the generic quality of the website competitors, the lack of authentication, and the lack of collation undermined their quality.

Manglani also pointed out that making evaluation voluntary did lead to a negative bias, citing the higher ratings that resulted from in-class polling, which he says about 120 professors participated in last semster. "I think people are more willing to cooperate with us because we're a Yale establishment," Manglani said.

With the Course Critique, editors make an extra effort to limit the level of negativity in their reviews. "We do receive some harsh commentary, and we try to make sure the comments are critical but not too powerful, because we have to keep the professors in my mind," he said. "We're not going to say `This professor sucks.' The professors appreciate that because it's constructive criticism."

Although the Critique had an online evaluation drive last year when dining hall evaluations ran short and will continue to offer an online option, they will continue to rely on the in-class system. The results of their surveys, although offered online, will continue to exist on paper. "We find that the paper version is much more convenient," Manglani said. However, the online edition has proved useful for professors seeking to read their evaluations and students who miss the rush for the paper edition, which is available in only limited quantiities.

Manglani explained that they will continue trying to present a careful, balanced, constructive synposis of responses. "I think most students don't want to sit there and read through all 30 summaries," he said of web-based forum-style ratings. He explained that the Critique's job is to do the mundane stuff for the student body, sparing them reading the same thing over and over.

His effort, unlike those of the websites, has been generally well-received by its subjects. "Most professors I know appreciate the Course Critique," Manglani said. He cited the specific example of Philosophy Professor Shelly Kagan, who was upset to find that his class was not included in this semester's edition when her class changed semesters. Others have been glad to find they've been ranked one of Yale's top classes. "Most professors want their classes reviewed."

Although some website efforts hope to offer an Amazon.com-esque demographic breakdown of evalutions, Manglani saw little value in that option. "Obviously we're all Yale students," he said. "The reason for the class breakdown [that the Critique does provide] is really to give an idea as to what type of people take the class."

In countering criticism from those like Magnlani, Harper is focused on the benefits of his service relative to the officially-sponsored publications that exist at various other universities, highlighting the nature of the questions his site asks and its guarantee of anonymity. He also touted innovations such as the ability to sort by various criteria and the option for professors to post responses.

Harper offered a positive spin on the degree of volition needed to complete an out-of-class evaluation. "Students who fill out evaluations in class have a tendency to just fill in answers without giving them much thought," he said. "Students who come to Grade-It.com have made an effort to post their evaluation, and thus it can be assumed that they have a strong opinion on the class or professor and have given the evaluation some thought. This results in a more complete and more helpful evaluation."

According to Harper, there has been extensive positive feedback from students who have used the service. "I have gotten an amazing response from students at hundreds of universities," he said. "Professors have been a little more hesitant, but I have gotten a positive response from many of them as well."

All the world's the Internet, the people merely browsers

One key difference between a website and a paper publication is the degree of visibility. A website is open to visits by prospective students. "I have gotten e-mails from prospective students that have already used Grade-It.com to compare professors in various departments across universities," he said.

Another possible external audience is professors' colleagues. "I know of one professor here at Tulane that asked permission to include her rankings on the Top Ten Lists in a grant application," Harper said. But Dunne disagreed with the validity of such uses. "I don't believe any other faculty members anywhere are going to rely on this sort of information to evaluate colleagues."

Nichols was just grateful that what is being posted on the Internet isn't worse. "The nature of being a professor is to be under constant scrutiny," he said. "By day a professor stands in front of a classroom full of people, all of whom are staring at the professor, by night a professor publishes articles and books, which the professor hopes will be scrutinized. Sometimes it is a little weird to be so exposed, but that is what we do. Exposure on the `Net is inevitable. Actually, we do not have it so bad. I have heard of sites that post faked nude pictures of famous people, and someone posted real pictures of our own wrestling team in the locker room. That would be far worse than someone whining about the tie a professor chooses to wear."

Back to YH Features...