The college students in instructor Matt Swan’s class know what they like.
On a recent day, a discussion about media writing in Swan’s Northern Illinois University classroom covered everything from why so many students love the hit television series “CSI” to why even more are sick of watching competitors slurp down worms on “Fear Factor.”
“Who wants to watch that anymore?” said one annoyed student, running his fingers through spiked blond hair.
So maybe it should come as no surprise that in an age when higher education has become more and more of a consumer-driven commodity, students at NIU also have some rather pointed opinions about Swan’s own classroom performance.
“Such an amazing teacher. Mad love for Swan!!!” gushed one anonymous writer on a Web site called RateMyProfessors.com, which allows students to grade professors.
The world of armchair critics gave Swan generally positive feedback. But others have not been so lucky.
One student said of assistant professor Arthur Doederlein, one of Swan’s colleagues in NIU’s communication department, “He is a major jerk, seriously. Very arrogant and likes to talk about himself A LOT.” The writer continues: “I do not recommend any of his classes, nor do I think this jack– should be employed at NIU.”
So despite the growing popularity of Internet sites that allow students to shop for professors the same as they do for jeans or iPods, many academics find the wave of professor ratings (and in many cases, roastings) an unsettling trend.
The sites that are popping up all over the Web have names such as Professor Performance, Pick-A-Prof, RatingsOnline and Rate-MyProfessors. They are indicative of a new consumerism that has altered the culture of higher education.
“The unfortunate thing about most of the Web sites like RateMyProfessors is that they focus on student gripes and complaints,” said Robert Kreiser, a senior program officer for the Washington-based American Association of University Professors.
“These sites are not controlled in any way, which means they don’t have much credibility.”
But the devotees of such sites see the world differently from academics and generally anyone, in fact, over age 40.
RateMyProfessors.com, one of the main benefactors of the trend, has capitalized on students’ demand that they know something about the person who will be teaching them before they get to class.
John Swapceinski, a 1999 graduate from San Jose State University, said he developed the idea for the RateMyProfessors.com site when he was still a graduate student.
Six years later, the site is reportedly making a profit, but Swapceinski — who won’t give financial information — is still keeping his day job as a computer software engineer.
The site’s results are no doubt impressive — it has more than 4 million professor ratings at more than 5,000 schools in the United States and Canada.
The site generates revenues primarily through advertising but also charges a fee ($9.95 for one-year membership) for “gold membership” for those who want access to all the available professor ratings. Swapceinski is in negotiations for the possible sale of his company to an online seller of used textbooks.
Internet changed system
“The Internet really has changed the whole economics of the way students collect and disseminate information,” Swapceinski said in a telephone interview.
Students who log in to RateMyProfessors.com now can rate professors online in several categories, such as helpfulness, easiness and rater interest.
Academics who rate high get a yellow smiley face; a poor rating gets them a neon-blue frown.
University teachers also can earn a red chili pepper sign if they are deemed H-O-T, hot.
The designation — while humorous and even embarrassing for some professors — has some basis in research.
In a study by University of Texas at Austin economics professor Daniel Hamermesh and undergraduate student, Amy Parker, it was found that students had higher opinions of the classroom performance of professors who generally were more attractive.
Still, Hamermesh said he believes teaching style also makes a big impact.
“These sites are not unreliable when you look at the total of ratings. Generally, those who get consistently mediocre or bad ratings on these sites are boring,” Hamermesh said. “Those who get fantastic ratings most of time are good.”
Doederlein, director of undergraduate studies in NIU’s department of communication, says in some cases though, other forces can be at play. Students can respond negatively to issues other than teaching style, such as whether a professor is perceived as challenging or a tough grader.
“Today’s students expect to be catered to,” said Doederlein, who received ratings on RateMyProfessors that ranged from complimentary to downright nasty. A decade ago the veteran academic received an NIU award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
“The whole idea these days is that Mom and Dad paid for their education so the students are consumers,” Doederlein said.
Still, some academics say the sites simply don’t matter much.
“I don’t think [many professors] know too much about it,” said Gerald Strom, who heads the faculty senate at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“As much as anything, they probably are curious about what people are saying about them.”
Swapceinski, who basically runs the business from his apartment in Menlo Park, Calif., said he got the inspiration for his site when “I had a professor who was particularly dastardly.”
“She was rude, and she was an unfair grader,” Swapceinski said. “I was working on a class on how to build Web sites, so I thought this would be a good idea.”
Another popular site that has been racking up a large following of devotees, but also complaints from some academics, is called Pick-A-Prof.
Pick-A-Prof also has its roots on a college campus. Founders Chris Chilek and John Cunningham started the 5-year-old company while still students at Texas A&M University.
The site provides a variety of user-friendly information such as Study Buddy, which allows students to chat online about courses, and the site even has features that aid professors.
But the service that is critical to most college students — and the main reason that either student government associations or individual students often pay a nominal fee — are the charts showing what percentage of students earned A’s through F’s in a given professor’s class.
Pick-a-Prof can provide the information because of a little-known fact — grading histories of professors are available at most public universities through state open records laws.
Pick-A-Prof gathers the raw data from campus officials or student governments and makes it available in an easy format on the Web.
Focus on grades
“The most troubling part is that they publish the average grades that a professor gives, and that encourages students to make education secondary and grades the primary consideration,” said Stephen E. Maizlish, a critic of the site who is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.
The site has collected information on more than 100 universities, including several in the Chicago area.
“The problem we found before Pick-A-Prof is that the university had information, such as [university-administered] professor evaluations, but we had problems getting access to the information,” said Russ Rueden, student body president at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, which has a $5,000-a-year contract with Pick-A-Prof.
Part of the demand for the ratings sites, students agree, is that many universities only readily provide limited information on university-administered professor evaluations. Still some campuses, including Northwestern, have long given students full Web access to university-designed evaluations.
Grading histories at public universities also can be difficult to obtain without effort.
Staci Sonenthal, a 21-year-old NIU marketing major from Wheeling, said she has used the RateMyProfessors site and believes that it is a useful tool.
“If 50 students say a professor is horrible, maybe I shouldn’t take him,” she said.
“I don’t think students are necessarily looking for easy A’s. I think students want to know whether a professor is easy to deal with or if he is the type that will scream at you the first day,” Sonenthal said.
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How it works
On www.RateMyProfessors.com,students rate their instructors in the following categories on a scaleof 1 to 5 (with 5 being the highest).
EASINESS
Is it possible to get an A without too much work?
HELPFULNESS
Is the professor approachable and willing to help you after class?
CLARITY
How well does the professor convey the class topics? Use class time effectively?
RATER INTEREST
How interested was the student in the class, before taking it?
APPEARANCE
This optional field is “just for fun.” More “hots” than “nots” will rate the professor a hot pepper icon.
Hot Not
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Professor ratings Web sites
www.ratemyprofessors.com
Basic access to the site is free but a “gold membership” can be purchased to see all the professor ratings on the Web site. A one-year gold membership is $9.95; a two-year membership is $14.95. Free access includes only the 10 most recent ratings per professor.
www.pickaprof.com
Individual memberships can range from free access to $7 per semester, depending on the arrangement set up at individual universities. Student government associations also have arrangements with Pick-A-Prof at some universities and those contract terms vary.
www.professorperformance.com
Fees: This free site boasts that it has more than 65,000 evaluations of academics at nearly 1,700 colleges and universities.
www.ratingsonline.com
This site has a skimpy selection of professor ratings for some schools, but it has free access.
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pmjones@tribune.com
