The Brown & White

Feedback is a very important part of the teaching process, but often times, students are unaware of a professors teaching style and abilities before signing up for a class. That was before the Web site RateMyProfessors.com entered the equation.

For many students, RateMyProfessors.com has become a go-to aid to assess potential professors.

"Whenever I see that a teacher I'm scheduled to have has a bad rating, I try to find a different class to switch into," John Covelli, '11, said.

The site consists of ratings of professors from one to five in the categories of easiness, helpfulness, clarity, interest level prior to attending class, and textbook use. Students also say whether attendance is required, and for fun, if the professor is good looking. If the teacher is good looking, they receive a small chilly pepper icon next to their name on the site.

Students can also post anonymous comments - good or bad - about the rated professor.

Each professor is rated based on a certain class they teach.

Although many students have looked at the site, some do not trust its reliability.

Lauren Hanat, '10, said she wouldn't trust what people write.

"I've checked the site out of curiosity, but I've never posted anything," Hanat said.

Some professors believe the Web site only highlights the two extremes of a class: either it's a great experience, or a poor one.

Chaim Kaufmann, international relations professor, said online rating sites might be prone to missing middles.

"The last time I looked, the ratings attached to my own name included a number of superlative ratings partly balanced by a few very negative ones," Kauffmann said, "which is not so different from feedback I receive through other paths."

He said he wonders whether students who have an extreme reaction to a course, either positive or negative, are more likely than others to record their views.

Yuping Zhang, sociology professor, said he has never heard of Ratemyprofessors.com before, but he believes it is prone to a lot of inaccuracies.

The Web site seems to be something amusing rather than something factual and technical to some professors.

"Amongst the faculty, you can imagine the grief we give anyone who gets a pepper," Dork Sahagian, earth and environmental science professor, said. "Faculty can have fun, too."