Rec'd with a technical glitch. --gw ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:52:26 -0500 From: Scott Barker <[log in to unmask]> To: Open Lib/Info Sci Education Forum <[log in to unmask]> Subject: RE: RateMyProfessor.com At the University of Washington Information School as it is elsewhere, teaching is an extremely important factor to consider when evaluating faculty for tenure and promotion (as is their research and service). Like most universities, student evaluations take place at the end of each course through an institutionally approved set of forms and processes. The evaluations are looked at by the chair of each program, our assistant dean for academics, and of our dean as part of the annual merit review process. For guest faculty those evaluations may be looked at more regularly, especially if the person is new to teaching for us. For faculty up for tenure and promotion, students and alumni are also asked to give additional feedback on teaching beyond the standard course evaluations. We are aware that students use sites like "RateMyProcessor.com" but we don't look at them as part of our standard processes. Some of our faculty look themselves however. Some like what they see and some don't as you'd expect. I'd also note that some of our very best teaching faculty occasionally will have a negative comment posted there, and they sometimes agonize too much over one negative statement. But that's good to me, because that shows how much they care. My PERSONAL opinion is that the vast majority of our faculty do a good job, and I don't object to sites like "RateMyProcessor". We have nothing to worry about. I am chair of our undergraduate program and I actually find very few students that like a faculty member because the "class was easy" or the professor tells good jokes. In general, when I look at our institutional student evaluations, for the most part students are very fair. The faculty that do the best on student evals are typically the best teaching faculty we have if I had to rate them myself. And it isn't because they are "easy". Instead it is because they are passionate, they get students excited about the material, they engage students, the class is well organized, their knowledge is up-to-date, they bring past professional and research experience into the classroom etc. This is harsh, but I'd suggest that if a faculty member is worried that most comments on "RateMyProfessor" are negative, they should look hard at themselves and the content of their course. Like I said, you can never please everyone in a class and everyone will get negative comments. But if the faculty member and the class routinely are evaluated poorly, the problem is not likely to be with "RateMyProfessor", it is likely to be with the class or instructor. Scott Barker Information School University of Washington -----Original Message----- From: Open Lib/Info Sci Education Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gretchen Whitney Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2012 5:29 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: RateMyProfessor.com Greetings, A concerned jESSE reader brought this site to my attention privately and asked that I bring it to your attention for discussion. I have not found very many SIS faculty on this site, but I have found a few. The reader wonders how your institution handles such student evaluations on such a web site, and how these evaluations factor into tenure decisions and other faculty evaluations. The reader notes the differences between course choices by students (which these appear to be having writ large), and peer evaluations, but also notes that there is a connection between the two: if students don't sign up for your courses, that is going to have a bearing on your evaluation by peers. The reader also wonders how you as an individual and as an institution balance negative reviews ("He asked us to do too much work!!") with positive reviews ("She's really sexy", "He tells great jokes", "Attendance isn't mandatory because he posts his lectures online", "Easy!!, "Homework was not collected" "I only came on test days". I and the reader would appreciate your comments on this site. And I and the reader would appreciate your comments on such student evaluations of professorial performance. --gw <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Gretchen Whitney, PhD, Retired School of Information Sciences University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN 37996 USA [log in to unmask] http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/ jESSE:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/jesse.html SIGMETRICS:http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>