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`More than 2.2 million students across the nation use ratemyprofessors.com, an interactive website that allows students to score the teaching quality of their professors. The website is meant to be a tool for students to not only share their knowledge and experience of their professors, but it also acts as a source for the professors, offering them feedback on the positive and negative aspects of their teaching.
Every year, ratemyprofessor.com announces its annual ranking list, revealing the highest rated college professors based on student’s ratings from the site. On March 3, the website announced the 2009-2010 ratings, revealing that Millersville University had ranked number 12 out of the top 25 universities with highest rated professors. Other schools that Millersville ranked above included Florida State University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
“I think it is a big honor I hope the students and administration at MU recognize it,” Carlo DiMarco said, vice president of University Relations for MTVU, which owns and operates the site.
The rankings went through an extensive process to insure accuracy. The methodology is based off of a five-point Lickert scale as well as a binary scoring system for students to rate professors. DiMarco assured that the ratings on the site are a reliable source because if one or two students are referring to a professor in a positive or negative fashion, “you take that into consideration,” he said, “If 40 or 50 students are in agreement of one another, there is something there.”
Each individual professor’s rating value was standardized around the mean using scores from years 2007, 2008 and 2009. The scores were weighted per year, and professors were ranked from high to low; only professors with 30 ratings or more, and verified as actively teaching, from those years were included.
School size does not affect the outcome of the lists, so it is a great achievement that Millersville University raised so high in the rankings. “There are over 6,000 schools and over one million professors, for a school to bubble up where it did, that high on the list, I think it says a lot,” DiMarco said.
Tyler Kline, a senior Technology Education major believes that the site is a great source for students to pick classes with the best professors, “The ratings on the site are very accurate,” Kline said. Kline actively uses the site, and through the years he has seen a difference in professors who receive positive reviews. “When I got scheduled classes that didn’t get a good rating, I realized why the professor didn’t get the good rating,” he said.
“Choosing the best course and professor is a rite of passage that has been going on forever,” DiMarco said. When he was a student, he used his friends and family as a resource, “the beauty of ratemyprofessor.com is that there is a larger pool to help choose,” he said. He believes it is a great research tool to use as part of the decision making process.
Kline believes it is important that students visit the website, “Students’ opinions on how professors teach are far more valuable than student evaluations,” he said, “When I get student evaluation forms, I just fill in the bubbles. When I take my time to go on rate my professor, I am giving my honest opinion,” he said.
“Professors should check the site, because there is a lot of insightful info in there” DiMarco said. “The professors should know the things they are doing right. Students point out things from a very genuine perspective that they wish the professor would do better.”
Genuine comments are important for the site, the website is not meant to be a bashing tool in any way. DiMarco explained that most of the comments on the site are positive and that when a random negative comment comes up, students come to the professor’s defense. DiMarco does not want the site to “become a place for people to vent their frustrations.”
Tom Baldwin, a junior, uses the site and takes the comments very seriously, “no one has a reason to lie, you use the site and judge the comments for yourself,” he said. “You ca definitely tell personal comments from professional ones.”
Millersville University students obviously take their ratings seriously, and are highlighting their appreciation for the outstanding professors at the university. “For you guys to break through the dialogue is definitely big. Props to the professors, and props to the students for taking the time to report that they are happy with their classes and professors,” DiMarco said.