Website Rates Teacher Performance, Looks

August 31, 2006 (WPVI) -- A popular website allows college students to rate their professors, but not everyone's pleased with it.

Karen Naylor teaches dental hygiene at Harcum College, and according to at least one student, she's not just a great teacher - she's also hot! Prof. Karen Naylor\HARCUM COLLEGE: "Haha& I'm not offended by it in any way." Neither is Sociology Professor Carol Champlin. Carol Champlin: "I laughed." All this information is thanks to Ratemyprofessor.com where students are grading their teachers. You'll find good to poor reviews on professors across the country, including 475 at the University of Pennsylvania, nearly 2-thousand at Temple, and 32-hundred at Rutgers. "Everyone has an experience with a teacher they don't like." Students rate professors on easiness, helpfulness, and clarity. They also write comments, but professors aren't always amused. "One student says, 'She seems like she can be sneaky.'" Carol Champin: "Someone says I did not feel like I learned enough in her class because she always let us out early& I will think about it more. We're going to go until exactly 11:20" Who is behind the often extreme reviews? Carol Kaufman-Scarborough\RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: "Well, I think taking it with a grain of salt is a good idea." Business professor Carol Kaufman Scarborough is rated as good quality but she's not impressed with the quality of the website... and some students agree. Joslann Gray/Rutgers University: "Someone else might think they're a terrible professor, whereas I might think what they do is fine." But a growing number of scholars are using the site, while some schools like Rutgers and Villanova are creating their own, more comprehensive and reliable online evaluations. Jaclyn Reilly\VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY: "It helps you with deciding what teacher you'll pick. What the class load will be. How hard they are." But some administrators fear a few bad reviews could affect a class' enrollment or even worse. "A class has to be dropped because there aren't enough students." The owner of Ratemyprofessor.com says the site does track IP addresses to minimize a user's ability to review the same person multiple times. Also, each school's page has a student administrator who reviews all submissions.

Professors or anyone else who disputes a review can red flag it. The administrator will take a second look to see if it should be edited or deleted.

You can also check out RateMyTeachers.com, which rates high school and middle school teachers.

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