Pete Moye’
Opinion Button

Forbes, a leading magazine, known world-wide for its raking of things ranging from the richest people in the world to the world’s most powerful women, uses RateMyProfessors.com to help rank U.S. colleges and universities.

The use of an unregulated and unreliable site for a prolific magazine raises a number of questions, including the following: Exactly what data is available on this site? Is “student” input on this site valid?

RMP was launched in 1999 as an outlet for students to rate and voice commentary on their instructors.

On the site, which students visit voluntarily, students rate their instructors’ easiness, clarity, helpfulness, and interest.

Unfortunately, the site is open to not only truthful comments, but also hate from vengeful students who are often jumping on the chance to get back at their teacher for the well deserved failing grade they received in the teachers class.

RateMyProfessor is like a lot of Internet communities—it lacks moderation, which can result in the production of lower quality information.

Unlike surveys conducted and monitored by schools, the site has no background checks or filtration systems.

Individuals are able to make multiple ratings of a single professor and have the power to manipulate the site to paint a certain good or bad image of the professor.

Also, there is no way of knowing that those who rate a professor’s course have actually taken the course in question, making it possible for professors to rate themselves and each other.

Libel and slander, occurs when a person communicates false information that damages the reputation of another person or entity, and on a larger scale, is unconstitutional.

In fact, a person with an Internet connection from anywhere in the world could rate any teacher and therefore, there is little reason to think that the ratings accurately reflect the quality of the professors rated.

“Easiness”, “clarity” and “helpfulness” are the only components taken into consideration and a study of RMP ratings conducted by the Practical Assessment and Research Company shows that “the hotter and easier professors are, the more likely they’ll get rated as a good teacher.”

I’m not sure if I should add the libel and slander part but other than that I think this is correct.