MtvU buys teacher rating site

When students want to vent about their classes, they often turn to RateMyProfessors.com. The site was recently sold to mtvU, MTV's 24-hour college channel, and it features "ratings" of professors from universities in the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland and Wales, based on students' responses.\n"We have been hearing from our audience for a long time about how the Web site is a useful tool; it is a smart and organic approach to professor rating," said Jason Rzepka, mtvU's manager of communication. "When the purchase opportunity was provided, we jumped at it. It is a Web site for college students and by college students and it reflects our commitment to giving college students a voice."\nAccording to the Web site, RateMyProfessors.com will continue to offer everything students love about the site -- and the ratings students look to when picking their next professors. \nThe ratings cover criteria such as helpfulness, easiness, clarity and even hotness. It uses these to calculate the "overall quality" of the instructor and awards a smiley or frownie face.\nStudents frequently drop courses if classes by the "best-rated" professor are not available. Math classes taught by instructor Steve McKinley fill up earlier than others. McKinley has an overall quality rating of 4.3 out of 5 on the Web site. Ratings are totaled and averaged with each new entry.\n"The more the students who participate in it, the more accurate the site would be," Rzepka said. "It is one of the tools available for students and it should be used in concert with them. We are very careful about removing anything that is not in good taste."\nThough the Web site is a popular source for students, some have mixed feelings about it.\n"I like the idea of a Web site like that, but I don't really use it," sophomore Ben Barber said. "I usually get feedback from my peers who have taken the class before me because I don't think the Web site is a very reliable source."\nBarber said he doesn't think the acquisition by mtvU will add to the site's credibility.\n"It might make the Web site more popular, but I don't think it adds to its reliability." Barber said.\nFreshman Rewan Rai Parti agrees. \n"Lucrative as the sale may sound, it doesn't affect the credibility of the ratings on the Web site because they only take into account a very small percentage of students who take a particular course," Parti said. \nParti used the Web site extensively for choosing classes this semester but recently came across grade distribution patterns of different instructors at www.iub.edu. \n"I'd prefer using the section GPAs, average GPAs and the number of A's awarded that www.iub.edu gives from the (previous) semester(s). That seems to be a more reliable estimate," he said.\nSome of those under scrutiny say they don't think the site represents the average opinion of a class or its professor very well because it only takes into account a small percentage of students. Some professors with unfavorable ratings declined comment. \n"People have the right to say what they want to about their instructors," said Sue Vargo, director of business communication and a lecturer of business communication at the Kelley School of Business. "I don't think (RateMyProfessors.com) is a very reliable source because students who review a professor either love or absolutely dislike the instructor."\nVargo has a rating of 4.2 on a scale of 5 on the Web site.\nThe Web site has struck a chord with students across the country. According to the site, there are more than 6.75 million ratings for more than 1 million professors at more than 6,000 schools. But students were speaking their minds about school well before the Internet revolution.\n"At the end of each semester in our dorms kids would prepare a booklet to see what they thought of their professors, and we would share the information with each other," Vargo said.