The Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) is currently working on implementing a website called “Prof-it,” which will be a Wesleyan version of RateMyProfessor.com. Students will be able to search for a professor and log in to write a review on a specific class. The Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) is currently heading the project and expects that the website will be up and running by the drop/add period in January.
“The idea is that it’s going to be a useful tool to new students and to students who haven’t taken a certain class before to really get feedback on what the class is going to be like, at least from a student perspective,” said Chairman of the AAC Arya Alizadeh ’13.
With “Prof-it,” students will be given a forum to read and write reviews on how a professor teaches a particular class. According to Alizadeh, the impetus for pursuing this project stemmed from some inconsistency between the course descriptions on WesMaps and the actual experiences that students had in class.
“We want this to be useful to the whole Wesleyan community so that students know what type of class they’re getting into, and professors know they’re getting students that are genuinely interested in the class,” Alizadeh said.
The idea for this project was formed at this time last year based on an old Wesleyan technology called E-Squid, which provided similar course evaluations. By the spring of 2010, the WSA had discussed and researched the project, solicited feedback from the student body, and hired a programmer. “Prof-it” is currently in Beta form, and the next task is for Alizadeh and the AAC to work on making it available to the community.
According to English Professor William Stowe, some professors find the official system of course evaluations valuable. Despite recognizing the program’s merits, Stowe was also concerned about the potential limitations of a website such as “Prof-it.”
“The student knows what the class was like when the student took it, but not about what changes the professor is making or how the professor is responding to the way the class went last time. The information is about the past, not the present,” Stowe said.
The content of these online reviews, whether positive or negative, may be another concern.
“The combination of anonymity and publicity strikes me as a little dangerous, because it’s not a random sample of the class or the whole class, but whoever decides to comment,” Stowe said. “People have to be wary of the extremes.
Alizadeh assured, however, that his committee would monitor all posts and that they will remove anything offensive or slanderous, while still aiming to create an exchange of open, honest information.
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