TeacherReviews.com Forced Offline

MrCawfee writes "Dylan Greene's site Teacher Reviews which allows students to post reviews of their professors. The site was taken down because a professor complained about comments made against him, and threatened to sue. Here is an exerpt from his blog: 'Yesterday and tonight I talked with a professor who was extremely upset with what written about him on TeacherReviews. He had several inappropriate reviews that made unfounded accusations and inappropriate untruthful remarks such as calling him "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic."' You can read his blog here."

Comments

well

[Anonymous Coward]

That's good grounds for a suit. This lawsuit is fair.

Re:well

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming that the post was wrong, of course. Sounds like he went nuts over it, so maybe the post wasn't far from the mark...

Re:well

[Trejkaz]

Just not a lawsuit on the site, assuming the site disclaimed that any content within was not property of the site, nor endorsed by the site, yada yada IANAL.

Re:well

[ComaVN]

Ah yes, he's in denial. How typical for his condition.

Say...

[twoslice]

Your that professor aren't you?

Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Some schools endorsed this. If you google, some schools even link to it

Re:Schools

[Trillian_1138]

Where is the link to it from that school webpage? I'm not trying to be difficult, just honestly can't find it....

-Trillian

PS Would also like to use this as an opportunity to complain that their site didn't render correctly in Mozilla. Just me, or anyone else have this problem?

Re:Schools

[LostCluster]

Schools already have the resources to provide information in a much more reliable way. All they have to do is take the end-of-course data that they share with the professor, and publish it. If they got an average of 1.34 out of 5, that's an irrefutable fact and therefore no libel charge can come of that.... and that's really all the students need to know.

Re:Schools

[SphericalCrusher]

Bleh. He's rich enough as a professior; why sue a student for more money? Besides, he should deal with the student himself... if it was made for no reason, then it should be taken care of. If it had a reason, well then it was probably the teacher's fault.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

University of Texas already does this, it allows students and professors to view these end-of-semester surveys with numerical data for all categories. link

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a teacher when I was an engineering student that was hated by all (and deservedly so). He never did the end-of-year evaluation, as he couldn't care less what anyone thought nor could any department head get him to do it (as I learned from another professor who would tell the students things that no other would dare).

Re:Schools

[autechre]

I would have to disagree. Sometimes, students will rate a professor lower because they felt the professor made the course too challenging (or not challenging enough). Certain people would find one of those an advantage rather than a downside. However, there are some teachers who are vague, wrong, incompetant, teach using very ineffective methods, are impossible to understand, rude, refuse to meet with you, grade seemingly randomly, etc. It can take much longer than necessary to get rid of a problem professor, and until then, it's helpful for students to see why they got a low rating.

If a teacher is rated highly by students for handing out A's without teaching much, and I actually want to learn the subject, I don't want that teacher. The numbers aren't always enough.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have your head deep in the sand if you think professors are rich.

Re:Schools

[Boing]

The numbers aren't always enough.

Well then, the responsibility lies with the reader to look at the information for what it really is: a collection of opinions without full context, rather than a factual, discrete rating of the instructor.

It would actually be pretty neat if we could standardize the instructor review systems in a manner similar to amazon's book reviews... when you're rating the professor, you could submit a verbal review (anonymously, of course). Later, the students of that professor could read the reviews, and meta-moderate them by indicating how relevant and/or accurate each review was. The reviews presented publicly would then present real contextual information, as well as being accountable.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

All the more reason to rate them poorly! I, for one, don't want to do mindless busywork that the professor thinks, out of anality and disproportunate obsession for the subject, is 'good' for us. I already have enough stress damage to my intestinal system thanks to the workload I have, thank you very much. "Challenging" my foot.

Plus, some professors are just /bad/. This usually makes the course that much harder.

In my experience, "challenging" is either a bad professor or a professor who doesn't know when to quit. Either way, I don't want to take a class from them, and I'm rather appalled that they're employed in such a profession at all.

Re:Schools

[Fiz Ocelot]

At my university we review each professor near the end of the semester. They are totally anonymous and the prof won't see them until all grades have been turned in. It would be great if some of the info derived from these reviews would be made public. I've found teacher review sites to be very helpful in class selection, not to find the "easy prof" but in finding the really good ones.

Re:Schools

[Ubergrendle]

I agree with all of your comments, but that still does not mean that a quantitative measurement scale could not be devised. You can create a number of categories, which provide a range of opinions on various matters.

e.g. "Would you take this course again?" (out of ten)
10 out of 10 ("Hell yeah, 80% for no work!")

vs "How would you rate the professor's attitude torwards his students?"
3 out of 10 ("He was always late, abusive, but he still gave out great marks!!!")

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

If a teacher is rated highly by students for handing out A's without teaching much, and I actually want to learn the subject, I don't want that teacher. The numbers aren't always enough

Actually, from my experience most teachers that don't teach and hand out A's don't get high marks from the students. By the time students reach college most students really want to get the education they paid for. The students that just want to skate are in the minority by college. When someone chooses a major and decides what they want to do for a living, they expect good teachers.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you have never taken one of these end of course surveys.

There are many questions covering the different areas that make a class good -- teacher, materials,etc.

One of the questions is:

Did you feel the class was too challenging?

[] Strongly Agree
[] Somewhat Agree ...
[] Strongly Disagree

There is even an opportunity to write page long piece on anything you want.

This is what should be published. If one student trashes a teacher it shouldn't matter too much if a median average scoring method is used.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately this is not true. The teacher ratings at university are proportional to the grade they give. Even more surprisingly, this is especially the case in grad school. Case in point: a prof who has always been in class on time still gets bad grades in that category by only two students. Of course only two students also happened to do badly in that class... Coincidence?

And yes, I am that prof...

Re:Schools

[taped2thedesk]

All they have to do is take the end-of-course data that they share with the professor, and publish it. If they got an average of 1.34 out of 5, that's an irrefutable fact and therefore no libel charge can come of that.... and that's really all the students need to know.

I go to the University of Michigan - at the end of each term, we are asked to fill out scantron course evaluations on the last day of class (the format is similar to what the poster described). This data is used for a variety of purposes, including tenure evaulations. The data is also tabulated and posted for making your course selections. They use a variety of questions to help students make a good decision.

The evaluations are presented as a series of statements, which the student ranks from 1 (bad) to 5 (good). They post the average rating for each statement, organized by course and/or instructor. The information is restricted to University affialiates, so heres an example of an evaluation summary for a random professor (name removed):

Course: Honors Calculus II, section xxx
Students Responded: 13
Students Enrolled : 19
Overall, this was an excellent course. 4.43 A-
Overall, the instructor was an excellent teacher. 4.85 A
I learned a great deal from this course. 4.31 A-
I had a strong desire to take this course. 3.60 B
The workload for this course was (5=LIGHT...1=HEAVY) 2.81 C
Students felt comfortable asking questions. 4.31 A-
Graded assignments reflected the material covered. 4.06 B+
The grades in this course were fairly determined 4.30 A-
Students' difficulty with the material was recognized. 3.67 B
My expected grade in this course is (5=A...1=E) 4.21 A-
The course requirements were clearly defined. 4.25 A-
The instructor presented material clearly in lectures/discussions. 4.69 A

Generally speaking, students are fair with the evaluations (unless the prof is just awful...) - I really like that they ask several questions about the professor and the course (rather than simply "How was the professor? 1-5"; it helps to make more objective decisions about the course and the professor. The questions depend on the department (Elec. Engin. and Comp. Sci. has 20-30 evaluation statments for some courses).

Oddly enough, the worst professor I've ever had told us that 'we didn't need to come to class' for one of the last days of the course. Turns out he gave out evaluations that day, and very few people were in class. The next term, somebody checked the evaluation stats for the class, and saw that while there were only a few people in class that day, 100+ students responded with evaluations (with VERY high ratings). He told the department, and an investigation revealted that the professor filled out the forms himself (with very high ratings, of course). He was promptly fired. Sweet, sweet revenge :-p

Re:Schools

[geekoid]

" It can take much longer than necessary to get rid of a problem professor..."

I'm thinking duct tape and a trunk.

Re:Schools

[UndercoverParrothead]

Something similar exists for the students of the University of Maryland.

Terp Underground isn't officially sanctioned by the University, but it's fairly good at providing reviews of professors and courses.

Trouble is, doesn't seem like many of the newer students are using it, so the info is becoming out of date as professors/courses change.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Later, the students of that professor could read the reviews, and meta-moderate them by indicating how relevant and/or accurate each review was. The reviews presented publicly would then present real contextual information, as well as being accountable.

Just like on Slashdot? Oh, wait... It doesn't work here either.

Re:Schools

[Durandal64]

Assigning two values to two qualifiers and then saying "Pick a number between these two values" is not quantitative in any objective sense. It's pseudo-quantitative qualification.

Re:Schools

[hendridm]

> All they have to do is take the end-of-course data that they share with the professor, and publish it.

Right. That's "all they would have to do", but they don't, which is why sites like TeacherReviews.com came to be. As a former student, it was nice to know which profs were hard-asses and which were not. The fact that this guy is threatening to sue this site just reinforces how much of an asshole he/she is. I'm sure there was a reason several people posted negative comments.

Re:Schools

[Boing]

That was phrased kind of trollishly, but it's an important concern. The important distinction between my idea and slashdot is that the people meta-moderating a review would only be the students of the reviewed instructor.

The most significant failing of the metamoderation system on Slashdot is related to the fact that the metamoderators don't or can't verify the accuracy of a moderation. A link to goatse disguised as a mirror of the article could well be moderated "informative", and a metamoderator would not necessarily bother to check that the link actually was informative.

However, in the hypothetical situation I presented, all metamoderators would be able to directly attest to the accuracy of the "moderation" (the review). Therefore, the only major failing of the described system would be people consciously describing inaccurate reviews as accurate, and these people would (hopefully) be statistically insignificant.

Re:Schools

[MrLizardo]

Very strange...it renders at least very close to correct under Galeon (which uses Mozilla's rendering engine).

-Mr. Lizard

Re:Schools

[Pxtl]

There is never a category for "does the prof speak english?". That one needs to be there at my school.

Re:Schools

[Wavicle]

The information is restricted to University affialiates, so heres an example of an evaluation summary for a random professor (name removed):

Your random pick turned out a poor example:

Course: Honors Calculus II, section xxx

Your random selection turned up a rank-and-file class that is selectively taken above-average students. You are going to pick up almost exclusively outliers of the desired population.

The workload for this course was (5=LIGHT...1=HEAVY) 2.81 C

Either the students are definitely outliers and think several hours of homework a night isn't bad or the professor was easy going. Calc II is usually a course covering methods and applications of integration. It's the course when such fun things as integration by partial fraction decomposition - an almost universally hated subject - are explored. Getting the hang of integration generally requires doing lots and lots of integrals and appropriately the course workload should be fairly high.

My expected grade in this course is (5=A...1=E) 4.21 A-

Wow! Do A's grow on trees at umich?

Students typically give evaluations whose numbers directly correspond to their grade. Professors who give out A's like they're cheap hard candy on average receive higher marks even if their students tend to learn less.

This is particularly true of general ed. classes. I'd rather take a humanities course from someone who is an interesting lecturer and gives out high marks cheaply than from someone who is an interesting lecturer but requires 5,000 words of critical thinking essays which require mastery of the material to write.

While I think it is interesting to hear the professor's passion for the subject, I have a lot of other courses in line with my major that I need to give the bulk of my attention to. I'd rather not risk my GPA on a humanities course. I enter notes into the school's unofficial professor rating web site whether or not a particular professor is good for getting an easy A in.

Re:Schools

[dildatron]

Fuck yes. Speak it brother. God I hate the same damn thing at my school. If one teaches in America at an English-speaking school, one should be re-fucking-quired to speak decent English.

Re:Schools

[pavon]

It's a shame that these sites are going down so easily, otherwise they would force more schools to provide the information that your school does.

As other people already mentioned, by and large, only the most disgruntled students post to those sites. I know when I first found out about one of them I went and looked at the site, and saw a couple exeptional professors from my school with poor scores. My freinds and I were able to get them voted up to an average rating, but the point still stands. When you have a self-selected sample group you only get the extremes responding.

However, if these sites continued to exist (who by legal precedence should not be responsible for libel on behalf of their posters), then the best defence the schools would have against them is to make accurate information available to the students.

oh, and a couple of comments on the way your school presents the scores. It is extremely usefull, and although one improvement would be to list the number of students who dropped. They should also get rid of the A-F scale - it isn't meaningfull in many of the rankings, such as workload, expected grade, since the target point for those is subjective. Lastly, the average grade for a Calc II class was B+!? That is very high, unless a lot of people dropped.

Re:Schools

[Suppafly]

There is never a category for "does the prof speak english?". That one needs to be there at my school.


WIU has that problem as well, luckily they do have a comment section.

Re:Schools

[disntrstd]

Obviously you've never been a student at UCR (ucr,edu).

Re:Schools

[taped2thedesk]

Your random selection turned up a rank-and-file class that is selectively taken above-average students. You are going to pick up almost exclusively outliers of the desired population.
It wasn't exactly random; I just tried to pick a course with a good mix of questions and responses. Each department uses their own set of questions, and some only have a few basic ones. The math department was the first one I clicked on. tried to find a section with a variety of marks, this was the first one I found after 2 or 3 tries. I wasn't trying to make a point with the actual data - just trying to show what information was provided.

Wow! Do A's grow on trees at umich? Well, generally speaking students in this class are way above average in math (generally there are a few hundred taking the 'regular' Calc II class, and about 40 students total took the honors class). Also, this is the estimated grade, so in this case I think it's a class of freshman that haven't found out that they won't get straight A's in college (for the most part). From experience, I can tell you A's don't exist at umich, especially in the math department... :-/ The actual average grade in the honors section was about a 3.3(B+), while in the 'regular' sections of calc 2, the average grade was about a 2.7(C+)

Either the students are definitely outliers and think several hours of homework a night isn't bad or the professor was easy going.
Students typically give evaluations whose numbers directly correspond to their grade. Professors who give out A's like they're cheap hard candy on average receive higher marks even if their students tend to learn less. Well yeah, of course they do. That's why the multiple ratings are helpful. If the average workload is a 5 (light), then chances are the prof got a good rating because of that. If the workload was a 3, then the prof ratings mean a lot more to me. If they just said "Math xxx section xxx with prof xxx got a 4.2 rating", that would mean nothing to me.

I do have a professor that always ranks very high on evaluations, yet assigns much more work than other profs do, and makes the classes a lot more difficult. He's a great prof, and the extra work actually translates into better understanding of the subject/doesn't assign work just for the sake of assigning work. Obviously this isn't always the case though.

Making decisions based solely on these ratings isn't a great idea - you can get a lot more insight by talking to other students that have taken classes in that section before. The course evals are a great place to start, and are a good source of advice if you don't know anyone who has had that professor before.

Re:Schools

[Deraj DeZine]

I'd say that duct tape and a trunk is fit more for a sudden and silent coup de academia. Call me conservative or possibly even reactionary, but nothing matches the humiliation and quick response that follows a good ole tar and feathering. This type of demonstration is much more overt and blunt, this may help to smack slacking professors back into line.

Re:Schools

[taped2thedesk]

It is extremely usefull, and although one improvement would be to list the number of students who dropped.
That would be VERY helpful - I'll try to suggest it, but I don't know if they can pull that info out of the system easily.

They should also get rid of the A-F scale - it isn't meaningfull in many of the rankings, such as workload, expected grade, since the target point for those is subjective.
Yes, I agree-it's not the most meaningful way of doing it... I do find it helpful when scanning the report though - after viewing a few dozens of these reports the numbers begin to all blend together...

Lastly, the average grade for a Calc II class was B+!? That is very high, unless a lot of people dropped.It's actually for an honors calc class. About 40 people took that course, while a few hundred (probably 300-400+) take the 'regular' Calc II course. Honors math students are usually VERY good at math, so I think that bumps the average up. The number I posted earlier was the 'expected' grade before the final exam (basically a 'best guess') - the actual average final grade in the honors sections was a 3.37(B+) (versus a 2.79(C+) average in the regular sections). The honors math sections are MUCH more difficult than the regular section, so the difference may be justified.

Re:Schools

[Negatyfus]

Actually, this Slashdot article is kinda useless. If you read the article, it says the professor dropped the case and is not negotiating changes to the site with the professor to improve it. Part of the enhancements is a system in which users can flag reviews for deletetion, upon volunteers can then check it and permanently remove it.

Re:Schools

[R.Caley]

Some schools endorsed this.

That wouldn't be ones who by luck, skill or corruption got good write-ups would it?:-)

Re:Schools

[ColaMan]

Be careful, it's sometimes difficult to figure out what is actually necessary to learn and what is "mindless busywork", especially if you're the pupil.

You don't want to be 5 years down the track thinking "fuck! I wish I had known about (x), it would have saved me 3 man-years implementing (y)", especially when that new guy who's after your job casually mentions (x) to your boss.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

The link appears to be in the "the scribe" section, but the menu seems to be completely and totally broken.

Re:Schools

[The Limp Devil]

Well then, the responsibility lies with the reader to look at the information for what it really is: a collection of opinions without full context, rather than a factual, discrete rating of the instructor.

Come one, do you really believe that 18 year old students are mature enough to do that? Then you go to a very different university than I did! Maybe they could do that after a couple of years as students, but certainly not at first.

Re:Schools

[The Limp Devil]

the professor filled out the forms himself (with very high ratings, of course).

Slaps forehead. Why didn't I think of that! I should take out a patent - see if anyone dares to claim prior art.

Re:Schools

[4of12]

If they got an average of 1.34 out of 5 that's really all the students need to know.

And the faculty, too!

I don't know what other's experiences have been at various colleges and universities, but I found that getting rated as an excellent well-liked teachers was almost like the kiss of death for any faculty member struggling to get tenure. The correlation is almost perfectly inverse. Really, I would get scared for any teacher that got the "Best Teacher Award".

As far as most universities are concerned, what matters more than teaching ability is how much research money the prof can bring in and how many publications he or she can crank out in respectable journals.

The supposed ideal is to have a faculty of good teachers that are simultaneously good publishers of research and bringers of funding, but often the quality of teaching will take second or third place to the other factors when tenure decisions are made about faculty.

Re:Schools

[Skater]

Hey, I just wanted to skate in college! I'd go skating every weekend, sometimes during the week, too!

What? ...Oh... sorry, nevermind...

--Skater

Re:Schools

[Skater]

At the schools I've gone to, it seemed like the review questionnaires were worded to make it difficult to say anything bad about a professor.

Unfortunately, I don't remember specific examples, but I do remember being annoyed that I couldn't easily tell the University what the problems with this professor were.

--RJ

Re:Schools

[Short Circuit]

Normally, only above-average students would be interested in the class, so it makes sense that above-average students should be rating it.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what you're describing is similar to what goes on at my college. At the end of each class, we must fill out a fairly detailed form with spaces to describe what we expected to get out of the class, what we actually got out of the class, whether the teaching methods of the teacher were effective, etc. Basically it's a time to tell how your teacher performed and to own up to how you performed in class. And usually, if it's a bad teacher, there's a pretty clear link between the two. This form, which is filled out without the teacher present, can be signed or unsigned and is then taken by a student to the departmental office. It's reviewed by the Provost and folks in their office, then by the departmental heads, and then is giving back to the professor. This system works amazingly well, and I think it gives the students a chance to change who is hired again. The one fault is that it doesn't affect tenured faculty as much, but a good tenured professor still needs the student commentary to learn to teach more effectively.

But here's one thing to consider: kids talk. Kids of all ages and in all types of schools talk about their teachers and who sucks and who doesn't. And you can usually tell when someone's a slacker and just wants to get an easy A. Trust me, if the kid asks for Mrs. Soandso and the kid is a slacker, the teacher is a slacker too.

Re:Schools

[thospfuller]

I had a few too many encounters with unprofessional teachers in my time at university. Sites such as TeacherReviews.com are fully necessary and a great thing for students. Even better, the ACLU has defended a case which is, from what I can tell, exactly the same as the problem TeacherReviews.com is facing right now. I'd recommend Dylan Green contact the ACLU. http://www.aclu.org/StudentsRights/StudentsRights. cfm?ID=8141&c=160

Re:Schools

[Nurseman]

If they got an average of 1.34 out of 5, that's an irrefutable fact and therefore no libel charge can come of that.... and that's really all the students need to know.
I think the main differance is between rating someone low on a scale of one to five, and calling them a Bipolar Paranoid Schizophrenic. Even if you are just doing what the voices in your head tell you to do.

BTW for a really good look at schizophrenia, see "A Beautiful Mind", gives you alittle insight into early "treatment" or lack thereof for some psychiatric illnesses.

Re:Schools

[autechre]

I've taken one of those surveys after every class in both colleges I've attended. In fact, we had two for each class; one with free-form answers, and one "scan-tron" with fill-in bubbles.

The parent to my post was arguing that numbers were all that needed to be published. I said that this was insufficient. That does not imply that I don't know about end of course surveys.

Your post is confusing. You say "This is what should be published." What is? The page long piece on anything I want? Well, we can't use a median average scoring method for that, so I guess not. In that case, it doesn't support your argument, so we're still dealing with numbers.

I would greatly prefer to read whatever a student has to say. I can use the student's writing style to determine how seriously I can take his review. Obviously, if I see something saying "hE is t3h crazy!!!11!!", I'm not going to pay too much attention to it.

On the other hand, I happened to think that many of the people in my classes were...under-abled. So I wouldn't necessarily want the fringe results to be discarded. I'm part of the fringe, so I want to hear what they have to say. I don't want their vote to be mathematically struck down.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

At my school, we all just use the past grade distrobutions.
If he gives 50% A's, 30% B's, etc then you would take him.
If he only gives 4% A's, and 75% C's, you would not.

The actual work load is never considered that much, since just about every class has a lot, and I like this system, although I wish they had a section that would tell you if they actually spoke english or not...

Re:Schools

[kraada]

I was the Course Evaluation Guide editor for Brandeis University a couple of years ago, so I got to read all of the comments left by the students for their teachers. In general comments were definitely more positive in departments where grades were higher, but I do believe that you can still get accurate results if you have a decently worded questionnaire. Also, the handwritten section generally made it clear what the students enjoyed and didn't enjoy out of the class.

From some 2000 classes, I rarely had times where there was nothing negative, or nothing positive. It was very clear, though, which professors were significantly worse in the eyes of the students. When 10-20% of the class expresses very vehement negative opinions of the professor and the rest seem lukewarm at best, it's pretty clear that the professor needs some help (As an aside, Brandeis' forms are handwritten, so many students are, rightly, afraid that their professors will recognize their handwriting and change their comments appropriately. It is even more telling when students will write extremely negative things despite this fact.).

So after having read some 15 or 20 thousand reviews, I think I can say that while there is definite work that can be done to improve the entire system, the system is, at its base, solid.

My biggest changes to the system would be:

1. Make the reviews online and anonymous. The numbers should always stay publically available.
2. Introduce some form of real accountability for professors. Not necessarily for each individual class, but if a professor receives marks below X for (we'll say) 4-6 classes running, there is probably something severely wrong.
3. Make sure students know that the forms are used for something. Many people asked me what was the real results of the evaluations, and other than helping pick out awards recepients, and generally informing students, there isn't much that they're used for (at least at Brandeis).

Of course, it's always hard to push change through on the university level, which is why I was so glad to see such review websites, and I'm saddened to see this one go.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. This one hits home... last year, I ended up teaching in a language I'd only learnt for three months. The result was not pretty for myself or the students... but what can you do? When your bosses are idiot enough to force you into a situation like that, quite frankly, you're pretty well stuck with it.

So it's a little unfair for it to reflect on the individual prof, rather than their boss - this holds particularly true when you're talking about doctoral assistants/postdocs, who quite likely actually have no choice. Just a thought.

Re:Schools

[Tassach]

[D]o you really believe that 18 year old students are mature enough to [look at the information for what it really is]?

They should be. An 18 y/o is legally an adult; they are supposed mature enough to exercise the rights and duties of citizenship: vote, serve in the military, get married, enter into contracts, and so forth. Furthermore, we're talking about college students, who are a group of people who are supposed to have already mastered basic intellectual skills like reading comprehension.

Call me old fashioned, but I don't think that a student who needs remedial instruction, either in his or her native language or in basic math, should be admitted into a degree program, nor should remedial coursework count towords graduation. The fact that so many high-school graduates are unprepared for college is a pretty scathing indictment of our educational system(*).

(*) Note to parents: you are part of the educational system. Schools and teachers exist to help you educate your children, not to educate them for you. Sending your kids off to school does not relieve you of your personal duty to raise your children.

Re:Schools

[SharkJumper]

It would actually be pretty neat if we could standardize the instructor review systems in a manner similar to amazon's book reviews..

Or like Ebay's buyer/seller reviews, thus giving the teacher a nice opportunity to respond.

Student: Test wasn't shipped on time. Professor never explained my low grade. Don't purchase education from this professor!!!!! FFFFFFFFFF-------!!!

Professor: Student was late to class and never returned emails. Never received payment. Responsibility for education rests on student!!!!!!!

SharkJumper

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

"He told the department, and an investigation revealted that the professor filled out the forms himself (with very high ratings, of course). He was promptly fired. Sweet, sweet revenge :-p "

Did you actually know this prof? I've heard the same story at my school, and I'm starting to think it's just an urban legend. Or maybe something like it did happen somewhere sometime, but the story changes as it spreads.

Re:Schools

[JLyle]

If you read the article, it says the professor dropped the case and is not negotiating changes to the site with the professor to improve it.

Just wanted to clarify that the parent poster (presumably) meant to write "... is now negotiating changes to the site...".

Re:Schools

[GPLDAN]

taped -

You are a good man. Wavicle was clearly trolling you, with his backhanded slaps at UM. I am a UM grad as well ('90, B.S.) and I would have ignored his troll completely.

Re:Schools

[scubacuda]

Shout out to my homies in the Inland Empire!

Re:Schools

[Negatyfus]

Right. I thought I had corrected myself, but apparantly the reply didn't make it through for some reason.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

>Generally speaking, students are fair with the evaluations

I disagree with this statement. Students not overly emotional about the professor (the middle of the bell curve) won't bother to comment. While I'm sure a few students impressed by the prof will leave positive comments, we all know that "sweet revenge" (as you put it) is a more powerful motivator.

It sounds to me like the board was a good venue for slandering professors. The idea behind the comment board is good, but it looks like it needs work to make it more fair.

Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997

Re:Schools

[cavebear42]

It's not useless at all. He just got national fame thx to /. Now he will be able to build the site he wants if he has the guts to do so, likly could even get sponsers.

Re:Schools

[sketerpot]

OTOH, it is sometimes easy to figure out what is mindless busywork. In my current math class, I know that the teacher knows what he's doing, and I pay attention even when we're doing something that doesn't seem all that useful. In a previous math class with a different teacher, though, there was a lot of stuff that I knew was pointless. For example, it's interesting to note that the digits in pi occur with roughly equal frequency, but that we don't have a proof of this. It is not interesting to count the frequencies of the first 200 digits of pi by hand to convince ourselves of this, and then to get a bad grade on it because we missed a digit somewhere. That's just one example; this class was universally awful. I guess it all comes down to personal judgement: do I trust this teacher?

Re:Schools

[Fear the Clam]

Well then, the responsibility lies with the reader to look at the information for what it really is: a collection of opinions without full context, rather than a factual, discrete rating of the instructor.

If the students were smart enough to do that, they wouldn't have recived bad grades and given bad reviews in the first place.

Re:Schools

[Rich0]

I personally know of a case where this happened. The person in question was a department head, and he had the reviews temporarily stored in his office. Let's call this guy Fred.

Everyone in his class hated him, they gave him almost exclusively 1's and 2's (on the 1-5 scale - 1 being bad). Then they looked at the stats published in the library the next semester, and saw all 3-5's, with NO 1-2's.

That was just DUMB on his part. If he had put at least one 1 and one 2 in the falsified evals for each category, then if somebody looked at the results on their own, they might have assumed that they were the only one who gave such a low rating. By having zero 1's and 2's, anybody in the class could see that something was wrong without the need to conspire.

The class quickly did get together and found that the ratings were universally horrible. This got escalated to the dean and very quickly created a sticky situation. Fred was up for tenure, and was given the opportunity to resign, which he took (I guess he is now at another university).

I was the ed-in-chief of the college newspaper at the time, and I knew most of the people personally and was present for one meeting with the dean - this is a true story.

I wasn't sad to see Fred go - he reamed me out for cutting through his physics lab to get to another chemistry lab (which in fact could only be accessed by going through either his lab or somebody else's). Fortunately, the acting chemistry department head (who I worked for at the time) walked in - he was himself cutting through to get to the other lab. Fred proceeded to start reaming him out, at which point I ducked and ran for the door. Suffice it to say that at my college the chem dept had a LOT more clout than the math dept, and Fred was brand new and the acting chem dept head was well-liked and had been around for a while. I don't think that Fred started off on the right foot - several chem dept faculty were on his tenure committee and were quite interested when they heard about the evaluations incident.

So, yes, this stuff happens. And yes, when it happens the college is very interested in it. And yes, the reason they are interested in it is becase they want to keep it quiet. So yes, when these situations are handled it gets buried. In fact, Fred was threatening lawsuits, which is probably why the college just let him resign without disgrace.

I'm sorry that now some other class had to deal with him since it was covered up. However, he probably isn't around any more - he was a horrible teacher and sooner or later somebody will start wondering why he moves around every three years...

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, "challenging" is either a bad professor or a professor who doesn't know when to quit. Either way, I don't want to take a class from them, and I'm rather appalled that they're employed in such a profession at all.

There is a huge difference between a course which is hard because the professor isn't a good teacher, and a course which is hard because the subject matter is intrinsically difficult.

If you decide to take the final year advanced theoretical physics course, you'd better be pretty smart - if you're not in the top 20-30% of physics students, with good mathematical skills, you will find the course too difficult.

If, on the other hand, you are smart, willing to work hard, and have the relevant skills, you'd probably find that it was one of the more rewarding courses on offer.

Similarly, if you have only basic levels of literacy and numeracy, don't bother trying to go to college. You're not able enough, and will find it too hard. If you're smart, but have had bad education, take adult education classes etc. first . If you're not so smart, look for a job that suits your ablilities.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Most students think they deserve an A, no matter what the course, as long as they usually show up.

BTW - an article in "The Chronical: Career Network" from October 15, 2003 showed that there is a correlation between a professor's looks and his/her evaluations. The better he/she looks, the better the evaluations.

Also, I heard recently of another study where students were asked to rate a professor after viewing a 20 second video clip of that person teaching a class. The scary thing is that the 20 second evaluations were almost identical to the end-of-semester evaluations.

Re:Schools

[Rick_T]

> Actually, from my experience most teachers that
> don't teach and hand out A's don't get high
> marks from the students. By the time students
> reach college most students really want to get
> the education they paid for.

Many students are on financial aid, and are not paying for their education. If they're on loans, they may well pay for it later, but students on loans don't usually think about their educations as "Hey, this is something I'm *paying* for".

Actual student comment I overheard the other day: "Oh, are you taking [subject] next semester? Make sure you get [teacher]. He lets you redo your tests over and over again until you get the answers right. It's an easy 'A'."

> The students that just want to skate are in
> the minority by college.

Sorry, but if you're talking about your average American college, you're way off base here.

Re:Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

I go to the University of Michigan

I'm sorry.

Re:Schools

[ErixTr]

do you really believe that 18 year old students are mature enough to do that?

They can vote to select a president of a country but not a professor?

Re:Schools

[taped2thedesk]

I was in the course he forged the evals for. I can't verify the reason he fired him (for privacy reasons), but a check on the evals site showed that his evals were WAY above average and nearly the entire class turned in evaluations when virtually no one showed up to class.

Re:Schools

[Tackhead]

> For example, it's interesting to note that the digits in pi occur with roughly equal frequency, but that we don't have a proof of this. It is not interesting to count the frequencies of the first 200 digits of pi by hand to convince ourselves of this, and then to get a bad grade on it because we missed a digit somewhere.

Option 1:
Write a program to calculate pi to 200 decimal places, have it count the digits, and submit the answer. I could do this more quickly than I could count 200 digits.

Option 2:
Prove that the distribution of digits in a base-10 representation of pi is random, and submit the proof. I couldn't do this in less time than it'd take me to do Option 1. But doing Option 1 and writing a few paragraphs on researchers attempting who are working on proof of the prove normality of pi, is probably the sort of thing that would make your teacher/prof weep with joy.

I'd go so far as to say that the purpose of the exericse wasn't to see if his class could count digits, but to find the one or two students in class thinking far enough ahead to do option 1, or research option 2.

Re:Schools

[sketerpot]

Those are both excellent suggestions, and option 1 occurred to me (I, too, thought that would be faster), and either of those would have appeased any normal teacher (bless their sane hearts), but this teacher was the Math Teacher from Hell. She wasn't teaching a more advanced math class (this was quite some time ago), she was teaching Algebra 1. She never looked past the obvious, nor did she encourage us to do so, though she might have given extra points if I had pointed out the recent efforts to prove pi normal. I'd say that the most interesting assignment she gave me was a worksheet which involved figuring out a formula relating the number of edges and veritces for polyhedra. But that one had the same problem as all the others: we first had to count up the edges and vertices, manually, for just about everything from a tetrahedron to an icosahedron. They were all like that: enough interesting stuff for about ten seconds, then enough busywork to make you hate math class, the teacher, and sometimes your life in general. And those are the good assignments, the cream of the crop. Most assignments were just row after row of the same problem, with trivial variations thrown in, which would have been appropriate for a remedial class, but not for a special class for "advanced" students, which was what that class was billed as.

If this has turned into a bitch-fest, I apologize, as that was not my intent. With any teacher that I respect, you would be absolutely right. But this one was... different.

Re:Schools

[Tackhead]

Damn, that is teh sux.

The proof of the formula for the edge/vertices/polyhedra thing is simple enough that it's actually an argument against "just do the experiment for n=1, n=2, n=3, until you get bored, and pretend it's a proof".

(And I was an empiricist at heart. Numerical methods for integrating to compute the volume of an object, or for diffEQs are a lot more fun than "doing the math" and coming up with a closed-form solution. But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate an actual solution to a mathematical problem, as opposed to just a graph and a handwaving "as the error bound decreases and my CPU load goes up, the answer asymptotically approaches some the square root of some irrational number times a constant"

Re:Schools

[sketerpot]

Yes, that is a rather nice proof. It's sometimes fun to read through part of a math textbook and follow some proofs. Sometimes you get something that's pretty clever.

Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[a.koepke]

What happened to TeacherReviews?

TeacherReviews.com is free site I run for students which lets students share opinions of professors with other students. I have been pressured to shut it down. I'm not sure if it will be down forever or just a short amount of time until some changes are made. Please read on to find out why and what I am going to do about it.

Yesterday and tonight I talked with a professor who was extremely upset with what written about him on TeacherReviews. He had several inappropriate reviews that made unfounded accusations and inappropriate untruthful remarks such as calling him "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic." These reviews should not have been on the site.

I immediately deleted this professor's reviews, as I always do those rare times that a professor complains. He still threatened to sue - and even threatened to get the involvement of the teacher's union American Federation of Teachers. A lawsuit is not something I have the time or money to be involved in, no matter how confident I am that the courts would side in the favor of free speech and the site.

This would be the first lawsuit against TeacherReviews, however TeacherReview, the precursor site to TeacherReviews had one lawsuit against in about four years ago. TeacherReview had a "no review is ever deleted" policy. The ACLU helped defend TeacherReview, and TeacherReview achieved a victory - the two professors involved settled just days before the San Francisco Superior Court hearing .

The purpose of Teacher Reviews has always been to help students find the best professors to take, however the quality and reliability of TeacherReviews has been diminished by the few users who have used the site to write insults, accusations, remarks that can be considered slanderous.

As I find about about these reviews, I always delete them. They no have merit, are not helpful to anyone, and are obviously the product of a bored student who just wants to harm the reputation of a professor. That is not the purpose of TeacherReviews.

There are over 36,000 reviews on the site - far too many for me to read and evaluate. Because of this, and the threat of lawsuit, I have elected to take down TeacherReviews.com for now - at least until I can make some needed changes to how the site works.

Here are some of the changes I hope to put in place:

* Instant review removal. As a rule, I have always removed reviews upon a professor's request. Today the system is manual and it is not obvious enough how it works. The new system will have a link for removing reviews next to every review. Anybody will be able to instantly remove inappropriate reviews. Some friends and I will evaluate these removed reviews.
* Easy professor removal. I believe professors should have the right to make their reviews be private. A professor will have the ability to hide all reviews from public view. Reviews posted will be emailed to that professor, but not shared with the rest of the world. The number of reviews and possibility other information will remain on the site.
* Hide Reviews from Google. One of the complaints I got from a the professor was that if you searched Google for his name, his reviews would show up pretty high in the list of found items. Normally this is a good thing, but if the reviews are inappropriate, then it is not approbate for the to be showing up in Google.
* Email notification of New Reviews. Professors should not have to regularly visit TeacherReviews to see if they have new reviews posted. This feature will give them the option of receiving email when new reviews are posted. Students will be able to use this feature as well. New reviews will also be available via RSS.
* Date-separated reviews. Today reviews that are two years old and older are listed along side of recent reviews. Since people change, I believe that these older reviews need to be identified as older reviews, and be put on a separate page.

These features I'm not sure about:

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[LostCluster]

You should have posted that as AnonCow... for the irony sake at least.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[omarius]

"Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel."
--J. Jonah Jameson

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[z01d]

...and I appreciate any comments you have,...

He mean "sue", right?

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[ryanjensen]

This guy is a pussy and he's selling out if he thinks these changes would benefit his USER BASE (i.e. students) in any way. Professors get anonymous, private reviews every semester at most schools. What's the point of having another resource (TeacherReviews.com) tell the professor privately what his potential students want to know? Obviously libelous and false reviews should be removed from the site, or moderated before they even appear live. However, no professor should have the right to remove ALL reviews just because the reviewers didn't kiss his ass.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[gcaseye6677]

Its amazing how much privacy some professors at public universities often feel they are entitled to have. I'm not saying all professors are like this, but some have this superiority attitude where they feel completely accountable to nobody. They don't want criticism of them or their classes made available to the student body. They don't want anyone making lecture notes available outside the classroom. They won't change aspects of their class that students and/or administrators dislike. And to top it off, they feel that material they develop on the university's dime is their own property. Someone needs to remind these jokers they are paid by public funding and student tuition, so they are accountable to both of those groups.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

And it's only either if its not true.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[pla]

He had several inappropriate reviews that made unfounded accusations and inappropriate untruthful remarks such as calling him "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic." These reviews should not have been on the site.

Okay, let me get this straight...

The professor threatened to sue, even after removal of the offensive posts, because someone called him paranoid?

Umm... Gee, Tweaky, you might want to lighten up on the coffee. That "paranoid" idea sounds all too appropriate... Most people would have brushed it off as a crack by some waste of flesh that couldn't pass the class, but no, Tweaky here had to have a valuable internet resource taken down.

If that doesn't count as paranoid...

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

>A lawsuit is not something I have the time or money to be involved in, no matter how confident I am that the courts would side in the favor of free speech and the site.

That's the real problem, sites that do provide content like this will need some kind of legal resources, be it a relative who is a lawyer, etc. There will *always* be threats to sue, the question is how prepared are both parties willing to go? If people weren't prepared to stand up for their rights then there simply wouldn't be any worthwhile projects on the net.

I've been involved in a lawsuit or two (hence anon) just to get some justice and in the end its well worth it.

What will happen is that if this site remains down because of one legal threat, someone more willing to stand up to legal bullies will make a copycat site. Sorry to say it, but this guy is just too thin-skinned to operate a site like this. He hasn't even been given a summons or even called by a real lawyer and is quick to take down the site? Sorry but all the proposed technological changes will not help the social problem of someone getting angry at your content and then saying they're going to sue you.

Not to mention the lawsuit is fairly ridiculous as the host website is more or less immune to legal actions and the author of that review would be the one potentially guilty of liber/slander.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Trejkaz]

If reviews are in place, it seems fate has bigger muscles. The lecturer who marked me down for having the only correct answer for a problem ended up staying on the staff, while our best and most informative lecturer died.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

"A lawsuit is not something I have the time or money to be involved in, no matter how confident I am that the courts would side in the favor of free speech and the site."

The courts have already decided, resolutely, against free speech, if they have created and fostered and maintained a situation where these words are reasonable. Speech has already been suppressed, by the actions and very nature of the legal system whose main purpose of existence was to protected it from suppression.

Freedom of Speech, and of the Press, is once again an ideal that we should aspire to, rather than a right that we may assume shall be protected by our government and our countrymen as inalienable, transcendent of government and of men and of laws.

Fortunately for us, our forefathers saw such rights as being important enough to make any sacrifice, including one's own life, in order to preserve them. Unfortunately, today we will not even risk the costs and labor involved in defending our must fundamental rights by standing up to the most mundane challenge.

At one extreme viewpoint, Mr. Greene has a moral obligation to lay his very life down in defense of freedom of speech, because this loss is a loss for all. I do not believe this is a realistic alternative, but then again, I do believe that it is the spirit in which the founders of the country intended for us to act.

The problem is, we should have acted much more vehemently before ever reaching the current state of affairs. We should never have become complacent, taken our rights for granted, allowing governments to erode these rights, or even allowed a legal system to develop which can be used as a weapon to persucute the innocent, using the innocent man's own fundamental rights as a perverted tool in his damnation.

We needed a fundamental shift of power, if not a revolution, a century ago. Things are worse today, and I don't know if the word has been coined yet for what we do need.

For those who think this is a tempest in a teapot, I argue that a free press and free speech are the most fundamental freedoms that exist, and that they might be the only freedoms worthy of killing or dying to protect. To put that in perspective, I do not consider property rights to rise to this level.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Txiasaeia]

As a student I want to agree with you, but as I'm wanting to become a prof someday, I'm not sure how far I'll go to do so. *some* profs don't feel accountable to anybody. *some* don't like criticism. Yeah, maybe you're right, but you're also wrong. Generalisations aren't going to help your argument.

HOWEVER, as to the "material they develop on the university's dime is their own property," I'm definitely going to have to disagree with you here. What do you consider to be "on the university's dime"? What do you consider "material"? If they make up course notes for a course that they're teaching, I think that they own them, and that students don't have an absolute right to possess them. I also think that if a prof writes a book, they should get the profits from it.

You may not realise this, but most profs are still active in their field, and tend to publish a few papers every year; are you really saying that the University should own these papers, and not the profs, simply because they're employed? /. had a discussion about this a couple days ago about IP and programmers; why is it different for professors (or any of the "intelligencia")?

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

This is yet another thing that leads to our kids being the ignoramuses they are today. Teachers are no longer the bountiful fountains of knowledge they once were; many have mutated into frustrated babysitters that couldn't care less about what the students are acquiring from the classes. It's all about the paycheck and covering one's ass.

During my college years, I had witnessed one teacher who managed to get suspended for being totally sincere. He declared that a certain clique of instructors were mindless buffoons, and most important that hardly any of their students should pass because they are all fools that should stay far away from I.T. And I'd say he was absolutely right. This was over eight years ago. A lot of those idiots went on to cash in big on the whole Y2K diarrhea, others even started their own consulting business built upon the bullshit they learned in school. Today there is no more cow to milk and we're all doing crappy jobs or even on welfare; mostly because of these imbeciles that ruined it for all of us.

The same applies to these teachers. For every genius we look up to, there's a hundred posers just collecting their check every week; people who know less than their own students, yet we're paying THEM to lead our kids to success.

Closing down TeacherReviews is yet another way of the bad teachers hiding the evidence and covering their asses. If I were the site admin, I'd remove the guy's reviews, fine, but I'd plaster his cursed name all over the site. "As requested by Prof. Evilanus, this content has been censored."; "Thank you Prof. Evilanus for defeating the system"... let readers judge for themselves what kind of scum this guy is, hence the kind of behavior to expect from him.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Paul123]

It's whatever the legal system says it is. Truth is incidental.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[shadowbearer]

Yes

and if this professor is so scared of negative reviews, perhaps he should review his arrogance quotient.

Does said professor seriously think that opinions about him don't get discussed between students in private discussions? Does he think he's immune to that? Does he think that his status makes him immune to being judged? Who the fuck does he think he is?

One of the problems in education nowadays is that bad teachers are *not* being reviewed they way they should be. The very fact that he resorted to a lawsuit against this website makes me think that there's probably a lot of truth to what was being said about him. I realize that he's busy ( I hope he is) but the proper response would have been to rebut the accusations against him, to defend himself against them, publicly (he's a public figure, after all).

I'm not putting it very well, but if he has someone critizing him in such a way as to damage his public reputation (if he *really* thinks those accusations are unwarranted) then the recourse is *not* suing the website (could just as well have been a magazine, or newspaper article) but to retaliate against them *publicly* in speech, not against a website that is simply offering another form of free speech.

Excuse me for not being completely coherent but I'm pretty damned mad, mostly because I wish forums like that had been available when I was in college. We had *plenty* of bad professors (mostly tenured).

Political Correctness and the "It's NOT FAIR" whine rears it's ugly head again. I can just imagine what some of my professors would have said about him. It wouldn't have been complimentory, that I can assure you.

What I can assure you of, is that the most common quote among the really good teachers I had, would have been Shakespeare. You know which one.

This one goes into my notes under "Decline and Fall of America".

SB

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[DrEasy]

Those prof ratings can be pretty cruel and unfair. Yes, it's true that profs must have a thick skin to do their job, but still imagine being insulted on a public forum, and knowing that all your present and future students have access to that site, and that they can form a prejudice before even getting to know the prof.

How about starting RateTheStudents.com ? Would you like being publicly called a cheat or an incompetent lazy weasel (for good reason or not)? Would you like the profs to consult such a site before they start marking the final exam? I thought not.

Yes, that prof might have overreacted, but there's only that much abuse anyone can take. Who knows what else is going on in his life/job, maybe that was the last straw.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[snero3]

All you said is true, usually about a small minority of professors.

However, it doesn't mean the site is a valid rating of a professor. Say for example I don't like professor foo because he failed me (even though I did absolutely nothing in the way of study or hard work). What is to stop me from posting 100 times saying that the prof is a porn loven', homosexual paedophile or some such crap?

To me that would just be just a prank but it could possibly ruined a good prof's career just because he didn't pass me.

Personally I don't think the sites operator has given enough thought to verifying the results and making sure posters can't hijack the system and run down a prof they just don't like

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[br0ck]

According to Dylan Greene's blog, THE LAWSUIT HAS BEEN DROPPED

TeacherReviews.com is coming back, and it's going to be better than ever - for both students and professors.

The professor who threatened a lawsuit has decided to drop the case. This happened after we talked about the situation, the site as it is today, and the intent of the site, which has always been to help students, as opposed to insult professors. This professor is now helping the site by providing feedback to the new features from a professor's point of view, which is something I have not looked into before.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right and you're wrong.

It's true that paying students have every right to share information and seek information about professors. After all, professors give students indelible ratings, called grades, which are not always objective. And it really sucks to dole out enormous amounts of tuition to greedy universities and get shit in return, high grade or not.

BUT that bit about professors owning their creations. Hey, hey, now. This is a totally different Slashdot thread, but lets think about this - the opposite happens in most fields and that sucks.

It's one thing to exchange your time and skills for money, but when the company you trade with wants to buy and own your existence, that is slavery. Not the worst form of it, granted, but this system isn't in place because two equal parties decided it was the most fair and just way to transact business. It's because Company X has shitloads of money, and Employee Y needs a job to get by.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[LauraW]

The blog entry says:

I believe professors should have the right to make their reviews be private. A professor will have the ability to hide all reviews from public view.

and

Response from Professor. I don't know how I can verify that somebody is really the professor before I let them post a response on the web site.

Er, then how can he very that somebody really is the professor before letting them remove reviews. Unless he wants to surf (or spider) university web sites and look up all the professors' email addresses, I'm not sure how he can solve this.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Captain Beefheart]

Actually, you have to prove that the statement is false; prove that it was intended to cause harm; and prove that the statement in fact inflicted harm that was directly responsible for noticeable damage to the recipient's reputation and/or finances. I am not a lawyer.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[corbettw]

Not in America, it's not. Truth is considered an affirmative defense against both libel and slander over here. I hear that Europe is bit behind the times on this issue, though.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

> but as I'm wanting to become a prof someday, I'm not sure how far I'll go to do so.

Here's a tip - don't be an asshole to your students. You scratch their back and they'll scratch yours, one way or another.

Most people don't go to school to learn - they go to graduate, thanks to our society requiring a degree to be eligible for any sort of decent-paying job (although now that the market is so saturated, requirements for master's degrees are starting to replace bachelor's degrees). When is enough enough?!

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[magores]

mostly because I wish forums like that had been available when I was in college

When I was in college we had to actually TALK to other people that shared our major.

None of this forums stuff!

We had to seek out people that had gone before us! We talked to real people and asked real questions!

It was hard, and we LIKED it that way!


PS... I think I might have actually learned something at the same time.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[m00nun1t]

I also think that if a prof writes a book, they should get the profits from it.

Yes, and it will be reviewed on Amazon.com (and other places as well), if it's bad, users will be forthcoming in saying so. The teacherreviews is (or should be) about their performance as a professor. In much the same way I might ask a friend to recommend an accountant, teacherreviews helps me choose a college/course to attend.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[linuxbert]

it isnt different then the article a few days ago, however, that article was about owing what you do on your own time. if you write papers in your field, on your time, then you own them, but if the university is paying you to sit in an office, and write course materials for a course your teaching, then the university owns that work.

I teach a college course. i developed the course on my own time, and get paid for my hours spent delivering it. i own the material, i am free to offer that material to anyone who will pay for it.

if the college payed me to develop and deliver a course, then thay bought my expertise to build them something. they own it.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[shadowbearer]

Heh.

By "forums" I meant being able to talk to people outside our college, who had gone thru the same experience. If you hadn't know them, they were essentially outside your contact sphere. Unless someone knew them, and they were willing to talk/mail you, you couldn't benefit from their experience.

We did, however, have our Beer forums :) where we exchanged information at painfully slow bitrates...

We didn't walk uphill thru snowstorms in our bare feet, but sometimes it sure felt that way :)

(note to mods; parent +1 funny for obligatory Ancient Learning Wisdom comment :)))))

Thanks for the laugh, magores :) I like to think I learned something. The more I get to know of the world, however, the dumber I feel :) Yes, it was hard, often. But we were young and easily seduced by pheromonones...

But just to tweak you, I believe the word "forum" had it's originations in Greece back in whatever B.C. :)

SB

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[m1kesm1th]

"If they make up course notes for a course that they're teaching, I think that they own them, and that students don't have an absolute right to possess them."

Basically, they're paid to teach. Those notes, probably written on paper paid by the school, during working hours will be paid for. If I write notes (even at home) on some programming I do at work and give them to clients in order that they understand. Sure, its not an issue if the clients feel they own the notes (which I don't feel they do). However, the company who pays me owns them.
However, if I write a completely unrelated application or one I spend my own time learning about, sure I own it.

The distinction arises when you are using the time spent you are paid for by your employer to pursue your own revenue.

If you compare the situation to programmers, like you mention, it is no different whatsoever. If you work in a position and the position gives you an insight into the methods and construction of a program, then develop yourself a identical clone of this using a similar application, I do not believe you should own the rights to the application.

If a professor is writing notes for students in order to aid his classroom, so he can do something else or make the day a little easier. Turning this later into a book, is a conflict of interests.

However, I do think if this happens, there should be some sort of reward and recognition.

If you think really why gcaseye6677 says, "They don't want anyone making lecture notes available outside the classroom." from the early post, you'll probably realise that it sounds like the professor doesn't want people copying the work and wants to protect it. Certainly not from the students? He/She is showing it to them, asking them to learn. Why? To protect the universities property or their own? Well to identify it is the University's property is to show they no longer own it and for it being their own property, why show them in class?

Professors are not only paid to teach, but to prepare. Sure, I have no problem with them publishing papers or books in their field, but it is important to draw the distinction, between classes and private work. Most Universities have a policy for this, but as the previous poster mentions I don't think the victim should be the student. Use notes that can be taken out of class, not ones that are going to be published.

Maybe its not the professor just making this mistake, if a University makes money from an tenured professor. Likely as not it may be their policy that restricts the usage of notes (i doubt this though), however this only helps the University funding not the students (which is meant to be the primary aim of the instituition).

Good luck with your Professorship.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a lawyer (hence the cowardly post).

Libel varies by state, but the Supreme Court guidelines are that you have to show intent against public figures not not private figures. And often you can't defend with truth. Even if you could, a lot of those attacks are at least partially untrue (bipolar?).

If only the truth could set you free.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Draknor]

Very interesting post - it's easy to miss the other side of the argument sometimes, isn't it?

I think the intent of the website creator, in taking down the site, is a good-faith effort to make it a little less abusive. Personally, I disagree with his decision to allow profs to make reviews private; instead, I think it would be better to have a feature allowing a prof's response to a particular review.

Funny how a lot of things all boil down to similar principles, isn't it? How to balance the rights & the privacy of the many against the evil intentions of the few?

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[DrEasy]

Agreed 110% on all points!

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[CGP314]

How about starting RateTheStudents.com ? Would you like being publicly called a cheat or an incompetent lazy weasel (for good reason or not)? Would you like the profs to consult such a site before they start marking the final exam? I thought not.

The difference is the professor is (potentially) providing a service that I am paying for. It is not the reverse with the students.

-Colin

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[tverbeek]

And I would be very suprised if a site like this didn't achieve that standard on a fairly regular basis. The lack of accountability in posting reviews ensures that there will be material that passes the first test. The "revenge" motive attracts material passing the second test. And the whole point of the site is for this clearinghouse of information to affect teachers' reputations and employability.

The idea of students reviewing teachers certainly has merit, but this site had "SUE ME" written all over it.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[general_re]

Actually, you have to prove that the statement is false; prove that it was intended to cause harm; and prove that the statement in fact inflicted harm that was directly responsible for noticeable damage to the recipient's reputation and/or finances.

Actually, that's still not enough. You have to show that the defendant either knew or reasonably should have known that the statement was false when he/she made it - if I reasonably believed at the time that what I was saying was true, then you're out of luck, even if the remainder of your points are applicable to the case. Simply being a falsehood isn't enough - it has to be a malicious falsehood.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to the professor. He/she generally thinks they are providing a service that is above criticism.

They're tools.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to read the fine print about publication. I've published a few papers myself now, some while I was still at a university some while in industry, BOTH places require that I sign a legal document saying "If there's any profit to be made from the work described in this paper it is the sole property of the University/Company". I was actually struck at how similar the industry legal template was to the Unversity's.

So yes if I write a paper as a professor, the university owns it.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you're in the UK, you you have to prove that the statement isn't false; prove that it wasn't intended to cause harm; and prove that the statement in fact didn't inflict harm that was directly responsible for noticeable damage to the recipient's reputation and/or finances. I am not a lawyer.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Monkeyman334]

How about starting RateTheStudents.com ?

What? Like a transcript?

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[No. 24601]

I am not a lawyer. I can wait till someone posts IAAL! I wonder if Lawyers even read Slashdot!??!?

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[codegen]

The difference is the professor is (potentially) providing a service that I am paying for. It is not the reverse with the students.

Unless you are at a fully private university, your education is substantially subsized by the Government. Such a review might help to better spend taxpayer dollars. :->

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Political Correctness and the "It's NOT FAIR" whine rears it's ugly head again.

Okay, in what possible way can this be related to "Political Correctness"? Or has PC just become a catchphrase we use whenever anyone complains about anything?

There's no broad social trend here. The guy's just a jerk.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

What about when the students reviewed on this hypothetical site want to get a job? Perhaps the professor is concerned not about the students' loss of respect for him, but for his job security if sites like these are taken seriously (which they shouldn't be by administrators or anyone that knows the professor).

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

How about starting RateTheStudents.com ? Would you like being publicly called a cheat or an incompetent lazy weasel (for good reason or not)? Would you like the profs to consult such a site before they start marking the final exam? I thought not.

The point of much of school is to be rated. That's what grades are.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is the professor is (potentially) providing a service that I am paying for. It is not the reverse with the students.


And those students will eventually apply for jobs with potential employers who will be expected to pay their salaries. Don't those employers deserve to know about that student's academic behavior and work habits?

Not to mention the fact that teaching is a two-way street. Shitty students don't exactly make teaching any easier. If your students suck, you're probably more likely to get caught up in a feedback loop of bad experiences in the classroom leading to bad teacher reviews leading to more bad experiences in the classroom...

"Two sides to every story" and all that.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[TooLazyToLogon]

Are we sure the "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic" teacher didn't send in the inappropriate reviews?

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're a customer? Perhaps. But, you'll have to do more than hand over your tuition money, financial aid, and any grants, to get a degree. You might actually have to "learn" on your "own," and the onus of your learning is really upon you more so than it is upon the professor who is providing "the service," as you put it.

Part of your educational experience ought to be learning how to deal with different teaching methods and the range of professors, from great to awful. A "I didn't like him" doesn't cut it in the real world, and it shouldn't in the classroom -- be it high school or college.

Word of mouth on campus rates professors and students, alike. So none of this is new, just "in print" so to speak.

Got real complaints about sexual harrassment or racism? Take it to the school, the dean, or whomever. Want to rate your professor's sexiness, complain about his political conservatism or liberalism, or whine about all those demanding assignments? Be professional and discreet, and a bit respectful, and do it word-of-mouth. Should you feel the burning need to rate your professor, then by all means, have at it. Just remember: correct spelling and proper grammar might give your review more authority.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[alansz]

I am an assistant professor at a large state university. At my university, during your contact period (9, 11, or 12 months), all of your time - 24/7 - belongs to the university. In principle, an invention you create on the weekends is owned by them unless you have (prior) approval of work you're doing outside the university and demonstrate that it does not conflict with your commitment to the university.

In practice, our administrators seem to actually be in the business of providing for scholarship, including teaching, research, and service, and aren't wasting their energy chasing down professors.

Course notes, textbooks, and research papers are different, and the rules aren't always clear. The current status seems to be that you own your course notes/lectures, but that you grant the Univ a royalty-free perpetual license to use them. Writing textbooks and research papers is an expected part of a professor's job, but the University does not make copyright claims on them unless they were produced as a direct work-for-hire. (Of course, the journal or book publisher will want you to assign copyright to them, but that's another story).

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Idarubicin]

Does said professor seriously think that opinions about him don't get discussed between students in private discussions? Does he think he's immune to that? Does he think that his status makes him immune to being judged? Who the fuck does he think he is?

...

I'm not putting it very well, but if he has someone critizing him in such a way as to damage his public reputation (if he *really* thinks those accusations are unwarranted) then the recourse is *not* suing the website (could just as well have been a magazine, or newspaper article) but to retaliate against them *publicly* in speech, not against a website that is simply offering another form of free speech.

If I were to create posters that claimed a certain professor traded sexual favours for grades and posted them on campus, the proper recourse for the professor would not be simply to deny the claims in class while leaving the posters on the wall.

It is my understanding that if unproven, unfounded, and malicious statements are made about an individual in a magazine or newspaper article, the individual is well within his rights to sue for defamation. It is also legitimate to file suit if someone makes slanderous remarks--e.g. in an offline discussion between students. The threshold for what is considered defamatory versus free expression of opinion under the First Amendment varies depending on whether the individual is considered a public figure, and upon jurisdiction.

Fair comment, opinion, and statements of fact are permissible. Outright malicious statements are not (if untrue). Generally the courts have allowed significantly more latitude when discussing 'public' figures like politicians and entertainers. I suspect that unless the professor in question made regular media appearances, he would not be held to be a public figure.

Can students discuss their professors' teaching technique, habits, and whatnot? Yes.

Should the results of evaluations of professors be made available to students? Yes.

Should people be able to anonymously defame an individual without any consequence to themselves? Nope.

Are you sure that the person defaming the professor is giving a reliable opinion? Is the anonymous student claiming that the professor is mentally ill because he received a poor grade? Is he necessarily even a student of the professor? Perhaps the individual in question is a jilted lover, or a jealous colleague. There is no way to assess the reliability of the reports, and anonymous statements have no accountability--but if left up, they could have negative repercussions for the professor. He asked the website to remove the defamatory comment before he sued, which seems reasonable.

I agree wholeheartedly that evaluation of professors is necessary and important, and that students should have access to those evaluations. Nevertheless, this is not the way to go about it. Universities should make public the results of their internal evaluations, including synopses of the written in student comments on the instructor evaluations. Remarks can be anonymized (to protect the students who made them) but this process would at least ensure that comments were only made by the professors' students, and truly defamatory statements (as opposed to fair comments) would be screened out.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Idarubicin]

The difference is the professor is (potentially) providing a service that I am paying for. It is not the reverse with the students.

True enough. On the other hand, if a restaurant critic asserts in his column that "in addition to the poor service, my waiter was clearly mentally ill, and also talked about his sexual escapades with various farm animals" the critic is going to be on the hook for libel*. We have the right to evaluate products and services, but our speech is not protected when it ventures into the realm of unsubstantiated defamation.

In other words, you can say that a professor has lousy blackboard technique or that he doesn't seem well-prepared for his classes, or even opine that he has a short temper. You cannot say that he is a paranoid delusional who boosts the grades of students who sleep with him--if you're only saying it because you don't like the grade you received.

*Assuming, of course, that the statement is untrue. If the waiter did have sex with farm animals, then the statement will stand--truth is an absolute defense against defamation.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Legal Penguin]

Just quickly, that's only the standard if the person is a public figure. If the person is a private individual the standard is lower and there is no need to prove intent to cause harm. The truth of the statement is, however, an absolute defense in all cases.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[DrEasy]

A transcript would be the same thing if it was made public on the web and open to comments by a hord of Anonymous Cowards.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[a1englishman]

That's how it is: Works produced while in the employ of another entity are owned by that entity. Works produced outside of employment (ie: your own time), are owned by the person who produced them. That's the law of the land.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at it this way: would you want your employer's annual reviews of your job performance posted to the company bulletin board each year?

It is a tricky balance, I admit, but most profs do feel they are accountable to students and administrators. Personally, I think criticisms of they or the classes should be publically available: profs are producing a product, and students should know what they are getting into before making their choice. There are limits, however, if something would compromise effective teaching (e.g., some students really are looking for an easy A with non-attendance of class).

Making lecture notes available outside the classroom is risky, for example, because it often discourages students from attending lectures, and what is the point of teaching if there is no interaction between student and instructor? The worst is if an instructor gets complaints that something was not in the notes, but that was discussed in the lectures, and the student claims this is somehow unfair. That is one reason I don't generally provide lecture notes. It often defeats the point of having a lecture.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

"So you're a customer?"

Yes , fucking idiot.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Mr. McGibby]

the critic is going to be on the hook for libel

Exactly. The *critic* is the one who gets sued, not the newspaper. Well, maybe the newspaper gets sued, but that's because he's hired and paid by the newspaper. But the newspaper wouldn't be required to do fact checking on letters to the editor for example.

If I put up libelous speech on the power line pole, the power company can't get sued, I get sued.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[otprof]

Someone needs to remind these jokers they are paid by public funding and student tuition, so they are accountable to both of those groups

I'm a professor, and I was right with you, up until you used the term "jokers." I have absolutely no problem with people discussing the relative merits of my class and my teaching style. I know that I'm not perfect, and there are things that I need to work on (too much lecture, slow grading, dorky humor, etc.) But these anonymous student reviews too often turn into ad hominem attacks rather than intellectual discussion.

If I read that "otprof's lectures are disorganized and hard for me to follow," I can think about whether that is the case or not. Maybe it's just the nature of the material, but maybe I need to work on my outlining a bit. But if I read "otprof is an ass. Whatever you do, don't take this joker," how do I respond to that? How is that helpful to anyone? In my mind it just shows the lack of intellectual engagement that probably earned that student a low mark in my class, which is probably the root of his/her frustration. If you have a legitimate gripe, by all means get it out there however you can (including communicating with the prof), but presume that slamming the guy in a personal and general way is really public discourse.

I also don't think a professor should be able to completely hide reviews on the site. The other changes, by and large, seem good to me. They allow for better peer review and accountability.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[gad_zuki!]

>How about starting RateTheStudents.com ?

Sorry but students are not the public figures that professors are. Often professors sign their name with their phd and the school they teach at to get extra clout in letters to the editor, the political process, are considered experts and testify in court, etc. Students have none of these powers of "celebrity."

A professor in social sciences can nominate anyone for a Nobel Peace Prize, can a student say the same?

In the end being a professor is a very, very public job and criticism of a public figure is nothing new, its just acadamia has yet to catch up with the real social changes the information revolution is bringing.

On top of this, professors are given web space by the universities they work for and can give a rebuttal that is easy to find with any search engine and it costs them nothing in hosting fees.

>Yes, that prof might have overreacted, but there's only that much abuse anyone can take

Then perhaps a job in the private sector is best for him. People make these lame apologies for politicians too. If its too hot in the kitchen...

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

How about starting RateTheStudents.com ? Would you like being publicly called a cheat or an incompetent lazy weasel (for good reason or not)?

As a teaching assistant, I'd love for someone to start that site. There've been several times when I've caught someone cheating but for various reasons, haven't been able to do something about it. (It seems that unless you've got photographic evidence, the administration doesn't want to risk a lawsuit. Heck, there've been cases in the department when there was hard evidence, and still nobody wanted to prosecute it. Slap on the wrists.) It would be nice to give those students' future teachers a heads up ...

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Obfiscator]

You can't put "paranoid, bipolar, slacker" on a report card.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in America, it's not. Truth is considered an affirmative defense against both libel and slander over here. I hear that Europe is bit behind the times on this issue, though.

Well, in the UK, truth is an absolute defence to accusations of libel or slander. It's not a defence to charges of harrasment and the like though - someone may well be a baby-raping communist, in which case you'd be quite entitled to refer to him as "that baby-raping communist", but you wouldn't be able to continually phone him and ask why he rapes babies.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Black Jack Hyde]

but some have this superiority attitude where they feel completely accountable to nobody

That would be what's called tenure.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Rick_T]

> They don't want anyone making lecture notes
> available outside the classroom. They won't
> change aspects of their class that students
> and/or administrators dislike.

Someone has some rage issues here. Did you do bad in a class last semester? :)

Anyway, some of us profs actually post our lecture notes on the Web *ourselves*. Imagine that!

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Rick_T]

> If you have a legitimate gripe, by all means get
> it out there however you can (including
> communicating with the prof), but presume that
> slamming the guy in a personal and general way is
> really public discourse.

This point bears repeating. Most professors actually do care about whether the students are getting something out of the course and are receptive to students telling them about things that aren't coming across clearly.

All students have to remember to do is be polite. The prof isn't typically trying to "trick you" or "fail you" or anything similar.

Profs generally don't like being called "bipolar paranoid schitzophrenics" either, but I think most folks knew that. :)

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[Minkey Brines]

"I immediately deleted this professor's reviews, as I always do those rare times that a professor complains."

"TeacherReview had a "no review is ever deleted" policy."

"As I find about about these reviews, I always delete them."

This guy is absolutely ridiculous... Can you say CONTRADICTION?

This sounds like the anon.penet.fi pseudonymous mail that promised to never reveal users' identities. Sure enough, they buckled under pressure from the Church of Scientology. I'm pretty sure they did so without telling the users.

Re:Blog text - before it gets slashdotted

[m1kesm1th]

Maybe its because universities are being seen less as teaching/learning estabilishments and more places for potential profit.

I don't think increasing the facilities and funding for universities in this way is wrong, however I think it needs to be looked at carefully. It feels like a long winding road to potential disaster.

Also, though if the University does profit from it, then you *should* (imho though) be rewarded for it additionally. However, that would probably depend on the University and hopefully most would waive the right to profit at your expense of time and effort.

The only worrying thing I saw in a previous post was it sounded like the professor was trying to use both his work in class and yet protect it (either for the university or for publication of private papers). If this happens, then it is counter-productive for the students to use it. Far better to use a third party's information which could be removed from class. Which sounds like laziness or greed, however you look at it.

Annonymous Coward, negative infinity - 2004.

[LostCluster]

We gather here today to mourn the loss of Anonymous Coward. Anon been a great writer in the history of The United States, with The Federalist Papers and Primary Colors being two of his greatest works.

When the Internet came into being, Anon's greatest hour was realized. Many webboards at first welcomed posting for Anon with open arms, and Anon was even allowed to send e-mail freely. But, Anon's greatest foes, the lawyers would never let him sleep easy. Still, he fought on, trying to find what few places would still accept him, such as Slashdot.

But, when he came down with those horrible diseases of libel and slander, the doctors, er, lawyers, just weren't able to save him. Try the best they could, the logging of IP addresses just wasn't able to keep him alive. He gave a brave strugle, and for that we remember him. Dispite his ability to show his face, or give any contact info, you could always trust him to be at any political rally of any kind, and that he'd always be willing to fight the system.

His work in his name will be continued on Slashdot by his family, even though those who attempt to use their services should be aware that IP addresses are now logged and cookies are now fed on unsuspecting user in a way that the Anon we know and love never would tolerate.

Anon, we miss you.

Re:Annonymous Coward, negative infinity - 2004.

[NortWind]

Parent post is underrated, it is not offtopic at all.

Problem is...

[centralizati0n]

The problem is, a good system would allow exactly those kinds of comments. Slashdot, for example, allows you to post whatever you want, but you can get modded down and not be seen. A similar system would work for teacher reviews - if you want to read all of the "drivel" (per se) then go ahead.

Re:Problem is...

[s20451]

I'm sympathetic to the prof, especially if he's new faculty. This could be the only exposure that his potential students get to him. A determined effort to slander his teaching ability -- when very people know him anyway -- could literally ruin his career, as tenure decisions are made in part on teaching ability.

I can't think of a scenario in which someone's career could be ruined by a Slashdot troll.

Re:Problem is...

[LostCluster]

Libel at -1 can still attract a lawsuit. And /., for its part, will immediately respond by standing up and... telling them the IP address the post came from, and that, coupled with the timestamp, equates to an ISP account somewhere.

Re:Problem is...

[NeoSkandranon]

If he's a horrible enough teacher that he warrants consistent bad comments then perhaps tenure shouldn't even be what his superiors are considering

Re:Problem is...

[s20451]

How do you know the comments are accurate?

To say someone is schizophrenic when you are not an expert in the field is libelous, in any case.

Re:Problem is...

[Capt'n Hector]

From that comment, it seems hard to believe that you've attended a university: you should know that failing students often take out their frustrations on the professors. At UC Berkeley we have a rating system where at the end of each semester the students are asked to rate the professors on a scale of 1-5. Even the best professors while recieving only 5's from 80% of the class, will get a few 1's.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

Define Horrible.

To many students a teacher who is demanding, asks the students to homework, and does not hand out As is horrible.

To other students a teacher who belongs to the opposite political party is horrible.

Right now there is a massive movement to get liberal teachers fired for example. Is sombeody horrible just because they are a liberal?

Re:Problem is...

[Lehk228]

I think that is the point of Posting anonymous coward, i am pretty sure that info is not logged longer than the day or so for preventing crapfloods

Re:Problem is...

[modecx]

But you can say "It is my opinion (from experience) that professor Such and Such is a schizophrenic manic depressive wackjob", and get away with it, no?

Iv'e had professors like this (that even fit my prior description); even the staff knew they were off their rocker. Luckily, they were all reasonable people (for the most part), and they were even brilliant--even though they were loonier than a pair of Mexican jumping beans on a hot tin roof. I would have appreciated knowing this beforehand, and probably would have taken the courses with those professors anyway.

If this guy really is a nutball, or even eccentric, then people should know it.

Of course, I can't have had any experience with this nutjob of a professor. Likewise, neither could the operator of a teacher review site have enough experience with the thousands of professors nationwide to say anything positive or negative about any given professor.

Obviously, there needs to be an accountability system, whereby the person whom entered the review can be tracked. Or something. I dunno.

Re:Problem is...

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

It is also possible, and not uncommon, for a prof to fail a student that he does not personally like (due to differences in politics, for instance, leftist profs at every college I have heard of are FAMOUS for this).

It is only fair that such a student have a method of retaliation for such action. Fair is fair, and profs that don't deserve tenure should have it stripped from them and learn the phrase "Would you like fries with that?"

This website that has been shut down is the very same Free Speech that the Liberal Profs SCREAM about when it gets stiffled in the context of suppressing their marxist views.

Different when the shoe is on the other foot, huh?

Of course UC Berkley is the most Marxist of the Marxist universities, so I probably should have put this response on a different thread....

Re:Problem is...

[gad_zuki!]

>How do you know the comments are accurate?

Conversely, how do you know the positive comments are accurate? Ideally, people approach these sites (just as any source of info be it the tv news, the bible, etc) with a bit of skepticism and a grain of salt.

Re:Problem is...

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Is it Ok for a liberal or marxist prof to fail a student just because he's conservative? This has happened, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of the reaction that liberal profs are getting is due to the fact that they do this, and presume that their position will protect them.

They should be happy that students have this method of attempting to find justice. Take away legal means, and you're likely to walk out to your car after a marxist rally to get brained by a 15 lb sledgehammer from a former student who had no other means to right the wrong done him.

Hard to teach when your IQ has been reduced to that of a poodle by a heavy piece of steel. Better to consider what you're doing to others.

Re:Problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

The appropriate "method of retaliation" is to discuss the matter with an academic ombudsman. Filling out a bad evaluation will have little, if any, real effect.

Re:Problem is...

[LordHunter317]

No, its only libelous if you are attempting to use the statements to damage a person's reputation or character. That's why its nearly impossible to win a slander or libel case in the USA -- unless the person slips up and writes down that they're intentionally damaging someone's character, you have no proof that'll hold up in court.

Now in the rest of the world, the standard is much different.

Re:Problem is...

[Misch]

The biggest problem I have with professors evaluation forms is that they only go to the students who complete the class. Students that withdraw (at least at my former college) don't get to evaluate the professor. I think that getting input from the students who withdraw from classes is just as important as those who stay through the course.

Re:Problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't think of a scenario in which someone's career could be ruined by a Slashdot troll.

My potential career as a proctologist was ruined by a Goatse link posted by AC

Re:Problem is...

[droleary]

To say someone is schizophrenic when you are not an expert in the field is libelous, in any case.

This is a good example of why the system is screwed up. The way it should be is that if you are not an expert in the field (of psychology) then it cannot be libel. In that case, you're just a guy stating your opinion and not a medical professional giving a diagnosis. What's next, I need to be a proctologist to claim the President has his head up his ass, and then I can only do so with with the x-ray as evidence?

Re:Problem is...

[NortWind]

Are you saying that because some opinions are biased, that nobody should be able to make their opinions public? That is the choice you face, support open communication, or call for a ban on everyone's opinions, or call for a review board to approve acceptable posts.

Re:Problem is...

[Txiasaeia]

Interesting point! I think that, if nobody else, professors would benefit from the knowledge that students are dropping their course for whatever reason or not.

Re:Problem is...

[globalar]

It seems to me there is a world of difference between saying, in your experience, someone cannot teach or is poor at that function and why, than calling them names and making libelous statments. Welcome to the Internet, some people have opinions and they are not always in your favor. There needs to be better, clearer guidelines for posting reviews (i.e. no name calling, no mention of physical conditions, etc.).

BTW, I don't know if "libelous" is a word, but the parent post used it.

Re:Problem is...

[NeoSkandranon]

See thing is, whether medically accurate or not, if i see a comment like this about a potential professor i immediately have some idea of how he behaves (assume the comment is accurate) One of my highschool teachers i considtenly referred and refer to as bipolar, not so much because i genuinely think them to be, but by using that label the person im talking to (who is likely consulting me about taking the class) now has a VERY clear picture of how the professor behaves and can act accordingly.

Re:Problem is...

[bcrowell]

I'm a physics professor (now tenured). A lot of the students at my school used this site until recently. I didn't realize until today that this site, just like TeacherReviews, is being shut down because of threats of lawsuits.

I think it's a shame that these sites are so vulnerable to this kind of legal abuse. I also take music courses at my school, so I'm both a teacher and a student at the same time. I've posted reviews of my music teachers, because I thought the site was a good idea.

Switching back to my other hat as a teacher, it was always interesting to see the contrast between the whototake.com comments on me and the comments students would write when they were formally surveyed at the end of the semester. The online reviews seemed to be self-selected: AFAICT, only the most disgruntled 10% of the class would ever bother to post there.

This could be the only exposure that his potential students get to him. A determined effort to slander his teaching ability -- when very people know him anyway -- could literally ruin his career, as tenure decisions are made in part on teaching ability.
Well, no, because (a) the tenure decision would be made based on the surveys administered formally by the school; (b) research-oriented schools only pay lip service to teaching as an important component of the tenure decision; (c) tenure committees are made up of faculty memers, who realize that disgruntled students are generally disgruntled because they wanted an easy A and didn't get it.

I have to admit to being a little cynical about the whole thing. Some students make good comments that really help me improve my teaching, but many just can't believe that they're really expected to put in 2 hours a week outside of class for every unit they're taking. Many of them write comments that just show totally unrealistic expectations, e.g., they complain that I won't let their whole lab group turn in a single lab report for a grade.

It was also funny reading some of the things students posted on whototake.com about other teachers: DR SMITH SUCKS BIGTIME!! SHE THE FUCKIN WORST ENGLISH TEECHUR IN THE WORLD! WHAT A BITCH!!!! I TOOK ENGLISH 1 FROM HER. AND I HAD TO DROP! CUZ, SHE THINK WE GOT NOTHING TO DO BUT READ BORRING BOOKS. N RIGHT PAPERS N SHIT.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

" Is it Ok for a liberal or marxist prof to fail a student just because he's conservative? "

No it's not. Not that you could ever prove such a thing. Chances are if the professor is a liberal and the student a conservative the student will be bellligerent and argumentititive. I don't know about you but I never got a good grade from a professor I argued constantly with.

Besides which you are making a moot point. Tow wrongs don't make a right. It's wrong to give a student a bad grade because he is a conservative and it's wrong to get a teacher fired because he is a liberal.

"They should be happy that students have this method of attempting to find justice. Take away legal means, and you're likely to walk out to your car after a marxist rally to get brained by a 15 lb sledgehammer from a former student who had no other means to right the wrong done him."

I am sure this has happened and I am sure it will happen again. Abortion doctors get shot, gays get crucified, blacks get dragged behind pickup trucks, planned parenthoods get bombed, black churches get burned.

Republican tend to resort to violence early and often. Apparently they have a ready recruit in you. I am sure you will enjoy your your first maiming immensely but you should probably just kill the guy so he does not get to testify against you in court.

Re:Problem is...

[_xeno_]

Last I checked, Slashcode stores the IP of all posts made. Admin accounts can see the IP of any post made.

I'm not 100% if this is true or only on AC posts, but to the best of my knowledge your IP is permenantly logged when you make a post, even if it is "anonymous."

I downloaded Slashcode and I can guarentee that the database table for the comments does indeed contain a column for storing the IP address of the comment submitter. However I cannot be sure that this information is actually permentantly kept since I don't really have a machine on which I can install Slashcode.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

" Are you saying that because some opinions are biased, that nobody should be able to make their opinions public?"

It cuts both ways. You can say whatever you want but expect to be sued if somebody thinks you slandered them. Nobody owes you a internet site on which you can say whatever you want. If you got one great, if you use it to slander people then be prepared to get sued. It's the American way.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

"There is a movement to have some fairness in hiring and tenure for both sides of the political spectrum. 99% of professors self identify as liberal."

If you start your argument with a lie then you can not expect people to take you seriously. 99% of all professors are not liberal. You are a liar.

"Socialists and marxists dominate many compuses. "

Again another lie. You are probably saying this because you believe that anybody who disagrees with you is a socialist or a marxist. In that case then it's true campuses are dominated by people who disagree with you.

"Have both view points represented."

Take a business course.

"Further, many professors will not accept any viewpoints other than their own. "

Especially republican professors.

"Take a poly sci class, and try to argue the conservative viewpoint, and you get an F."

Take a physics class and try to argue with your professor and you get an F.

Re:Problem is...

[DrEasy]

Either way, anybody (prof, student, programmer, rock star, football player, really anybody) whose name is publicly exposed and is criticized ANONYMOUSLY for all to see has every right to feel hurt.

Now, famous people know that this comes with the territory. They get paid millions to deal with the bruised ego. That's not the case with profs.

There is a system for rating profs inside the university, not to mention the very efficient gossip system ;-). That ought to be enough. Anything else is mere exploitation.

Re:Problem is...

[shadowbearer]

Mod parent up more :)

I'll add that when I was in college a quarter century ago, there were many of us who wished that the faculty admin would pay more attention to what the students were saying about their teachers.

I had a calculus teacher who was a drunk and a philanderer (he eventually got fired over allegations of having sex with a student - not proven - but those of us who were there knew what was going on). He'd been tenured for years, and deteriorating in his ability to teach steadily.

What those of us who were in his classes found out after that, was that he'd woefully underprepared us for entry into a 4 year school - which was the mandate for the second year Calculus we'd been taking. When we looked back after it, years later, we realized that he'd been giving us easy stuff, not pushing us hard, so he'd look good to the board, giving high grades. He wasn't grading hard, at all.

He wasn't the only one (although most of the prof's there were damned good); when I got to my 4-year, that kind of crap was even more prevelant there. There were teachers there who would give a 30 minute lecture and rely on their TA's to fill in helping people - because said Prof's were too busy doing lecture circuit - and the TA's were grad students with their own schedules - this was a totally unnnecessary load on them.

I feel that it's a fundamental right for students to have input into review considerations of a teacher/professor. Obviously, there will be input that is from students who don't care and are, in slashdot vernacular, trolls. But that shouldn't invalidate having third party review options that are not associated with the school at all, like these websites. They are necessary, not just wrt to the student teacher trust, but as part of free speech. To have them shut down because one person is angry at them is a violation of all we hold dear in this country (yadda yadda yadda, happening already, and worse, I know all that).

It's all part and parcel of the Political Correctness bullshit that has been sweeping our country up for way too long. We have whole generations of people growing up who are indoctrinated this way.

Anyone who doubts that "rule of law" and easy access to lawyers is destroying this country, perhaps should take a good hard look at what is going on.

Mod me troll, or whatever. I don't give a F.

SB

Re:Problem is...

[internic]

I think that for most professors, bad online reviews would be more of an annoyance than a serious liability. As another poster pointed out, these would likely not be what would be used in any tenure reviews, and then there's the fact that at many universities teaching reviews only nominally figure in to career advancement. It's not that I think it's good to have a bunch of false, libelous reviews up, it's only that I think in general the students need more protection than the professors.

I have seen first hand that some professors who are asked to teach courses are incompetant for such a task. More than that, I have actually had contact with faculty members about whose sanity I genuinely wondered, and there have been cases of professors with documented mental problems teaching classes and treating their students very poorly as a result. So, while there are plenty of good professors, there are also those who are incompetent, unstable, or just regard their teaching obligations as a joke. A bad professor has much more ability to damage the academic career of a student than a single review has to effect the career of a professor, so it seems to me that such a site is more than reasonable.

Re:Problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

> A determined effort to slander his teaching ability -- when very people know him anyway -- could literally ruin his career

Maybe he should have thought of that before being a prick to his students. Of course, having successfully shut down the site, he'll get right back up on his high horse and continue his tyranny.

"You're an asshole, but we would want to risk ruining your career by sharing that information with anyone, so BE GOOD from now on!"

Re:Problem is...

[ionpro]

I don't know about you but I never got a good grade from a professor I argued constantly with.

Get better professors, then. Any professor who isn't open to learning, who thinks he knows everything there is to know about a field and that it will never change, doesn't deserve to be in a teaching position for long. Every field changes, where it's computer science or economics -- arguments with students can bring out new ideas.

Now, if a student argues every point for the sake of arguing, yeah, you can fail him. But arguing about politics when you make a definitive statement that could be considered opinion is morally wrong, and stupid to boot.

Re:Problem is...

[NortWind]

What do you mean, "it cuts both ways"? Because I have a right to express my opinions about you, then you have a right to sue me for libel? No, when something cuts boths ways, that means if you have a right to give your opinion of me, then I should have a right to give an opinion about you. That is fairness, in a nutshell.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

"Get better professors, then"

Sure if you can. If the class schedule permits, if it meet with your timeline of when you want to graduate.

Collage is supposed to prepare you for life. One part of life is learning to get along when your boss is an asshole or belongs to a different political party. If you can't cope with a professor and feel compelled to argue with him constantly chances are you will fail at your job too.

Re:Problem is...

[BoneFlower]

Those evaluations don't do squat at my school. My philosophy class down to the last one of us nailed the idiot attempting to teach us. I, and several others, outright recommended firing him as a way to improve the course. He did get points from most of us for being enthusiastic... but other than that, we ripped him apart. Every one of the 40 students ripped him to shreds on the reviews.

I intentionally failed that class so I could repeat it... I hadn't given up on learning something until after the laste date for withdrawals. In just two sessions, I've learned more this time taking the class than I did the entire semester with the idiot. Adn I actually applied myself, I tried to learn that first time.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

Do I need to say it again. If you slander somebody then expect to get sued. Just because it's your opinion that does not make it right. The law protects us against libel and slander.

There is a difference between slander, libel, false testimony and an opinion. A person has the right to defend themselves when others attack them with "opinions". If you opinions cross the line then you should be sued it's as simple as that.

Re:Problem is...

[corbettw]

One part of life is learning to get along when your boss is an asshole or belongs to a different political party. If you can't cope with a professor and feel compelled to argue with him constantly chances are you will fail at your job too.

It just occurred to me: this whole "argumentative student" tack is a complete strawman. Noone ever said anything about students being asses and arguing with their professors all the time; instead, the point which was raised was that liberal professors fail their students merely because their politics are different, not because the student in question was being disrespectful.

Again I ask, why do liberals always resort to childish attacks against conservatives? Is it because they know, deep down, we're right, and they can't admit it to themselves for some reason? Or maybe they just can't get past the adolescent desire to rebel against Mommy and Daddy, trying desperately to prove them wrong in a childish effort to define themselves as individuals for a change? In this case, "Mommy and Daddy" would be anyone expressing a sense of moral absolutism, e.g. conservatives. I don't know for sure, but this sure is some interesting food for thought.

Re:Problem is...

[Vellmont]

You're smoking crack. Saying someone is schizophrenic is an off-handed comment people often make about people that are unbalanced. Any idiot knows it's not a medical opinion. It's about as libelous as saying someone is nuts. I suppose you're now going to sue me for libel for accusing you of smoking crack?

Re:Problem is...

[rfovell]

Good points.

At my university, we also have a prof rating website (www.bruinwalk.com/professors/). The reviewers do indeed tend to be self-selected, tho on our boards, the top segment of the class also (thankfully) seems motivated to post. However, the biggest difference may be that the online reviews tend to be posted after the course grade is known. That can have unintended consequences.

As a professor myself, I have had mixed feelings about this board. However, some recent changes, and also this slashdot discussion, have encouraged me to look at our site more favorably. Those are:

* The site now shows distributions of scores, instead of just listing average stats. The frequency distribution can be most illuminating.
* A poor review, coupled with a "s/he's too hard!!" complaint can have a most salutary effect on the composition of your next class :-)
* Compared to what I've seen on other sites, the student comments on my school's site -- even and especially the negative ones -- appear to be quite mature. Sure, there are a few childish and transparent ones, but they're the exception (and, besides, likely to have the opposite of the intended effect).

Certainly, there is no universally perfect teacher or class. I think all anyone can ask is that posters be honest in their comments. I've read hundreds and hundreds of student comments (not only my own, but also in committee work), and I have to say that I am pretty impressed with the students' candor.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

"the point which was raised was that liberal professors fail their students merely because their politics are different, not because the student in question was being disrespectful."

This is nonsense. It's a flat out lie.

"In this case, "Mommy and Daddy" would be anyone expressing a sense of moral absolutism"

People who express moral absolutisms are jihadists. They are without reason or rhyme. Osama Bin Laden for example is a prime example or a moral absolutist. The truth is a malleable substance more often then not. Jihadists can't except this, they claim that the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth was known 2000 years ago and written in a book by some people in what is known now as israel. This book is full of all kinds of shit and yet the jihadists take every word to be the "truth". The problem is they often get it wrong too. The bible should clearly says homosexuals should be executed but somehow the jihadists end up saying homosexuals should not be allowed to marry. Go figure.

You want some food for thought answer the following questions true or false.

1) jesus christ is the son of god.
2) Paralell lines never meet.
3) A gallon of gasoline cost $1.65.
4) Christopher columbus discovered america.

Think hard now. What does your moral absolutism say about the truth of each question?

Re:Problem is...

[corbettw]

This is nonsense. It's a flat out lie.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Either way, that was the point that was raised, and it was not the point you kept hammering away on (see how I tied the discussion back to sledgehammers? aren't I clever?)

Wow, you've really got your religions mixed up, huh? Here's a hint: "jihad" is a term from Islam, a religion based on books written 1400 years ago by some people in what is now known as Saudi Arabia. Neither Christianity nor Judaism has a concept quite like jihad, though of course all three have some very similar concepts otherwise.

You want some food for thought answer the following questions true or false.

OK, I'll bite.

1) jesus christ is the son of god.
Technically not a moral question, but true.

2) Paralell lines never meet.
Definitely not a moral question, so it's moot, though it is true.

3) A gallon of gasoline cost $1.65.
Again, not a moral question, so again moot. But it's false, since the Exxon down the street is selling it for $1.73 today.

4) Christopher columbus discovered america.
The least moral question of them all. Though it is true. Whether he was the first, or most important, to do so is a seperate issue, but the fact that he did indeed arrive in the Americas, albeit accidentally, is beyond dispute.

Think hard now. What does your moral absolutism say about the truth of each question?

Well, since none of them are really moral questions, it doesn't really have anything to say about them. Here are some *real* moral questions for you, let's see if you've got the guts to answer them:

1) Is there ever a time when it is OK for someone to rape and murder your sister?
2) Would you throw a baby into a lit furnace to save yourself? What about 100 babies? 1000? If so, why? If not, why not?
3) If you found a bag full of money on the sidewalk, with no identifying marks, what would you do with it, and why?
4) Let's assume you're married. Now let's assume you're at a conference far away from your home town. One of the other attendees, to whom you are attracted, approaches you and offers sex. You know your spouse will never know. Do you accept? If so, why? If not, why not?

Think hard now. What does your moral relativism say about the relevance of each question?

Re:Problem is...

[demi]

Wow, you've really got your religions mixed up, huh? Here's a hint: "jihad" is a term from Islam, a religion based on books written 1400 years ago by some people in what is now known as Saudi Arabia. Neither Christianity nor Judaism has a concept quite like jihad, though of course all three have some very similar concepts otherwise.

Well, I'm not going to second-guess the poster--I think he or she was using the term because it has a negative connotation for westerners, to highlight the evil of the kind of intolerance that leads to holy war (implying that moral absolutism and intolerance are related). But that's just how I read it.

In any case, yes, the literal term jihad describes Islamic holy war, but the term crusade means exactly the same thing, and several of them have been prosecuted in the history of Christianity; so I don't think it's quite accurate to say there is no such concept in that religion.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't."

you mean it's relative?

"Wow, you've really got your religions mixed up, huh? Here's a hint: "jihad" is a term from Islam, a religion based on books written 1400 years ago by some people in what is now known as Saudi Arabia. Neither Christianity nor Judaism has a concept quite like jihad, though of course all three have some very similar concepts otherwise."

First of all you should look up the meaning of Jihad, it does not mean what you think it does. Every religion has their version of a Jihad just as every religion has a word meaning "not us". Whether it's infidel, goyem, or heathen all religions seek to set themselves apart from the rest of humanity. They are very effective at causing divisions among people. Do you remember the crusades? You should read about them, it's facinating history.

"1) jesus christ is the son of god.
Technically not a moral question, but true."

Only true if your flavor of superstition is christianity. Not true for Jews, Muslims, Budhists, atheists, or thinking people. If you have chosen christianity as a lifestyle choice then you have to believe that. Needless to say many people have been killed for answering false to this question.

"2) Paralell lines never meet.
Definitely not a moral question, so it's moot, though it is true."

True in euclidian space, not true under in non eculidian geometries. It depends on your framework.

"3) A gallon of gasoline cost $1.65.
Again, not a moral question, so again moot. But it's false, since the Exxon down the street is selling it for $1.73 today."

It's true in some time space continuums and not other. False where you are but true where I am. False at some time and true at another. A truth dependent on space and time.

"4) Christopher columbus discovered america.
The least moral question of them all. Though it is true. Whether he was the first, or most important, to do so is a seperate issue, but the fact that he did indeed arrive in the Americas, albeit accidentally, is beyond dispute."

You can't discover a place if people have been living there for thousands of years. So it's actually false. However it's true from a cultural perspective. He discovered it for the portugese but other people discovered for other cultures before and after. A cultural truth much like the first question.

" 1) Is there ever a time when it is OK for someone to rape and murder your sister?

Yes. If it would stop a genocide for example.

2) Would you throw a baby into a lit furnace to save yourself? What about 100 babies? 1000? If so, why? If not, why not?

Yes. I can't imagine a situation in which I would have to throw a thousand babies into a fire but I would very easily leave a burning building with a thousand babies in it to save my life. I would also light the fire if it meant saving my life.

3) If you found a bag full of money on the sidewalk, with no identifying marks, what would you do with it, and why?

I would spend it. Why not?

4) Let's assume you're married. Now let's assume you're at a conference far away from your home town. One of the other attendees, to whom you are attracted, approaches you and offers sex. You know your spouse will never know. Do you accept? If so, why? If not, why not?"

Depends on if I thought she was clean and would not rip me off and other factors. I have cheated on girlfriends before so most likely I would also cheat on my wife. Most people do. Statistics show that a majority of husbands and wives are have cheated on their spouses sometime or another. Have you ever cheated on a girlfriend?

"Think hard now. What does your moral relativism say about the relevance of each question?"

It says that your definition of morality is very limited. It also shows that you lack imagination. Finally your answers to my questions indicate an inability to think deeply about things.

Re:Problem is...

[Gaijin42]

I was not lying. Perhaps exaggerating. But you will surely admit that conservative viewpoints are grossly underrepresented when compared to liberal viewpoints on most campuses.

As for people accepting viewpoints. I know many more conservatives who are willing to debate out (civily!) an issue with any takers. However the majority of liberals I know take a very dogmatic approach, and do nothing except repeat out whatever slogan is currently hip in the liberal world. They don't have any reason or logic behind their opinions, and therefore cannot discuss them. (Since you didn't do anything but flame bait and repeat what I said, I am tempted to put you into this category)

In any case, the only place that I can actually respond to you :

Take a poly sci class, and try to argue the conservative viewpoint, and you get an F."

Take a physics class and try to argue with your professor and you get an F.

Physics are matters of fact. Poly Sci is not fact, it is theories, and ideas. There are plenty of competeing ideas to go around.

Re:Problem is...

[R.Caley]

Fair is fair, and profs that don't deserve tenure should have it stripped from them

It seems you don't know what the word `tenure' means, and why it exists.

Your confusion seems to extend to other words too: marxism and liberalism very rarely end up in the same person's beliefs (the former being fundamentally class based, the latter individual based).

As for UCB being marxist. I don't see that it makes sense to ascribe beliefs to a beurocratic organisation, especially rather abstract historiographical and economic theories. However, if one were to do so, it seems clear that a marxist university would not be charging large tuition fees to all (qualified) comers, but would be giving courses free and only to people from the correct class background or holding the correct beliefs so there would be no issue of any student and staff member dissagreeing on such matters.

Re:Problem is...

[actiondan]

However, the biggest difference may be that the online reviews tend to be posted after the course grade is known. That can have unintended consequences.

Surely it would make sense to close the reviews system at the date that the scores are posted? That way, the final grade would not be able to influence the reviews...

Dan.

Re:Problem is...

[corbettw]

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't."

you mean it's relative?

The word you're scrambling for is "irrelevant".

First of all you should look up the meaning of Jihad, it does not mean what you think it does.

Jihad has two meanings. The first, and most commonly thought of (in the West) is "holy war". Strictly speaking, this concept doesn't exist in Christianity, though we do have a concept of "just war" which is similar in many respects. The primary difference is that Christians aren't promised heaven for killing others in war. The other, more subtle, meaning is that of an internal struggle to become right with God. Again, this concept doesn't quite exist in Christianity, though, again, there are similar ones. The difference here is who is the primary actor, the penitent or the Redeemer. In Islam, salvation is something each person must strive for; in Christianity, it is a gift from God (though different branches may or may not emphasize a certain amount of action on the part of the penitent).

Only true if your flavor of superstition is christianity.

I beg to differ. Christ is God in flesh, whether you believe it or not.

(I'm skipping the next two points since they were moot to start with, though your answers do show a certain arrogance which I find amusing.)

You can't discover a place if people have been living there for thousands of years. So it's actually false.

I discovered a great Chinese restaurant with my girlfriend last night. Or maybe I didn't, since other people already knew about it. Maybe you should rethink what "discovery" means.

Then we get to your answers about *real* moral questions. Simple, off the cuff, questions. Because it is in simplicity that we are most likely to find the divine. Your answers make clear that you are an evil, selfish, man, and it would not surprise me to learn you have few close friends, and not by choice. You should take a good, close look at your life, and ask yourself if you are really and truly fulfilled. I strongly suspect you are not; if you think are, I'm inclined to believe you are fooling only yourself.

I'll pray for you.

Re:Problem is...

[Ioldanach]

It was also funny reading some of the things students posted on whototake.com about other teachers: DR SMITH SUCKS BIGTIME!! SHE THE FUCKIN WORST ENGLISH TEECHUR IN THE WORLD! WHAT A BITCH!!!! I TOOK ENGLISH 1 FROM HER. AND I HAD TO DROP! CUZ, SHE THINK WE GOT NOTHING TO DO BUT READ BORRING BOOKS. N RIGHT PAPERS N SHIT.

Faced with an opportunity to delete libelous comments, I think this one would definitely have to be left up. I think whoever posted that comment should definitely look into finishing an English class.

Re:Problem is...

[pianophile]

Christ is God in flesh, whether you believe it or not.

No, it is a matter of faith. You can say it is a fact as much as you like, but that won't make it so.

Re:Problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

If hes a terrible professor, & exhibits paranoid behavior, maybe his career SHOULD be ruined.

a terrible student only ruins one career, his own, but a terrible teacher can do so much more damage than that.

Re:Problem is...

[Idarubicin]

If he's a horrible enough teacher that he warrants consistent bad comments then perhaps tenure shouldn't even be what his superiors are considering

What if a professor receives consistent poor evaluations repeatedly from the same individual under different aliases? I'm sure that anyone who's read a few -1, Flamebait posts on Slashdot could come up with thirty or forty nastily defamatory remarks without breaking a sweat.

Even more insidious would be thirty or forty more subtle negative remarks and moderately poor evaluations. For a young professor without tenure or firm reputation, such a campaign of libel could be quite damaging. The anonymity that the site provides allows one to spam the rankings if you are so inclined. At least the instructor evaluations administered by the schools only allow one vote per student.

Re:Problem is...

[geoffspear]

I am not a psychiatrist, but I'm pretty sure a schizophrenic is not, by definition, a reasonable person.

Re:Problem is...

[hey!]

Haven't you heard of astroturfing?

Student goes in and asks for an extension on the paper. Teacher denies X

Re:Problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it Ok for a liberal or marxist prof to fail a student just because he's conservative?"

perhaps its more about the fact that many conservative ideals and practices are complete nonsense & anyone who believes in them deserves to fail. Not because of their party affiliations, but because of the fact that many of their theories are unsound.

College tuition should not be the *only* prerequsite for getting a diploma.

Re:Problem is...

[otprof]

2) Would you throw a baby into a lit furnace to save yourself? What about 100 babies? 1000? If so, why? If not, why not?

Yes. I can't imagine a situation in which I would have to throw a thousand babies into a fire but I would very easily leave a burning building with a thousand babies in it to save my life. I would also light the fire if it meant saving my life.

Holy shit.

OK, let me try that again. This actually raises a good point. Clearly choices about life and death like this one come down to individual motives and values. What's "right for you" might not be what's "right for me," and all that jazz. However, what is the basis for me to call bullshit on a moral/ethical decision that you make, even recognizing the contextual nature of all judgments?

It has something to do with communal norms, but we can all think of examples where the whole community loses its moral compass.

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

"However, what is the basis for me to call bullshit on a moral/ethical decision that you make, even recognizing the contextual nature of all judgments?"

For most people it's superstition/religion. It all has to with what god you listen to and why.

For example most people believe that life is sacred somehow. Of course they don't actually believe that they just say it. Otherwise they would be opposed to the death penalty, war of all kinds, killing of animals and even vegetables. What they mean is that some life is sacred and other life is disposable.

So the real question is which life is sacred and which life is not. For me my life is more sacred then the lives of a thousand babies. Just like my life is more sacred then the lives of a thousand chicken.

Re:Problem is...

[NeoSkandranon]

It's a shame that rating system doesn't work, as oftentimes universities are more concerned about having facaulty on hand (as was the case with my math teacher last sem) who are good researchers rather than good teachers

Re:Problem is...

[modecx]

Nor am I a psychiatrist, but I have had quite a lot of contact with mentally different-and ill people. I grew up with several such people; my grandmother was a contractor to a local mental hospital to give outside care.

Really, most schizophrenics are not that extraordinarily weird. It's a poorly understood disorder. Most schizophrenics are what you'd classify as shy (or to the extreme--reclusive). They have a hard time with their emotions, and aren't comfortable in large groups, have disorganized speech and thought patterns. Schizophrenia IS NOT mutiple personality disorder, mind you.

Not all schizophrenics have wild hallucinations, but most do have a vivid imagination, and that can keep them occupied. When they're staring off into space, they're in their own world. Sometimes it's difficult to get them out, and they don't respond to communication, or say something that has nothing to do with anything. They're just concentrating on something in there. I imagine that you'd be amazed at what's going on inside of their mind sometimes, if only they had the capacity to reliably communicate it.

Paranoid schizophrenics you gotta watch out for, though. They're far more likely to do strange / violent stuff. And even then they're more likely to do damage to themselves.

But, I'd say that most schizophrenics certianly have the capacity to be "reasonable persons", if they're on the right medication, or if they can reliably control it themselves. The latter (control it themselves) is the better option if they can get away with it. While the medication might help the delusions, I understand that it has a very bad numbing effect. Like anesthesia for the mind; it slows down and dulls all of the senses, and what little emotion they had before is likely to be all but gone.

Anyway... Chances are good that you know a person or two that can be classified as schizophrenic. It might affect about 1% of the people in the world at one point in their lives. It's notably more common in people of Norweigen and Irish decent (for better or for worse, I'm decended from both Irish and Norweigen ancestors, among others).

Re:Problem is...

[corbettw]

For me my life is more sacred then the lives of a thousand babies.

And yet you attack others for supposedly condoning violence? Interesting....

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

"And yet you attack others for supposedly condoning violence? Interesting...."

Yes I do. There is a difference between choosing your life over some body elses and killing people because they belong to another political party. I can make that distinction but apparently you can't.

Do you understand the difference between the two positions? I don't advocate the actual killing of people just because they belong to another party or think differently then me. On the other hand if it was a choice between my life and yours I choose mine.

Think of it this way. Is your life worth 10 thousand iraqis? It is isn't it? It's worth killing 10 thousand innocent iraqi civillians just so that Saddam Hussein won't one day make a weapon and attack you. The mere (and unlikely) possibility that you might one day die from a weapon made by Saddam is worth killing 10 thousand innocent people in Iraq right?

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

"The primary difference is that Christians aren't promised heaven for killing others in war"

And yet this has never stopped stopped christians from killing in the name of their god.

"I beg to differ. Christ is God in flesh, whether you believe it or not."

You believe this because you are a superstitius person. You believe things people tell you even though you have no evidence for them.

"(I'm skipping the next two points since they were moot to start with, though your answers do show a certain arrogance which I find amusing.)"

When confronted with information that is contradictory to your deeply held beliefs it's best to ignore the information altogether.

"I discovered a great Chinese restaurant with my girlfriend last night. Or maybe I didn't, since other people already knew about it. Maybe you should rethink what "discovery" means."

I already explained this to you. It's a relative term. Columbus did not "discover" america because people were already living here for thousands of years before that. he did discover it for the portugese just like you discovered your chinese restaurant.

It's a culturally realitvistic truth. Some truths are like that.

" Because it is in simplicity that we are most likely to find the divine."

No not really. Simplicity is all that you can wrap your mind around but it is no way "divine".

"You should take a good, close look at your life, and ask yourself if you are really and truly fulfilled. "

You should look at yourself and find out why you are afraid to question what other people tell you to believe and think. Ignorace may be bliss but it's harmful too. As they say and unexamined life is not worth living.

"I'll pray for you"

Don't pray for me. There are a lot of people who need your prayer more. Start with praying for the more then ten thousand innocent iraqi civillians killed by your country. Apparently the mere shadow of a threat to your life was worth killing 10 thousand innocent people in iraq. While you are at it you may want to pray for the thousands of women and children in afghanistan too. They too died so that you could live more secure.

They all died by your hands (indirectly) and they all died so that there would be a lesser chance of you being attacked by terrorist. Your tax dollars bought the bombs and the ariplanes and guns that killed them least you could do is pray for them don't you think?

Re:Problem is...

[corbettw]

*sigh* There are so many things wrong in your statements, I don't even know where to start. You ignore the work of dozens of philosophers, from diverse cultures, who all contend that the simplest truths are the best. You confuse Spain with Portugal. You also assume you know best about how I came to my beliefs, and also assume I'm not already praying for the innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan (and other places you've never heard of). You can't reason your way out of a paperbag, my friend.

Like I said, examine your life. Examine others' lives. See if you're truly happy (which it is plainly evident you are not), and then figure out what you need to do to make yourself happy. This angry, nihilistic, track you're on now won't serve you well in the years to come.

Re:Problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't think of a scenario in which someone's career could be ruined by a Slashdot troll.
I'm hoping Darl, his brother,(and his other brother Darl)'s careers will be the first.....

Re:Problem is...

[Malcontent]

I ignore lots of philosphers usually it's because they are full of shit.

You asked me a rhetorical question. Would I throw a thousand babies into a fire to save my life. I answered honestly that I would.

But in reality tens of thousands of completely innocent people have been killed by your tax dollars and your country and your president. Not to save your life but to make your life a tiny little bit safer.

Imagine that. Just to reduce the risk of you might get killed a tiny percentage you dropped bombs on babies.

This is not a rhetorical question, it's a real fact. You actually killed people just to increase your security a tiny little bit.

You better be praying full time buddy. Don't waste your time hanging out in slashdot, God is right now looking down on you and asking you why your security is worth the lives tens of thousands of innocents.

Re:Problem is...

[geoffspear]

My point was that a disease classified by disordered thought patterns pretty much precludes someone who is suffering from it from being a "reasonable person." In a differential diagnosis, if your patient is reasonable, you can pretty much rule out schizophrenia (or psychoses in general). A "reasonable" person with schizophenia-like symptoms other than the whole unreasonableness thing more likely has schizotypal personality disorder or something similar, IMO.

Re:Problem is...

[modecx]

Of course, with no psychological training, I'm unqualified to argue about it at that level.

However, I will politely disagree.

Legally, could someone with schizophrenia be found "unreasonable" or in other words "not guilty for reasons of insanity"? Absolutely. Hell, I'm sure that plenty of people that are reasonable, and generally considered "sane" have obtained the reasons of insanity verdict. What I'm saying is that metric alone dosen't mean they're insane, or unreasonable.

I submit that the lines between sane and insane, reasonable, and unreasonable, schizophrenic and schizotypal are a fair bit finer, and are not necessairly black and white than is usually accepted.

The real factor is the delusions and halucinations, and how long they last, whether there are manic episodes and negative symptoms after an active episode, and some other stuff.

But, wth do I know. Iv'e never even taken psychology.

Legal?

[drcagn]

Is this legal? I don't understand how user submitted reviews would get this site knocked offline. How is this any different from someone posting bad stuff about a teacher on a LiveJournal (or other blogging site) blog?

Re:Legal?

[Cyberherbalist]

You might want to read the guy's explanation, which is in the comments. He was forced off by a threat of lawsuit.

Re:Legal?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Slander is slander no matter how it's printed and published.

Re:Legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

unless its opinion
then its legal because its still an opinion

and that sort of name calling would be considered, opinion.

Re:Legal?

[cpt kangarooski]

Actually, slander is by definition spoken. When printed or published, it is libel.

Secondly, the method that libel is disseminated is in fact of the upmost importance these days. Thanks to the one teeny tiny good (and constitutional) bit of the infamous CDA, it is legal for people providing services on the Internet (e.g. fora) to have libellous statements therein.

The originator of the libel can be sued -- but no suit can be brought against the web site where the libel resides.

The professor hasn't got a leg to stand on, and the site -- and the offensive comments -- need to go back up.

Re:Legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

To clarify, he took the site down because he didn't feel like dealing with the mess. He might bring it back after changing how it works-he thinks it needed an overhaul anyway. He's well aware that he'd almost certainly win in court, and he has experience with a good precedent in which the site's predecessor won a similar case, but winning a lawsuit takes time, effort, and usually upfront lawyer fees. That's the problem with the court system today-fighting harrassment with frivolous lawsuits carries real costs, no matter how right you are.

Re:Legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you means is: it is illegal for a web site to post any unfavorable opinion of the public because it could possibly damage the reputation of someone. What if the person deserves the negative commit, or what if the commit is true? Is it steal illegal then to speak the truth in the USA?

Re:Legal?

[mog007]

Free speech doesn't encompass either of these because...?

Re:Legal?

[cpt kangarooski]

I am having some trouble understanding this. I suspect you are not a native speaker of English.

1. It is true that libel and slander are not allowed because they can harm people's reputations. BUT, just hurting reputations isn't bad enough. The libel or slander must also be untrue. If it is true, then no matter how harmful it is to the victim, it is okay. Truth is a perfect defense. It is legal to speak the truth as far as libel and slander are in question.

2. Also, if there is no real harm to the victim's reputation, then it is okay. This can happen if, for example, no one would believe the libelous or slanderous statement. Famous people and government officials are more likely to not suffer harm (or to have to put up with it) than ordinary people.

3. Due to a special law, 47 USC 230, no one can sue a web site, ISP, or other Internet information provider, if all that they have done is to print libel that someone else made and gave to them.

For example, if I libeled someone here, then Slashdot is not responsible, and cannot be sued. I can still be sued though. And if I ran Slashdot, then Slashdot could be sued, since there was not a 'someone else' to give the libel to them.

This is a slightly new law. Under the old rules, a book publisher could be held responsible for the libel of an author since they were closely involved. A book seller probably would not be, however.

In sum, the web site here is OK and cannot be sued as long as they did not write the review that started this event. The professor is wrong to try. The professor can sue the person who actually wrote the review, however. I don't know who would win in that situation, because I don't know enough about it.

Re:Legal?

[shadowbearer]

Yeah.

It's not the the truth or non-truth that's screwing things up nowadays, it's the threat of the lawsuit, and the potential of having to spend large amount of one's income and time to defend oneself (especially for students) against allegations wrt to you said truth, or did not.
The courts, the lawyers, they have a lock on our society. That can be evidenced by the informational content of your post (highly accurate).

But I'm preaching to the choir; and

I'm not disagreeing with you, as a matter of fact I agree with you. I just think it's disgusting and I believe that it's being carried to ridiculous extremes; and that this kind of thing will eventually destroy our society. I think it's made major inroads towards that goal already, intended or not.

I also think that this will not change until our current governmental system is changed (by whatever means proves necessary). I don't think it can be dealt with within the rules set down already, anymore, however.

Well put, Capt'n :) Communist Marsupial or not :)

SB

Re:Legal?

[hendridm]

> I don't understand how user submitted reviews would get this site knocked offline.

Simple. In the U.S., the legal system is driven by money. Since a professor likely makes more money than some 20-y.o. dude running an ad-supported web site, it's pretty easy to imagine why he brought down the site. He who has the gold makes the rules.

Re:Legal?

[jackb_guppy]

But now he is going to start censoring the posts, desiding if it "bad" or not.

He crossed the line, and now his ass is on the line.

He better get lawyer NOW!

Re:Legal?

[cpt kangarooski]

No, he's still okay if he does that, IIRC.

And it's not necessary that he do so either. Really, he ought to just leave it completely alone.

Please see my other, longer post on this subject, here

Re:Legal?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

You are making unfounded accusations against another person. We have laws on the books because this is a grave problem, and has been since the invention of the printing press.

And the blog dies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google cache: http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:Im6KWmeRTvUJ: www.dylangreene.com/blog.asp%3FblogID%3D378+&hl=en &ie=UTF-8

Prerequisite

[Ghoser777]

I'm pretty sure "Bipolar Paranoid Schizophrenic" (now spelled correctly) is a prerec for being a professor, so I'm not sure what he's complaining about.

Matt Fahrenbacher

Re:Prerequisite

[MichaelGCD]

> (now spelled correctly)

Well, he'd know how to spell it if his english teacher wasn't such a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic...

Re:Prerequisite

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post gave me an idea, why not search google for those terms.. but the only luck I had was using bi-polar. There's no cache, but you can see the teacher's names, so could this be the guy?

David Corey Professor of Science (other) Overall Rating: F Reviews: 2 Classes: 2 Review this professor. Bi-polar ,boring asshole. Overall Grade: F, ...

Re:Prerequisite

[Anonymous Coward]

Being bipolar and being schizophrenic are two different things (the manifestations of which may be enough to confuse even some experts, however, as I've been made aware).

Read the DSM IV if you wish to find out more. I know that it's at the reference desk of at least our library here...

(That said, yes, I've had some bad [and good!] professors.... you never know...)

Re:Prerequisite

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with english teachers is they can't make up their mind whether they're the teacher, or some character from Shakespeare. I guess if they chose wisely that character would be bipolar paranoid schizophrenic themselves, which would make for some interesting mental states.

Re:Prerequisite

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, it's a corequisite.

Re:Prerequisite

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure "Bipolar Paranoid Schizophrenic" (now spelled correctly) is a prerec...

I'm sure the irony of this statement is not lost on you...

Re:Prerequisite

[addaon]

co-rec or pre-rec?

Ebay precedent?

[Neppy]

Didn't Ebay just win a case that said they are not liable for the statements posted by users?
Wouldn't this logically apply to teacher reviews and make them nonliable for things posted by their users?

Re:Ebay precedent?

[chunkwhite86]

Didn't Ebay just win a case that said they are not liable for the statements posted by users? Wouldn't this logically apply to teacher reviews and make them nonliable for things posted by their users?

It's a good precedent but as the poster stated - he doesn't have the time/resources to put on a legal defense. No matter how good the previous rulings are, you still need legal counsel.

Re:Ebay precedent?

[88NoSoup4U88]

Yep, but the guy also says in his weblog that he does not have the money and/or time to spend on any lawsuit that might start out of this.
He is taking the safe route for now, and taken the whole thing down so he can review the whole situation.

Re:Ebay precedent?

[LostCluster]

But that's only because eBay can deflect by coughing up everything they have about the user account that made the posting. A site that intentionally forgets what IP address made a post exposes themself to the liabilty for what they allow to published.

In a sense, those who bring forward Anonymous works end up accepting the slander and libel problems pn behalf of those whose identites they offer to hide.

Re:Ebay precedent?

[Trillian_1138]

IANAL. This is a personal opinion.

I don't think sites should be LIABLE for what people post, but because of the unique nature of the Internet, once something is posted on a site it's likely to stay there and be easily accessable, in ways past forms of communication weren't. That gives sites like Teacher Reviews, and even places like Slashdot, unique responsibility.

If I tell a friend that Mr. Example Teacher is an ass, word may or may not spread, and the comments may or may not be linked back to me. But it takes an active effort by many people for the comment to spread. And if it's not true, it will probably fizzle out. Even if it isn't true and does NOT fizzle out, rumors are very specific forms of communication that most people don't take serriously.

On the other hand, if I post a comment to Teacher Reviews, 30 seconds of my time has created something that may stay there for ever and ever. And, unlike rumors, there's no way for others to say, "I don't think this is true, but I heard that...." All the comments are posted as equals.

So I would say if something libelous is posted to a website, while the webmaster isn't responsible for the actual content, I would say they're responsible for removing it in a timely manner, once notified of the content.

Speaking of Teacher Reviews specifically, I think if a bad review of a teacher was posted (talks slow, bad assignments, boring) then Teacher Review does not have a responsibility to take it down. On the contrary, they have a responsibility to leave it up if they want to achieve their goals of a student-reviewed teacher database. But I would say labeling a teacher as a "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic" could be considered libelous. I don't think it's unreasonable that it be asked to be removed.

Bringing it back to Slashdot...

This site is in a very odd position, in that much of the postings here (for example, about SCO or Microsoft) could easily be considered as libel. But unlike Teacher Reviews, they're (usually) posted as jokes. And Slashdot has a moderation system and a reply system so posts that are blatently untrue get shouted down by more accurate responses.

I'd say Teacher Reviews, unfortunatly, took the only realistic course of action. They took the site down, and are taking time to regroup. I'd be sad if some of the suggested implimentations actually happen (hiding teacher reviews from Google, or non anonymous reviews) but I think things like emailing professors reviews or having a better process for review removeall are very reasonable.

All in all, I hope Teacher Reviews is able to continue. It's a great site and a very nifty idea.

-Trillian

PS I didn't find a way to work it gracefully into my post, but I think the teacher who threatened to sue, even after the review was removied, is an ass. I'll risk the possibility of getting Slashdot sued, and go so far as to say he sounds like one of those crazy Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenics you've been hearing so much about recently....

Re:Ebay precedent?

[martyn s]

I don't really get this. I mean, it might mean a definite loss, but isn't it possible, at least in theory, to do fight a lawsuit without a lawyer? Is that totally impossible?

Re:Ebay precedent?

[AeroIllini]

I would agree that sites such as TeacherReviews and Slashdot have a slightly more unique standpoint legally, but I don't think TeacherReviews should have been taken down.

The site clearly stated that the postings were only the opinions of the students posting them, and not those of the site itself, in its legal disclaimer (Google cache). If any libel is to be brought forward, it would be against the student who posted the comment, not the site. Dylan should, theoretically, be in the clear.

However, since he does run a site that could have a slight effect on a professor's career (not that the review boards should be reading this site anyway...) he should also find some way to moderate the reviews. It might not have to be exactly what Slashdot uses, but at the very least give the [registered] users a "Trash this review" button or an Amazon-esque "Was this review helpful?" button. Self-feedback is a powerful thing, as long as it has accountability. To that end, I also think that you should have to be a registered user to post a review or moderate someone else's review, but should have the option of hiding your identity when others read the review you have posted, in case the professor is the petty type who would adjust grades or other opportunities for something like that. You don't have to tell the professor who you are, but the site administrator knows.

But, of course, IANAL.

Re:Ebay precedent?

[cujo_1111]

The legal system isn't about the people anymore. It is about giving jobs to the scum of the earth and making them look important.

It is virtually impossible to go to court without legal counsel. It has been done, but you have to put a hell of a lot of work into it.

Re:Ebay precedent?

[shadowbearer]

In a logical society it would.

Ergo....

SB

Re:Ebay precedent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since "you have to put a hell of a lot of work into it" it seems like that 'scum', as you call it, is pretty important.

the site is down.. but

[Anonymous Coward]

The site was taken down because a professor complained about comments made against him, and threatened to sue.

Thanks for the link to the site though ;)

the real reason

[potpie]

Apparently, SCO thought the comments were actually written about them and were infringing on their IP. And Microsoft thought the comments were too similar to comments written about Bill Gates that they had already copyrighted. And the RIAA believes that they were the lawful target of the comments, which were shared over the internet and used against somebody else.

Re:the real reason

[HFactor_UM]

This thing deserves a 5, come on! Well done, sir.

Other sites?

[AvantLegion]

Are there other sites like this one? I'm almost certain I've seen at least one other one before.

Re:Other sites?

[potpie]

Here's one[ratemyteachers.com]

And moderators: I posted this first... before you mod down for redundant, check the times of posting.

Re:Other sites?

[John Courtland]

ratemyprofessors.com

Re:Other sites?

[Zycom]

Here in Jersey, we use RateMyTeachers.com . Halfway through the last semester, a teacher of mine actually told us to rate him on there. Its anonymous, so he could find out what people really thought about him and adjust accordingly.

Nobody did it. I think that says something about how much people respect him.

Re:Other sites?

[NoodleSlayer]

Ratemyteachers.com is mostly High and Middle schools, TeacherReviews had quite a few colleges, and I had seen a couple of my professors link to it too.

So as such they don't quite overlap.

Re:Other sites?

[Txiasaeia]

Ratemyprofessors.com is a college/university site; ratemyteachers is for high school.

Re:Other sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck did I get marked redundant? You fucking idiots.

No more fun for me then....

[emily_the_dragonet]

I liked that site. My school had tons of reviewed teachers, and you could read 'em and then there would be this moment of "Hey! I know who wrote this!" That was cool. If one teacher has one problem, he should get it removed and make the site check what's being posted more. He doesn't need to shut the site down.

totally inaccurate

[Anonymous Coward]

I had that prof, and calling him "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic" is totally inaccurate; he was not bipolar.

Great

[chunkwhite86]

So not only is he punished with unfair accusations, but now we follow it up with a thorough slashdotting? Have mercy on the poor guy!

You don't need to delete all the site

[Via_Patrino]

You don't need to delete all the site, just delete the article the professor thought offensive, or mod it troll :-)

Re:You don't need to delete all the site

[tarth]

That's not insightful. Read what he said... even after removing the offending content the professor still threatened a lawsuit.

Re:You don't need to delete all the site

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh...RTFA. He already did, but the professor still threatened to sue. IMO, the owner of teacherreviews.com is a pansy for backing down.

1st Amendment?

[t0rnt0pieces]

Doesn't the first amendment protect websites such as this? We may as well shut down every review website and magazine. Ok, maybe some slanderous things were said, but those comments were made by the reviewer and are not the opinion of the web site owner. Doesn't every similar website have that disclaimer?

Re:1st Amendment?

[Killswitch1968]

The 1st Amendment is a very popular amendment to trump with various legislation. One of the most common is the old "libel/slander" suits. And yes, it is stupid, just ask Somethingawful.com

Re:1st Amendment?

[the_2nd_coming]

I hate morons like you. the first amendment just protects people from the government, NOT private citizens or companies.

that is why boycotts of the stars at events durring the war were legal. you can say what ever you like and the government will not touch you (out side what thurgood marshal set forth about dangerouse speech). but that does not mean you are free from paying consequenses for what you say from other non-governmental groups or individuals.

Re:1st Amendment?

[t0rnt0pieces]

So what? The point is that this site cannot be forced to be shut down. The only thing that can shut down a website like this (unless the owner agrees to do so) is a court order, ie the government. If this isn't a first amendment case I don't know what is.

Re:1st Amendment?

[NMerriam]

Opinion is protected, yes. But the point made here is that untruthful things are being said -- and publishing untrue "facts" about private citizens (as opposed to public figures) is called libel.

You can call the professor an idiot, but you can't say he is bipolar unless you have medical evidence to back up your statement.

Re:1st Amendment?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can call the professor an idiot, but you can't say he is bipolar unless you have medical evidence to back up your statement.

It's in context as a general insult against the professor's pesonality. I don't see how that fails to qualify as an opinion.

Re:1st Amendment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of punitive damages?

Re:1st Amendment?

[martyn s]

Why aren't you allowed to say he's bipolar? Can you at least say he "seems to be" bipolar, or "I think" he's bipolar?

Re:1st Amendment?

[LostCluster]

There's a very big difference between a bad review and a slanderous one. It's okay to give your opinion that something is bad, it's not okay to express as a fact something that is not a fact about what you're reviewing.

Re:1st Amendment?

[NixLuver]

Good grief, professionals often make this assertion without 'medical evidence' to back up their claims.

Re:1st Amendment?

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit. It's used as an insult just as "idiot" would be used, that is extremely obvious. Like if I call you "dumb", I don't mean you're a mute. So if you're not a mute, it's not slander or libel. It's just an insult.

The fact that he had to shut down his site(because of ANY contraints) because it contains insults is a sign that something is definitely wrong.

This next bit is to show my solidarity for the student who effectively got his words censored:

That professor is fucking torturously idiotic. If I had to have another class, with him, I would slit my right wrist with a razor, leaving my child fatherless, and my widow crying; and it would be worth it.

Re:1st Amendment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, it doesn't matter whether its Constitutionally protected or not. It may even be a textbook, open-and-shut case. The truth is, a small-time operation like this just doesn't have the resources to face a lawsuit, and thats why just a threat often shuts these places down.

Re:1st Amendment?

[Kris_J]

My American law is not the best, but I'm fairly sure that "freedom of speech", much like "censorship" are concepts that only apply to government actions, not the actions of private citizens.

Re:1st Amendment?

[Flower]

This isn't someone reviewing a digital camera here. It is someone abusing their anonymity and deliberately trying to smear another's reputation without basis in fact. That isn't protected speech and it never should be.

My question is this. Where is the public outcry against the imbecile who abused the system and thus got it shut down?

Re:1st Amendment?

[cHiphead]

I can say its my opinion that a teacher is bipolar, and im fairly sure that teacherreviews disclaimed that each users post was his or her own OPINION. its definitely a first amendment issue.

Re:1st Amendment?

[line.at.infinity]

Although the reviewer could have said "He seems to be ____" instead of "He is ____" and gotten away with it, I suppose it was clear from context that the review was supposed to be taken figuratively. The student's opinion suppressed here is: "I don't recommend you to take his courses." Nobody should read anonymous sources on the internet without a grain of salt. Should the architect of a building be forced to bring down the building because it provided wall space where people can write lies on it?

Re:1st Amendment?

[gantrep]

Hey studioqb is too easy. my friend got every question right with google in like 40 minutes.

Re:1st Amendment?

[nudicle]

The First Amendment applies to the federal government restricting your speech. The 14th Amendment "incorporates" the First Amendment to apply its provisions to state governments as well.

If you wanted to challenge a libel suit with a First Amendment defense, I think you'd have to argue that the libel laws the professor invoked violated the First Amendment. You wouldn't win this argument.

As has been mentioned in other posts, you'd think the CDA and its interpretation in US courts would have the website in the clear and force the professor to go after the poster of the allegedly libellous material. It's possible that this is a little unclear as the cases I remember dealing with this involved ISP liability rather than website liability. But I could be massively wrong about that.

Either way, teacherreviews' problem is that unless the EFF, ACLU, or some other group with deep pockets takes an interest in underwriting the expenses it doesn't really matter whose side the law is on. What matters is that one side, especially if the teachers' unions get behind the professor, has a crapload more resources than the other and can bully the little guy into acquiescing by the mere threat of litigation. Using the law this way happens all the time.

Re:1st Amendment?

[KarmaMB84]

You are a moron to believe that the courts care that the amendment specifies Congress or the federal government or states or anyone for that matter. They have shown complete disregard for such provisions in the past and now disregard those provisions regularly. In order for someone to use the court system to extract money from someone, there must be a law passed by some body that the first amendment likely applies to that says the kind of speech they sue over is not protected. In order for those laws or court decisions to stand, the criteria for "unreasonable speech" must not clash with the first amendment.

Never ever read the Constitution as it is written. If you want a complete picture of the Constitution, you'll have to read every court case involving Constitutional law ever. They are constantly changing interpretations of it and completely ignoring certain words or just reading more into it because the people that wrote it probably couldn't forsee the current situation.

Re:1st Amendment?

[goldspider]

"My question is this. Where is the public outcry against the imbecile who abused the system and thus got it shut down?"

Because people like that are hailed here as heroes for daring to stand up to The Man! It's how they justify other illegal activities such as downloading music via P2P.

Re:1st Amendment?

[Nimey]

Um, no. The first amendment only applies to government actions.

Since you obviously have no clue what you're talking about, let me explain:

Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...

That's Congress, AKA the government.

Nowhere does it say J. Random Person can't take away your "free speech" rights. This is why your boss can control what you say on the clock.

Re:1st Amendment?

[KarmaMB84]

The first amendment as originally written only applied to the US Congress passing laws (but was also generally not enforced or was interpretted very narrowly). However, that portion is now generally ignored and the amendment is usually applied to anyone trying to silence a citizen for any speech not deemed to be "harmful" (FIRE! FIRE!) or "unreasonable" (slander, libel, defamation).

The written Constitution is like a hard copy that hasn't been updated for a while and what we currently go by is sorta in working memory or patched with old court decisions (sometimes multiple on top of each other for a single issue). Yes, it's that bad =)

Re:1st Amendment?

[KarmaMB84]

The 14th amendment is fine and dandy but is your copy of the constitution full patched with all the latest supreme court decisions and legal precedents? :) Slander, libel and defamation without truth to back them up are simply not protected because they are not reasonable and are harmful much like yelling FIRE! in a theater is not protected. Nothing to do with the first amendment not applying. It would apply if the opinions were fact based.

Re:1st Amendment?

[KarmaMB84]

Yet another person that has not patched their First Amendment with the latested 14th Amendment, court decision and legal precedent patches. Sorry, the good old trusty "Congress didn't do it." excuse for violating a person's civil liberties has been long dead. =)

J. Random Person can fire his employees for saying things he doesn't like while they are supposed to be working but that is not the same as suing them to force them to pay damages or to retract their statements that are not malicious non-truths which harm J. Random Person.

Re:1st Amendment?

[LostCluster]

Hey studioqb is too easy. my friend got every question right with google in like 40 minutes.

Admittedly going offtopic here...

Your friend must have been the one who set the new speed record yesterday.

I tell people answering the first 20 from the top of your head and then searching for the rest is the way to go, but do they listen? Well, everybody else who played the game in the last 24 hours didn't win.

Re:1st Amendment?

[nudicle]

Yes, my copy of the Constitution is mostly up-to-date. My understanding of the scotus and various circuits' decisions is not, I admit, up-to-the-month complete. However, the fact remains that the first amendment applies only to the federal and state governments restricting your speech.

I may not know a lot, but I am also almost finished with law school, which, I bet, is more than you can claim for knowledge of law.

If you don't believe me about this, Larry Lessig himself has articulated a similar point just this week here : http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001718.shtml#0 01718

When you read that remember that corporations are considered "persons," and then try some google searches to learn more.

Re:1st Amendment?

[KarmaMB84]

Flonting the fact that you've "almost finished law school" does not at all impress me. I've communicated with law students before and I cannot say I was ever impressed by their knowledge of anything. By the way, what is your specialty? State law, state constitutional law, federal law, federal constitutional law or what? You could not possibly be well versed in all of those. If you are well versed in law, you'll know that there's quite a bit of interpretation that goes on.

Question: If the power to squelch speech is denied to the states, then they would not be able to empower local governments with the power to do it, would they? If local, state, or federal governments are disallowed from squelching expression, whose courts and laws are individuals going to use to do it themselves?

If individuals or local governments can squelch speech using the courts, then why is it that cities and towns have to resort to using zoning laws (a legal loophole meant to discourage but not suppress their "expression") to make it too hard for a strip bar/club to move in?

Local courts and governments are generally empowered or relegated power by the state governments in which they operate, are they not?

Re:1st Amendment?

[nudicle]

ok, i will give you some inside knowledge.

1) law students don't know or claim to know much. 2) they don't have specialties, as you ask. If you wnat to know, I was a unix systems programmer (c, asm) before I went to law school. 3) the power to squelch speech through the first amendment comes through interpertation of the 1st amendment. there is a lot of case law on this. look it up. 4) yes, local governments are given power by the states, generally. If you are interested in this look up the difference between "home rule" and "dillon's rule." I mean this seriously, not as some /. dismissal. It is important. 5) I don't care if you've not been impressed with law students before. The fact is when I said the 1st Am is "incorporated" to the states by the 14th it was correct. As I said, look it up.

E-Bay...

[Anonymous Coward]

E-Bay just won a court case where they were found to not be responsible for user feedback. Specifically not being responsible for policing or even being required to remove false feedback.

Just a few days later teacherreviews.com caves in? Typical.

Re:E-Bay...

[1000StonedMonkeys]

Well, Anonymous Coward, if you would be so kind as to step in and waste your hard earned time and money fighting a lawsuit, then by all means do so. However, you don't get to pick what sacrifices other people make for you.

Re:E-Bay...

[Rares Marian]

Cave-ins bring up the cost for those who might not cave in at a later time.

Re:E-Bay...

[X86Daddy]

E-Bay just won a court case where they were found to not be responsible for user feedback. Specifically not being responsible for policing or even being required to remove false feedback.

Just a few days later teacherreviews.com caves in? Typical.

One major difference though is that on eBay, both parties choose to participate, and both parties are aware of the rating system before they even particpate.

Re:E-Bay...

[theMerovingian]

Ebay has a market cap of 44.5 billion dollars.

The teacher site is run out of some dude's basement.

It sucks that it's like this, but Ebay has alot more resources to devote to fighting frivolous lawsuits. Lawyers are expensive.

Instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterday and tonight I talked with a professor who was extremely upset with what written about him on TeacherReviews. He had several inappropriate reviews that made unfounded accusations and inappropriate untruthful remarks such as calling him "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic."'

Students are apparently obeying the intent of the order, as they have since kept remarks about limited him to "What an asshole!" or similar.

i wonder why he caved in?

[0xfc]

If it was my own paid for site, I would put damn well whatever opinion I had on it about a professor. Or other peoples' opinion for that matter. I thought freedom of speech allowed this? Was he using any school resources for this project? If he is currently attending that school, they can attack him from that vector easily. And I betcha this prof does not have tenure yet! What I am unclear on though, is when does it become slander/libel? I do hope those are the correct legal terms for what we are discussing.

Re:i wonder why he caved in?

[Anonymous Coward]

well since the site is a review site. its all based on opinions and therefore protected.

unless someone flat out says lies, like "he made me stay after class and tried to molest me" thats slightly different than name calling which is, opinion based.

Re:i wonder why he caved in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom of Speech is only a defense against actions by the state.
Broadcast a student's claim that a teacher is schizophrenic, has Altzheimer's or AIDS and you can expect to be slammed down hard from all sides, a libel suit may be the least of your worries.

Had something like this in the UK

[GonzoDave]

The site FriendsReunited had to start moderating comments after people started using it to accuse old school teachers of being paedophiles

Not surprising

[Killswitch1968]

Once profs have tenure their incentive to teach better is dramatically reduced. If they can get more grants doing research with no chance of being fired for imcompentent teaching then you can believe the grants will come first.

This becomes especially easy if the students can't voice their discretions publically. I don't think a single university publically displays the stats of student reviews after a semester with a prof. The profs can complain all they want but in the long run it's the students who will suffer.

Re:Not surprising

[HidingMyName]

In practice, it is the standards internalized by the prof. and not some carrot/stick held by the University that motivates good teaching. A bad administration can sap the will of even a very promising energetic new faculty.

In general, Research Universities in the U.S. have disincentives for poor teaching (e.g. if you don't know your stuff, sexually harass your students or do something really inappropriate), but don't have strong incentives for excellent teaching. Usually good researchers can explain what they do well, there are a few who are not so articulate.

Re:Not surprising

[fermion]

I really wish these silly statements would stop being modded as useful. They are really nothing but the ranting of ill informed or angry children.

Professorships are extremely rare these day, and Universities do not generally offer them to people who clearly cannot teach. Most Universities have research staff, which fund their own work, and Professors who get some funding from the University in exchange for teaching. If they get tenure, it is because they can get grants and are good teachers.

The tenured Professors I know are extremely good researchers and teachers. Some are better teachers than grant writers, and others go the other way. As far as incompetent professors, I never saw one that was tenured. I had some that were flaky, but even if they did not teach the course as they should have, their experience was illuminating. I suppose if you are only at college for a sheet of paper such professors might be bothersome. The real problem is that Universities tend to use a lot of adjunct faculty. The quality of these people vary widely, and they are often only loosely associated with the school, and only peripherally aware of the needs of the students.

As far as evaluations are concerned, all must be taken with a grain of salt. It is very difficult for a student to be honest and objective on an evaluation. Most will not own their personal shortcomings, but will project these issues onto the professor. Therefore a bad grade is not the result of improper study habits or not going to class, but rather the result of a boring Professor or textbook with too few pictures. Like the parent comment, many are based on personal opinion of the way things are.

Re:Not surprising

[Killswitch1968]

Ill informed? 4 years of undergrad experience in 3 separate universities including lab experience is ill informed? I didn't mean to make it sound like the bulk of teachers could careless about students, I have of course had good profs.

But the sad truth is I have had courses with profs who read off pre-packaged powerpoint slides, courses of no relevance, exams regurgitated from last year, or worse, exams that have no correlation with what was taught in class.

I agree about the ratings, or 'rantings' as they can often become. Most of these now have a comments section. But even the most vile and critical of evaluations will not oust a prof. The same applies to the public education system.

Re:Not surprising

[foonf]

I don't think a single university publically displays the stats of student reviews after a semester with a prof.

How much would you bet on that?

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm sure many Universities do display the stats of student reviews after each semester. Take Berkeley EECS for instance. There are no actual written comments, but that might have to do as much with a lack of transcribers as it does with censorship.

Re:Not surprising

[dwpro]

Yes, I can definitely vouch for this. My favorite CS professor at my university just recently got his tenure...and he has since made his classes significanly easier. However, he also previously got bad reviews from his students because he was so difficult, which brings up another point entirely. Will professors make their classes easy to get good reviews because of these sites?

Re:Not surprising

[gangien]

booooo UW SUCKS, go WWU.

Re:Not surprising

[FleaPlus]

At least here at Carnegie Mellon University, we have access to the statistics of Faculty Course Evaluations. Anybody with a login can see how professors were rated by their students in past semester, based on a number of different criteria. This is an incredibly useful tool for determining which classes to take. I'd be surprised if other schools didn't do something similar.

All you need for anon posting is to log the IP

[LostCluster]

True anonymous posting is simply imposible to allow because the web site operator ends up assuming the liablity for libel and slander when the eventual misbehaving trolls invade the site. The closest any web site operator can come is to know as little about their posters as possible, but to log the exact timestamp of the post and the IP address, so that if the site is ever bothered with a legal threat, those two pieces of information can be turned over, which when taken to the ISP starts a path that leads to the identity of the poster, or at least a service operator that (sometimes knowingly, sometimes not...) provides anonymity and will either A: be on the hook or B: continue the path that leads to the user...

Sorry, you've got to stand behind what you write, even online.

Re:All you need for anon posting is to log the IP

[MntlChaos]

what about sites like cryptome.org? they delete all their logs. That's truly anonymous

Re:All you need for anon posting is to log the IP

[LostCluster]

what about sites like cryptome.org? they delete all their logs. That's truly anonymous

Then that's where the trail would die. But that's also where the lawsuit would be sent. It'd be almost as if they made the offensive post themselves.

Re:All you need for anon posting is to log the IP

[Temporal Outcast]

And thats exactly why you should do such things from a public place like Starbucks or something :) And yes, I speak from experience.

Re:All you need for anon posting is to log the IP

[shadowbearer]

Truly anonymous posting is simply not possible anymore (if it ever really was). If someone has enough resources, they *will* eventually track down where you came from.

Which has good implications for finding virus writers, terrorists, etc; but bad implications for truly free speech.

SB

Rating Teachers

[emily_the_dragonet]

For more teacher reviewing fun y'all can check out this site. They check all posts and students can become moderators too. It even has a sister site for canada I belive.

Re:Rating Teachers

[Gsus411]

The ratemyteachers.com is for students from both the US and Canada.

This actually presents a problem. We have a system there where an administrator of a school can become a "trusted administrator" after a certain period of good behavior. These trusted admins review comments for sites that do not have administrators. From time to time, we get French comments in the pool. I don't know French, so the official policy is for me to delete both the comment and the rating.

We've been bugging the staff for awhile for a way for a trusted admin to refer a comment to a French speaking trusted admin. The coders there are pretty lazy though.

making student evaluations public

[ArgumentBoy]

I have some real sympathy for being able to "shop" online to get info about courses and teachers. But I'm a college prof myself, and have sat on a number of personnel committees, and have read a *lot* of student comments over the years. Many of those comments - perhaps most - are intelligent, or plausible, or reasonable expressions of feelings. Sometimes more than one of these. But sometimes they are simply irresponsible - 'get another career,' 'you shouldn't be allowed to teach anyone, anywere,'and sadly, a lot of 'you #@$$!, get #%&*$#.' Insults, psychiatric diagnoses, speculations about home life - these are rare, but not rare enough. It's bad enough that these go into personnel files and get read by peers and supervisors (yes, they really are, and they really matter). But at least these people understand what sorts of things, good and bad, students will say anonymously. Unmoderated posting of these things on the internet is a bad idea, personally damaging, and maybe harmful to careers.

Re:making student evaluations public

[cperciva]

Personally, I think student evaluations should be made public. If a student completely fails to grasp even the simplest of concepts, and fails a course as a result, that information should be online as a public record so that people can choose to avoid that student in the future.

Oops. You're talking about the opposite type of student evaluations. My bad.

Re:making student evaluations public

[PhyreFox]

Why don't the personnel committes just toss out the ones that aren't readable by children?

If your supervisors are tossing them into your personnel file despite their questionable content, maybe it's an indicator of how popular you are amongst your supervisors as opposed to the students.

Course, if you're already on tenure, you don't have a lot to worry about.

Re:making student evaluations public

[Peyna]

We're in "No Child Left Behind" mode now though; so that means that we have to dumb everything down so everyone can succeed on the same level and past pointless standardized tests that see if 6th grades know 1st grade math and 50% of them still can't pass....

Re:making student evaluations public

[nightznoe]

Are all reviews public? I mean, at my university, the professor has the option of not submitting the reviews, although it is a all or none policy. But speaking as a student, I find reviews of this sort are extremely helpful, it might not make a student NOT take the course if a prof has gotten a bad review, but it gives us a good idea of what to expect. Whenever I take a course, I try to ask around for others who have had the prof before. On another note, some profs try to make it easier for the students than others.

Re:making student evaluations public

[JumperCable]

But at least these people understand what sorts of things, good and bad, students will say anonymously.

I think you greatly underestimate the ability of people to estimate the creditability of any given set of anonymous comments. The more people read these type of reviews (be they professors or products) they more they can assess the value of any given comment (or set of comments).

Loosing this type of information is far more detrimental that the potential concern that some idiot won't be able to interpret the given comments for what they are. If you and your peers can understand what these comments mean then surely most other people can. In the end, it is only the fool that can't comprehend these comments that will loose out since they will pick a weaker professor or product.

Re:making student evaluations public

[10101001 10101001]

The same can be said about *any* opinions expressed about anyone from anyone. The fact is, you just like most other people care what people say about you because you fear others will believe it's true. While I can sympathize with you, I think the best thing to say is to just deal with it.

Students badger other students. Professors have been known to badget other professors. And how many stories are there of professors who badger students? It's not surprising that there are students who do the same to professors. I'm not saying of the above is warranted or real (ie, it might just be paranoia). Of course, your case seems to prove that it's at least real.

The fact is, freedom of speech has been known to do a lot worse than ruin careers. Just think of the number of minorities or woman who have been physically assaulted or worse because of unfounded allegations. The simple fact is, there's very little that can be done about the speech itself because even removing this one site won't stop the word of mouth or a newsletter someone writes or the next blog someone starts. The only people you should really worry about is those in power to ruin your career or those around you who can do personal damage. The way of resolving that is to talk to them. While you're at it, maybe you can try a little harder to gain the respect of your students. You can't force people to think one way about you, but you can try your best to personally impress upon those people you think matter what you're really like so that you can alleviate your fears. There's no way elsewise to begin to solve the problem.

Re:making student evaluations public

[HFactor_UM]

As when reading everything on the internet, you must consider the *source* - the anonymity of the net has positive and negative ramifications. I, myself, have always tried to post intelligent and thoughtful comments about professors. That being said, I've read some reviews that are exactly as you're saying some are, insulting, immature, and just plain stupid. I've fortunately got the common sense to filter these people out as the ones who probably didn't do all of their homework or read all that they should. It's up to everyone else to do the same thing. These sites have helped me in the past 3 semesters to pick some of the best professors I've had in my college career, I consider them extremely useful. It'd be a shame to take them down because professor Smith is upset about the comments from one of his under-achievers.

Re:making student evaluations public

[gad_zuki!]

>But sometimes they are simply irresponsible

So? That's part of the job. Your assumption that the people reading this can't concieve of an angry student writing an angry review really belittles students as a whole. Imagine if we had people like this when USENET or the web kicked into full gear, there would be no huge trove of information, just people worried about their reputations and assuming that everyone in the world believes what they read.

Heh, maybe schools should be teaching critical thinking skills and skepticism for the sake of their own professors.

Re:making student evaluations public

[starX]

As a part time adjunct professor (I don't teach more than 2 courses any given academic year), I must say that while I like the idea of student reviews in theory, in practice I often find that negative reviews come from students who resent being assigned work, do not do said work, and try passing the buck on their failure. The numbers tend to speak for themselves; the number of C or lower grade students tend to be equal to the number of negative reviews, while positive reviews (and ones with constructive criticism) tend to be equal in number to the number of A and B grades distributed.

My personal feeling on this is that the reviews should not be anonymous. Anonymous reviews encourage this kind of libel as they remove the responsibility to provide fact based criticism from the reviewer. Since the professor does not receive the reviews until after the fact, this should not be a problem, although i can see more long term issues with tenured faculty members. My personal vote is that all reviews should be required to have the students name and ID number on them, and that information is kept on file, but is not available to the professor. This gives the student writing the review some sense of accountability; and at the same time, the university should pursue legal action against students who do write libellous comments, or at the very least remove them from the review system.

I do appreciate reviews, and some of the constructive criticism I have received has gone a long way to helping me improve my teaching, but at the same time, I don't believe that unfounded criticism by students who rarely attend class should be able to haunt my personel file for the rest of my professional life.

Re:making student evaluations public

[Anonymous Coward]

people dont beleive those reviews to begin with.

if one review out of 10 says taht. take a guess which would be beleived.

so if its a "bad review" it should go away. well i think the good reviews should be off your record then too.
alls fair.

people dont believe those stupid reviews. if there was 40 students with different experiences slamming a professor (in a reasonable way) i would tend to question why that prof is even employed as they should have been canned.

but one review doesnt mean much, even if its the only one. because guess what, people are not stupid, and latch on to every idiotic thought, an those that are, do you really want them in your class.

Re:making student evaluations public

[Ender77]

Funny, I have YET to see a single teacher get fired or at least Disciplined from the comments given by a Teacher Evaluation. I have seen the same horrible teachers, coming back every semester with the same attitude and/or bad teaching methods with no change. No matter what the problem is, for example a teacher in one of my classes at my University has a bad habit of touching all the females in class EVERY DAY, even when it obviously makes the women uncomfortable. This is obviously sexual harassment and the other teachers and Deans know about it, but they don't do a damn thing. The same goes with some other teachers here, They shouldn't be teaching but they are, The students opinions does not matter.

Re:making student evaluations public

[DrEasy]

You hit it on the nail: all the people in this thread saying it is perfectly acceptable for profs to be publicly and anonymously criticized and insulted, should pause for a second and think if they would find it acceptable if the roles were reversed.

Re:making student evaluations public

[DrEasy]

Problem is, who do you talk to? The reviewers are anonymous (well, they have a nickname, but that's it), whereas the prof's name and reputation is out there for all to ridicule. If the reviewers are anonymous, then the reviews must be kept private as well. If it is inacceptable for student marks to be openly posted on the web, why should it be ok for prof evaluations to be made public?

Re:making student evaluations public

[10101001 10101001]

Like I said, you talk to your peers, your superiors, and your students. You don't go to them whining about being picked on. If you aren't what is depicted in the review and you convey that to the people who are important, then the review will be ignored. Not only that, but people other than you (like your past students) will post positive reviews about you. If after reading both reviews, students are unwilling to actually talk to you, then it's their loss. You can't force people to believe anything. The best you can do is try to be open and talk with them.

As for your last comment, Universities are in a business. Students don't want to go to Universities which will release their marks openly. They might even dislike Professors criticising students, which encourages Universities to fire such people. So long as students are in this position, there's likely little that will change. There's nothing, however, preventing a professor from making a "StudentReview" site which allows anonymous posting. Would that likely cause a student to not be accepted into a University or not be hired for a job afterwards? That's questionable. However, making a big deal out of it before knowing is likely to be more of a problem. I think the professor involved should have thought of that before threatening to sue.

Re:making student evaluations public

[SuperFrink]

Why don't the personnel committes just toss out the ones that aren't readable by children?

I could be mistaken but IIRC the U of Calgary (it could depend on department) does not pass reviews which are threatening or offensive, etc to the actuall instructors. Also reviews were done with a few weeks left in the course so final grades were not decided and the instructors don't see the reviews until grades are finalized for the term.

Some of the reviews also asked for a student ID number which was supposed to be used to determine the student was actually in the course. (We could sometimes see a line, etc where the page was to be torn after verification.)

Re:making student evaluations public

[DrEasy]

What I meant by my rhetorical question was that the prof isn't given the means to publicly contradict his critics on such forums. It's like Anonymous Cowards trolling you and your reply button is disabled anyway.

I agree with you that in North America at least, Universities are a business. Therefore students expect a Quality of Service in exchange for their very high tuition fees. In Europe (for now at least), university education is inexpensive and therefore considered a privilege. Students in Europe are grateful for being granted to opportunity to learn for (almost) free, and as a result the prof-student relationship is very different. Life is easier for the profs, but at the same time, the quality of teaching can suffer as there is no financial incentive for a university to ensure quality. Generally though, university life in Europe is less stressful from both the student's and the prof's perspective!

Obligatory Slashdotting Joke

[Senator_B]

Hehe, looks like his site has been taken off the net too. In all seriousness, how much of a chance did his law suit have? Is this considered slander on the part of teacherreviews.com, or was the web site just scared of the negative pubblicity? When I first visited the site, I was suprised by the lack of unfounded, negative remarks made about the teachers I looked up. Maybe my case is the exception.

Speaking as a student

[gid13]

I don't know why it's such a big deal to this prof; almost nobody reads those things anyway.

However, those students who want to use such resources should damn well be allowed. I'm sick of the way freedom is slowly being repealed. Is "freedom of speech" just a platitude to placate us? Although I abhor racism, I don't even buy arguments against racist speech. There was a case in some American University where an "Anarchy Club" (what a concept, but whatever) wanted to link to the website of some South American group that had been classified as a terrorist group by the government. The university forced them to take the link down. Now how am I supposed to hear the other side? Since I can't judge for myself, I'm basically forced to take the terrorists' side, and I fucking hate that!

And how did they make me turn everything into discussion of terrorists???

Polyratings

[Shaklee39]

Here at calpoly we have a third party ratings system at http://www.polyratings.com which does almost the same thing. I was looking on it the other day and there are comments about how they want a teacher to die, just random profanity unrelated to the class, among others. The site has not been taken down, nor has it even removed these comments which are still up for everyone to see. Anyone with a half brain ignores these comments and just goes to the next one anyways since they are probably from a disgruntled student who couldn't make the grade.

Re:Polyratings

[CoconutFoobar]

As a student at Boston College, our student government, the UGBC has a professor evaluation system that is heavily used. It's all anonymous, but if a teacher sees something untrue or if the review is inappropriate, then it can be signaled for review and removal. I think this helps the education system and I know I've come very close to taking a bad prof until I check their PEPs.

Speaking as a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic...

[MichaelCrawford]

I think it's wrong that calling somebody that could be construed as an insult.

I've been working for quite some time to change that.

• Living with Schizoaffective Disorder

Re:Speaking as a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic...

[10101001 10101001]

Being different is an insult. Being average makes you boring, which is an insult. You're screwed either way.

Re:Speaking as a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic...

[Spirilis]

FYI, that site was just the source of a really long, interesting bedtime reading for me.

Re:Speaking as a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Insult or not, would you want a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic as your professor?

Re:Speaking as a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic...

[No. 24601]

I think it's wrong that calling somebody that could be construed as an insult.

Not to divert from the point you are making, but in this case, the professor is not claiming it is an insult but rather claiming it is false.

Re:Speaking as a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic...

[Lifewish]

I'm not sure that's accurate. If this were the case then the teacher in question presumably would have dropped the issue after the offending comments were taken down. Instead, he chose to express what seems to me behaviour closer to psychosis or at least bad anger management than paranoia. Not someone I'd want teaching me.

Thanks to MichaelCrawford for giving us this perspective

PARANOID?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid people are talking about me behind my back, they're always there, there always watching, I'll just google my name..

Hmm, TeacherReviews.com? I'M ON THERE?!?!?!!?!?

WHAT? WHAT? I'M NOT A BIOPOLAR PARANOID SCHITZOPHRENIC! I KNOW, I'LL SUE THEM!

stupid idea really...

[technut]

In my opinion if you have something worth saying then say it to their face, Its not really surprising every bitter student in earshot is abusing the site to post stupid comments.. Basically, get a life!

Re:stupid idea really...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. The point of such a site is for other students to make better choices in there class selection. In my opinion the quality of the instructor is the most important factor in terms of class quality. Universities pretend to care about student opinion by asking for student evaluations. However, this data is usually collected in haste and the details are not shared with students. As a result, students have no genuine source of data to evaluate professors. Other professors and advisors generally give politically correct advice.

There are always going to be students who are angry, some may not be justified, however, some of that anger has, at the very least, legitimate roots. It is my observation that professors are educated but frequently closed minded and ignorant when it comes to teaching style and methods. It is helpful to find those that have actually taken learning to teach seriously.

While I find some instructors are quite good, most are average and there are, frankly, a few who have no business teaching. It is almost funny how out of touch with reality some college professors are and how little they understand about how people learn.

I can derive the kind of information I need from anger and insults, as well as reviews, and I look for it when choosing classes, especially those outside of my department. I want to know specifically what other students think. I want to know if the instructor is egocentric, unqualified, insensitive, a nutbag, whatever. Without sites such as teacher reviews one has to rely only on direct communication with other students.

one example...

[tsunamifirestorm]

is ucsdprofessor.com good site for me (as a UCSD student obviously) and it would be cool if all universities had things like this.

Said the Professor:

[parliboy]

"I'm not paranoid! Which one of my enemies told you that?"

Re:Said the Professor:

[LostCluster]

"I'm not paranoid! Which one of my enemies told you that?"

If one thinks they have many enemies, and they infact do, then they are in fact not paranoid. In addition, paranoia does not constitute proof that enemies do not exist.

They should...

[criordan]

They should implement a moderation system similar to that of /. Obviously it wouldn't be perfect, but it would help weed out the reviews that are completely false or biased.

Moderation Law

[ev1lcanuck]

(note: I'm not a lawyer!)

Websites are not responsible for any user submitted content as long as they do not mdoerate it. If they say that they review and/or moderate (site staff, not users) the content then they are legally liable for everything that is posted. This new system they are planning to implement sounds to me like it would make them liable if something were to slip through the cracks.

Personally, I would put up a disclaimer saying that the management is not responsible for the comments posted and then just leave it alone. HOWEVER, morally what they are doing is right and I am glad they are going to re-do the site. I just hope that they keep a close watch on what is and isn't there. I also hope they talk to a good lawyer with 'net experience.

That Pesky Thing...

[suwain_2]

Is that "Constitution" thing still intact? I seem to recall a portion of it with some silly notion of "freedom of speech" or something, or was it repealed?

Re:That Pesky Thing...

[DavittJPotter]

Shit, friend, that old thing? We updated that old rag with a handy-dandy Patriot Act (Versions I and II!) to help keep you Safe and Free from Invisible Terrorists!

Re:That Pesky Thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Nobody is accusing the Congress of passing a law abrigding the web site's freedom of speech (or press?), so the Constitutional protection is not directly relevant. In America you can sue anybody for anything, and the threat of the expense of defending a lawsuit is not mentioned in the Constitution.

Re:That Pesky Thing...

[Kohath]

Actually, that was repealed in December of last year by the supreme court.

More accurately, they said we know what it says, just nevermind this time. We'll bring it back for speech we approve of.

Re:That Pesky Thing...

[KarmaMB84]

The United States Constitution is open to interpretation. For all intents and purposes, when you see "Congress", "State", or "Government" you may as well change those to "Anyone" in many cases. There are a few examples of constitutional amendments mentioning Congress or states specifically but the Supreme Court applying them to all branches and levels of governments and even citizens. The first amendment is one of those. People cannot use the court to silence someone unless they can prove that the statements are truly false and damaging and NOT humour or parody not intended to be taken seriously and clearly marked as such.

The constitution and its amendments are too open to interpretation to just read it and say "Oh but is says...". Corporations are now afforded limited rights as "people". Corporations being given any rights at all as people is not anywhere in the constitution that I know of. It's questionable as to whether the 2nd amendment even gives individuals that are not part of a state militia the right to bare arms (but it was interpretted that way and it will be that way until the Supreme Court changes its mind).

Re:That Pesky Thing...

[stratjakt]

Nothing to do with constitutional free speech, everything to do with libel.

Some of the reviews no doubt crossed the line. Some jerk gets a bad grade, accuses the prof of being a pedophile and a crack addict, and thats the end of that.

Re:That Pesky Thing...

[FreeUser]

Is that "Constitution" thing still intact?

The short answer is "NO."

I seem to recall a portion of it with some silly notion of "freedom of speech" or something, or was it repealed?

Effectively it has, for quite some time now. See my other post on the subject: In a Litigious Society, Freedom of Speech is a Myth.

Re:That Pesky Thing...

[strike2867]

Our current president has publicly critisized it. He was quoted as saying some people shouldnt have some rights when confronted with (not whitehouse.com, this is .org)

Re:That Pesky Thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea , its always students with bad grades giving poor reviews right?

idiot.

"Bipolar Paranoid Schizophrenic."

[PhyreFox]

Bipolar: Relating to a major affective disorder that is characterized by episodes of mania and depression.

Paranoid: Exhibiting or characterized by extreme and irrational fear or distrust of others.

Schizophrenic: Of, relating to, or characterized by the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic elements.

Now considering I'm not a psychologist, I don't know about #1 and #3, but as the comments were deleted and he still threatened to sue, the "paranoid" label sounds appropriate.

damn right that bastard got ./ed

[Anonymous Coward]

he deserves it, censor their speech, and at least for a while we'll beat the cr*p out of your blog.

MOD THIS +5 FUNNY

[Anonymous Coward]

Very funny post. I like how the guy acts as
though the first amendment somehow means something
and we should do something accordingly.

Chilling effect

[joelparker]

Today is a professor vs. teacher reviews...
tomorrow is a president vs. editorial reviews.

Maybe donate to the ACLU and EFF
to help them protect our freedom of speech online.

Cheers, Joel

Re:Chilling effect

[DAldredge]

Once the ACLU starts protecting the entire Bill of Rights I will donate, but not till then. I do donate to the EFF.

Re:Chilling effect

[foidulus]

Well, it does raise an interesting question of academic freedom versus free speech. The constitution doesn't allow you to say whatever you want, for instance libel, slander, shouting "Terminator Gates has come with flaming balls of DRM" at a Linux conference, etc. But the definition of libel/slander I guess would be what is debatable in this case.

Re:Chilling effect

[ddrfemme]

Chilling. No joke.

This reminds me of my real-world equivilant experience. I intentionally spread a rumor (true) a couple years ago when I started college about the way a professor treated (and looked at) his female students--sometimes in probably unneccesarily colorful or even inflammatory language. I was pissed!

Amazing to think that that the exact same discussion online could threaten the entire site. Amazing to think this might even chill that _physical_ speech. I like to think that even I wouldn't be threatened since I believe I should have the right to say those things about my mistreatment. I also would like to think that some poor third party--the phone company, the restaraunt, the bookstore--wouldn't be shut down for my speech, even if untrue. Sad.

Student Reviews.com

[zekt]

Can we now have a student reviews.com where any professor can get on there and bad mouth their students in front of everyone rather than keeping assessment results private and conversations confidential? Why not... same thing.

Re:Student Reviews.com

[Anonymous Coward]

why not?

of course students are not public figures , where professors are.

but go ahead and make one.

oh you didnt want to do anything like work, just attempt to make a point. you failed.

Re:Student Reviews.com

[Rallion]

Sure, fine with me. As a student. Who professors hate. (Look, if I get good grades on the damn tests without your help, don't expect me to come to class!)

Why should I care, really? People putting their thoughts about me on a public site doesn't make them more or less true. It doesn't make me feel bad, because I know that either the things written are basically true, in which case I really see no cause for complaint as long as I'm honest about those truths, or they're false, in which case I don't care. Really, if somebody believes something just because somebody says so, I'm not likely to be too concerned with any of their opinions about me.

The next headline should read..

[judicar]

dylangreene.com Forced Offline

Fear of Criticism

[aynrandfan]

Is fear of criticism widespread in academic circles?

No wonder he was upset.

[evanbd]

I mean, most of my professors expect correct English, at least usually...

"Dylan Greene's site Teacher Reviews which allows students to post reviews of their professors." The last time I checked, sentences needed a verb.

"Yesterday and tonight I talked with a professor who was extremely upset with what written about him on TeacherReviews." Try again, only this time you need a second verb. Probably "was," somewhere between "with" and "what."

Re:No wonder he was upset.

[martyn s]

UMM, no. Probably between "what" and "written".

Re:No wonder he was upset.

[evanbd]

Oops. Clearly some of my professors would be annoyed about that. It really does seem to be a law of the universe that grammar nazi comments will have mistakes in them.

Re:No wonder he was upset.

[martyn s]

So if you're capable of stupid little mistakes why do you mock others with the same handicap?

Re:No wonder he was upset.

[evanbd]

Because I think greater editorial care is required for things on either the front page of Slashdot or your blog, than for a random comment or IM. Basically, I think more care is required the less casual the writing is. If writing an article, I would write it, go over it, set it aside, and then go over it a few hours or days later. That comment was typed, glanced over briefly, then posted.

Besides, Slashdot has editors. One would think they could, you know, edit something once in a while.

Re:No wonder he was upset.

[martyn s]

Yeah, I guess that's a good point, I just couldn't resist :)

Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic, but he's still a bastard for threatening to sue and getting a good site shut down. ...uh, oh. Look out Slashdot. You might be sued soon.

this is screwed up

[dpw2atox]

So much for freedom of speech.

This is stupid

[headbulb]

When someone can be forced to do something, because a user something disparaging.
As far as I am concerned this is covered under freedom of speach, and thus shouldn't even be an issue.

If someone were to say something about me I didn't like. I have a few choices.
1. Ignore them.
2. Defend myself (If they are being really loud about.)
3.Tell them to shutup and force it.

The last one is in a absurb way telling myself to shutup. By taking away one of their rights I am taking that same right away from me. (yah its kind of out there)

If some guy was threatening to sue me for somethign a user said, I would most likely investigate it and if true leave it up.

As for this guy he sounds like a crybaby. So someone said something you didn't like. So what get over it. By bring this in as a legal manner only brought that 'unwanted anttention".

Anyone else notice...

[Ghoser777]

that if you make a tangential remark related to SCO/RIAA/Microsoft, you get modded up to funny?

Matt Fahrenbacher

Re:Anyone else notice...

[LocoSpitz]

Looks like someone wants an insightful mod.

Exactly the wrong response.

[DavittJPotter]

Unfortunately, the magic curse of "I'll sue!" once again forces something unpopular to an individual or a small group to conform or bow to their will. All this does is reinforce the power of frivolous and stupid lawsuits. Fine, the professor didn't like or agree with what was said about him. He could have had the site admin take it down for review, or asked for rational discourse. If indeed the slam was incorrect or unwarranted, then it shouldn't remain.

Now, this professor has forced a valuable tool off-line, thereby preventing other prospective students from finding out about difficult/unreasonable professors or classes they choose to avoid. Many of these professors *shouldn't* be teaching any more, and if enough students learn to avoid their classes, maybe it will help that school with some positive change.

Sadly, this seemingly paranoid and thin-skinned professor (oops, maybe he'll threaten to sue me now!) makes a huge deal out of a negative review, and now further entrenches the 'false' reputation he feels he doesn't deserve.

Re:Exactly the wrong response.

[sir_optimize]

Sadly, this seemingly paranoid and thin-skinned professor (oops, maybe he'll threaten to sue me now!) makes a huge deal out of a negative review, and now further entrenches the 'false' reputation he feels he doesn't deserve.

You make a good point. Given his reaction, perhaps the review was not without merit?

Re: Exactly the wrong response.

[gidds]

Indeed. Sometimes I worry that the USA is breeding a whole culture of, er, well, to coin a phrase, litigious bastards...

Forced?

[judicar]

I don't think it is fair to say that the site was "forced" offline. It would probably be just as unfair to say that the admin was a complete pussy who caved at the first sign of trouble, but i'm leaning towards the complete pussy argument.

What's next ?

[88NoSoup4U88]

http://www.somethingawful.com ?

Pickaprof.com

[raven32]

We at WMU use a site called pickaprof.com. This site is very useful when picking your classes.

What about the flip-side?

[Savage Conan]

I am a professor and do take great offense to irresponsible comments and criticism. What if teachers created a web-site that listed comments about their students. Even though we wouldn't be allowed to post their grades for a given class, we could still give some nasty reviews based upon attitude, and work ethic. Suppose that an employer looked you up and saw these teacher reviews and decides not to hire you based on these reviews.

Re:What about the flip-side?

[Takara]

I tend to find that the good professors give you the "irresponsible comments and criticism" right upfront and in class.

Submitted for your review: "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You can't just sleep through my class then hand in shit assignments like this. Sit down, pay attention, or get out"

Put it on a website? Well sure, might be better off using FreeNet for something like that though...

Re:What about the flip-side?

[Anonymous Coward]

hey you put yourself in a position to be critisized. students are fully private citizens. profs are not. its simple.

give me a break, immature comments are seen as that. what if teachers ignored those comments, like the students already do.

critism isnt meant to please you.

i doubt i want to work for an employer that has that much free time to do that.

Re:What about the flip-side?

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine some students would quit going to classes and you might be out of a job. The same may happen in the previous case.

I understand your point, but you do have to admit that the power differential is a bit lopsided in this respect. You are paid to perform a service. If I posted on a review site that I was personally ripped off for $700 by Guiry's in Denver (which, by the way, did happen), people could ignore it at their peril or not. Shouldn't I be able to comment on my case? Guiry's countered by declining to conduct business with me. That was their only option as they are a business. In my business, I go through the same. Why should you be any different?

You also control a large aspect of a students' future. I have been failed from classes only to repeat them with different instructors and obtained very high marks. Was there a significant change in my performance? Not that could account for such a dramatic change in grades. I was left with no option other than pay to take the class again. A review site might have made the case differently.

I do not see that you pay the students to teach, nor do I see a single bad review jeopardizing your career (unlike a poor mark going on my school record). Several, however, should perhaps give you a moment for pause.

And one thing that has not been addressed, what if the comments left by a student are true? By the over-reaction of the teacher, it would suggest the student's comment had some merit.

In effect, the review site is nothing more than an attempt to correct schools that do not police their own. I'm certain the instructors who get glowing reviews do not complain too loudly. The irresponsiblity of teachers has left them open to criticism. I think this is long overdue.

I think reviews can be very useful for students

[Anonymous Coward]

When you enter a course you take some time to know how it works, what to focus and what the professor isn't very good that you need compesate otherway.

If I had the know-how I have on the end of a course when it beggined I'd probably have made the course more useful. Passing that know-how to other students would be either useful and I don't think it should be stopped

Re:I think reviews can be very useful for students

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you rate your English teachers?

RIT Professor Evaluations

[gjb6676]

Many professor rating systems are threatened with legal action. We ran a similar system at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). For a long time the site was under intense pressure from the academic senate. After awhile they realized they had no legal grounds and left us alone.

We ended up exporting all of our comments (over 7000) to TeacherReviews. We figured they already survived one lawsuit, so they would be around longer than us.

Looks like we were wrong... the RIT only review site is still online, read-only though: http://professor.ritstuff.com Username: pguest Password: pguest

Re:RIT Professor Evaluations

[Anonymous Coward]

> Many professor rating systems are threatened with
>legal action

Almost every business, whether it has a consumer-facing component or not, is threatened with legal action of some form or another constantly.

Not everybody who threatens to sue you even knows what the first step would be. And even fewer of them realize that, contrary to popular misconception, it does NOT automatically bankrupt you just because you've had a lawsuit filed.

The scary stories you read about, usually result from a case where the party being sued has more responsibility for the claims than he will admit -- a lawsuit will always be much more expensive if you are in a position where you need to stretch the truth. Otherwise you show up at the hearing, insist that it be heard by a jury (your *right* in most states, and does not cost you a penny in Texas), have your paperwork together and your story straight, and you'll be fine.

A case like the one in the story would be *very* difficult for the plaintiff, and *very* simple for the defendant. The worst thing that could possibly come of it would be a court order to remove the infringing speech. Statutory damages would only enter into the question if he refused to remove the stuff *after* being ordered.

If you don't want to take action, you should NEVER do it without a court order. If you DO want to take some action, then do it, but don't come to slashdot looking for sympathy. It was the site owner who abridged *MY* constitutional rights, by cowardly surrendering them to the first person who made an idle threat. I don't think that's worty of respect or sympathy.

RateMyProfessors

[MattHawk]

Another decent teacher review site is RateMyProfessors.com - it's got moderation, to avoid issues like this; Bascially, the intent of the moderation is to remove libel (saying someone has a psychiatric condition on a whim without proof definately isn't legal...), but leave pretty much anything else that describes in some way the teacher and their class.

Re:RateMyProfessors

[Valafar]

It most certainly *IS* legal to say that someone is "crazy" or "psychotic". This is clearly a matter of opinion; regardless free speech still applies.

Here's an example:

Fred Phelps is a "Baptist Preacher" in Topeka, Kansas who pickets funerals of people who die from aids with signs that say "God hates fags", etc.

Now, I personally think he's a fuck-nut and is clearly psycho. Can he sue me for saying this? Not in a million years.

Re:RateMyProfessors

[xWeston]

They do have a moderation/editing system but I have submitted several things to them (mostly namechanges for teachers, etc) and they have never been done (It has been months).

I'm not sure that they are paying very close attention to the comments posted :) Plus, not enough students know about the site!

Re:RateMyProfessors

[MattHawk]

Does your school have a moderator? If so, you might want to complain - I'm a mod, so I know some of what's going on, and if someone doesn't take care of things within 3-4 days (the system emails moderators with ratings to check on/approve on a daily basis) things get dumped to the general pool along with ratings from schools without moderators (the general pool is for more experience moderators), though this wasn't the case until a couple months ago; and if bad ratings are slipping through, it can hurt the site - if you have specific examples, include them when you contact the site admin. Also, as a FYI, if you did it very recently (last month or so), there was a database crash/corrupted backup issue that lost a couple weeks worth of data, that might be causing the problem.

Re:RateMyProfessors

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, I personally think he's a fuck-nut and is clearly psycho. Can he sue me for saying this? Not in a million years.

Words your lawyer never wants to hear. You can express an opinion about someone who has made himself a public figure, but you still have to be careful about your motives, your timing and your choice of words.

Re:RateMyProfessors

[PetWolverine]

Saying someone has a psychiatric condition without proof is perfectly legal if what you say isn't likely to be construed as a diagnosis. The student was expressing an opinion. I haven't seen the reviews that started the argument, but somehow I doubt the student claimed to be a psychologist qualified to make a diagnosis like that; the review couldn't have been read as anything other than a student straining to find words to insult a teacher he doesn't like. The fact that the accusation isn't true is a given, so the words "Bipolar Paranoid Schizophrenic" should be understood as nonsense syllables inserted to add emphasis to the reviewer's general theme.

I agree, however, that the solution is moderation.

Re:RateMyProfessors

[demi]

I checked out the site--thanks for the pointer. If you are stupid, and if you are looking for someone who shows movies in class and gives everyone an A, this is an excellent resource!

Re:RateMyProfessors

[Lank]

Additionally, if you go here you will see legal speak about why it's not illegal to host other peoples' comments no matter how bad they are. To quote the link,
It sounds as though you're familiar with 47 USC Section 230, the federal law that permits many entities to "host" other people's content without being liable for defamation/libel etc. "By its plain language, 230 creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service." Zeran v. AOL, 129 F.3d 327, 330 (4th Cir. 1997).

most college profs suck..

[jeoin]

I think there needs to be a standard of education accountability within the college school structure. Current standards hire seemingly based soley upon accolades while neglecting teaching ability. Students have no rights. They are ripped at every avenue and forced to acquire mounds of debt. Education should be free. It seems the US college structure is built just to lock students into a fixed path of repayment and service. Education is not about jobs. It is about learning. Stop being subserviant. Review more teachers. If they can't teach or speak the language they should have to take classes, and buy books just like all the kids they screw yearly. High school teachers would outperform most college proffesors easily in a teaching evaluation.

The prof has no power to sue the site

[cpt kangarooski]

Let's review the law, shall we? (n.b. IANAL)

47 USC 230(c)(1): No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

47 USC 230(f)(2): The term "interactive computer service" means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.

47 USC 230(f)(3): The term "information content provider" means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service.

What's this mean?

Well, the person who created the information at issue here -- i.e. the author of the offensive review -- is the information content provider. Teacherreviews.com didn't write that review, AFAICT, so they are not the information content provider. Instead, they have provided access to their web server, making them the provider of an interactive computer service.

And as the provider of an interactive computer service, they cannot be held liable for the information given to them by the information content provider.

Or in plainer English, the web site cannot be sued for providing a forum for libelous posts, so long as they're not the authors of the libelous posts to begin with. It doesn't even matter whether or not the posts are libelous; the most scurrilous libel in the world still can't taint them one bit.

Since this is federal law, it trumps state law. It is the law of the land.

N.b. that these are just excerpts, and there are plenty of limits on this that aren't applicable here in what appears to be a garden variety libel suit. People interested in this would do well to read all of 47 USC 230.

Ironically, this lovely law is the tiny remaining bit of the infamous Communications Decency Act, most of which was overturned as being unconstitutional. There are actually halfway decent bits of the DMCA too, if you know where to look, also showing that every cloud has its silver lining.

Well, HR 3313 has no silver lining, and is unashamedly evil, but mostly the silver lining thing works.

1st Amendment seems to only apply to truth...

[LostCluster]

Notable times where the 1st amendment doesn't work:

- When testifying in a court, you can't just say anything you want.
- When in a crowded theater, you cannot yell "Fire" unless the place is really on fire.
- When writing in any publication, you cannot say something that you know is false about somebody or something to injure their reputation...

I was disappointed I wasn't rated!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an instructor at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and was disappointed that I wasn't rated. I don't take the ratings too serious as anyone can rate a teacher as there are few controls to stop someone from repeatedly entering ratings to the same teacher.
I encouraged my students to go and rate their instructors so that other students can evaluate the quality of a teacher.
My personal feeling is that the teacher who threatened to sue is most likely a bad instructor and is indeed paranoid otherwise he/she would be satisfied that the offending review was removed.

Well....

[danoatvulaw]

Two points - The professor has no right to force a shutdown of the site, lawsuit threat or not. He can insist and plead, but short of an injunction (or the ISP taking the site down, as is their right), the host could keep his site up. The professor might not like what content was up there, but his remedy is against the AUTHOR of the statements, not the SITE. Second, this seems to me to be a case of the site getting a threat of suit and just caving in to the threat. Under 47 USC 230(c), the site would not be liable as an author of the posts, foreclosing suit against them. Given that, I would really like to see what legal grounds they have to stand on.

Disclaimer - The foregoing is only to be used for the purpose of discussion and should not be construed as legal advice related to any current or future problem, nor should it be relied upon by anyone without consulting a licensed attorney.

Re:Well....

[prockcore]

danoatvulaw sleeps with dead animals.

Re:Well....

[danoatvulaw]

only on weeknights when the temperature drops to below freezing.. but i stress ONLY ON WEEKNIGHTS!

Re:Well....

[HardCase]

That's all well and good, but if push came to shove and the professor actually filed a lawsuit, then somebody has to pay to defend against it. From a practical point of view, regardless of the niceties of the law, most people aren't going to fork over a bunch of money for an attorney for what is really just a hobby. And if I were in Dylan Greene's position, I'd take the site down, too.

Obviously, the credibility of the threat matters - I get threats of lawsuits several times a year over some mailing lists that my company sponsors. You have to sort the wheat from the chaff...and so far, it's all chaff.

And, incidentally, teacherreviews.com is not gone for good, as Dylan's blog reports.

-h-

Re:Well....

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer - The foregoing is only to be used for the purpose of discussion and should not be construed as legal advice related to any current or future problem, nor should it be relied upon by anyone without consulting a licensed attorney.

Looks like YAAL (you are a lawyer)...

*grin*

It's going back up.

[MacGabhain]

Somewhat ironic timing on the information from a week ago, as today's blog entry is that the site is being completely rewritten with some changes to address these concerns and will be back up soon.

February 10th blog entry

In part:
TeacherReviews.com is coming back, and it's going to be better than ever - for both students and professors.
The professor who threatened a lawsuit has decided to drop the case. This happened after we talked about the situation, the site as it is today, and the intent of the site, which has always been to help students, as opposed to insult professors. This professor is now helping the site by providing feedback to the new features from a professor's point of view, which is something I have not looked into before.

Re:It's going back up.

[Anonymous Coward]

the intent of the site, which has always been to help students, as opposed to insult professors.

It helps me to know that some MTV-generation apathetic slug hated this teacher enough to look him up online and give him bad reviews.

Re:It's going back up.

[ruprechtjones]

Wonderful. Now the Bipolar Paranoid Schizophrenic has editing power.

Absurd

[Lead Butthead]

This is absurd. If a person posts slanderous flyers throughout bulletin boards a college campus, does that make the college liable? Is the college at fault, or the person posting the flyers? The absurd threats by this "professor" leaves me questioning "it's" qualification to be addressed as such.

I guess I can kind of see both sides

[59Bassman]

I don't understand going nonlinear even after offending comments are deleted, but I do understand to an extent.

I'm a non-trad student. I've gone back to school after a long absence. I'm back not because I have to be, but because I want to be. As such, I actually look forward to classes again (heck, beats being at work...).

I've encountered some really, really bad instructors. Some who I beleieved were coasting through the class with as little effort as possible. Depending on how the instructor ran the class, their reviews on that site could be positive (easy class, I've heard of some giving all students A's or B's just for showing up) or negative (prof just doesn't seem to care about whether or not students get it).

At the same time, the best instructor I've EVER had is listed, and he was drilled hard. When I read the reviews, I realized why - the guy actually asked you to think. His programming examples couldn't be solved just by reading the book, you had to do some creative thinking and test things a bit on your own in order to make it work. I learned more in that class than in any other so far, but the guy's ratings don't look that great because the class is hard.

So on the one hand, the review site can be a very good feedback method for allowing you to see who you may or may not want to take classes under. But at the same time it doesn't appear that professors have any recourse on the site. Perhaps if there was somewhere that a professor could put up a bio, or a synopsis of his teaching methodology, it might help to frame the comments a bit better.

Legal reform anyone?

[Kohath]

Is anyone ready for legal reform yet?

A loser pays rule would make these kind of lawsuits very risky for the plaintiff. "I'll sue" would cease to be a meaningful threat.

Money is why we won't get reform as long as Democrats have the power to prevent it.

Re:Legal reform anyone?

[demi]

Thank you for bringing the subject of legitimate legal reform up. I think loser pays is a good idea; I think it should be coupled with some kind of organized legal aid to assist those who can't afford to risk a loss on a potentially expensive lawsuit, but who have a legitimate beef, to bring their suit.

I also think the state, and not the plaintiff, should collect all punitive damages. This removes the "giant payday" incentive of lawyers and plaintiffs to try and make a lawsuit out of all and sundry. Any kind of compensatory damages, including those for pain and suffering, still get awarded to the plaintiff; and big awards are still possible (after all there's no point for big companies to even follow the law if all the potential awards are trivial), but the plaintiff, and his or her lawyers, do not profit from them.

The bill to which you refer in your "Democrats" link doesn't address any of these things, so it appears to just be a bit of partisan digging. And since it looks to make it impossible to sue a corporation incorporated in Delaware for damages to a class in Nevada (2/3 of the plaintiffs and the defendant must be from the state or it goes to federal court at the behest of the defendant) I couldn't support that.

I agree with you that meaningful legal reform is unlikely to happen soon, and when the vast majority of our lawmakers--Republican and Democrat--are lawyers themselves, I hold out little hope of that changing.

Re:Legal reform anyone?

[Kohath]

Nope, it really is the Democrats that consistently oppose legal reforms. Republicans have tried to pass a bunch of them. Look it up.

How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[StupendousMan]

I'm a professor, and I've seen the same mix of praise, criticism, and just plain garbage in reviews of me published on one particular public web site. It's the same old story: any unmoderated site is soon overrun with trash.

The galling feature of all the "Rate-A-Professor" sites I've seen is the anonymity they provide. I wonder how many students would post messages like "You suck!" if they had to attach their names at the end? But they never do ...

Let me put the shoe on the other foot -- suppose that someone started a "Rate-A-Student" web site, where professors could post messages anonymously like "Mr. Smith came to class only four times all quarter, and snored his way through two of those. He showed no initiative, failed completely to understand the concept of square roots, has abysmal handwriting, and shows little sign of being able to communicate with his peers." The site could advertise to employers -- "Hey, want to check up on that guy who applied for your Network Administration opening? Check out comments made by those who worked with him for months!"

How long would a site like that last?

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Narchie Troll]

There already is such a system.

It's called "grades."

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Savage Conan]

Just as there is a system for teacher evaluations set in place. However a grade does not tell the whole story. Unfortunately we can't grade attitude.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[WildBeast]

Probably some idiot who doesn't like free speech will sue to. Can't do shit without getting sued nowadays.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[BiggerIsBetter]

Tell that to my lecturers. I'm sure it's unrelated, but those students who were "well behaved" got consistently high marks regardless of actual output. Either that or they put out for the lecturers (it's always the quiet ones...).

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Unominous Coward]

suppose that someone started a "Rate-A-Student" web site, where professors could post messages anonymously

If you were paying students to study there, you would be completely justified to have the site corrected or moderated (not pulled down).

These professor rating sites are in the same league as consumer reviews of cars, computers and ISPs. In other words, they are there to help the paying consumers make a more informed choice about their purchase.

Even if there were libellous material on the website, it should be treated in exactly the same way that other public websites are, i.e., sending a warning to the webmaster, and then legal action, if necessary.

Just because you're a professor, doesn't give you the right to censor public discussion of your activities as a professor.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Anonymous Coward]

The roles are always reversed ie : GRADES........ duh....*moron*

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[pentalive]

I wonder if TeacherReview.com could allow the teacher a rebuttle, instead of deleteing any reviews.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine some students would quit going to classes and you might be out of a job. The same may happen in the previous case.

I understand your point, but you do have to admit that the power differential is a bit lopsided in this respect. You are paid to perform a service. If I posted on a review site that I was personally ripped off for $700 by Guiry's in Denver (which, by the way, did happen), people could ignore it at their peril or not. Shouldn't I be able to comment on my case? Guiry's countered by declining to conduct business with me. That was their only option as they are a business. You are pretty much in the same boat (you are, in effect a business). In my business, I go through the same.

You also control a large aspect of a students' future. I have been failed from classes only to repeat them with different instructors and obtained very high marks. Was there a significant change in my performance? Not that could account for such a dramatic change in grades. I was left with no option other than pay to take the class again. A review site might have made the case differently.

I do not see that you pay the students to teach, nor do I see a single bad review jeopardizing your career (unlike a poor mark going on my school record). Several, however, should perhaps give you a moment for pause.

And one thing that has not been addressed, what if the comments left by a student are true? By the actions of the teacher, it would suggest the student's comment had some merit.

In effect, the review site is nothing more than an attempt to correct schools that do not police their own. I'm certain the instructors who get glowing reviews do not complain too loudly. The irresponsiblity of teachers has left them open to criticism. I think this is long overdue.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[No. 24601]

Let me put the shoe on the other foot...

No, it's NOT the same thing. As a professor, you submit to the scrutiny of every student in your classroom. It comes with the paygrade. The students on the other hand submit to what you deem worthy to evaluate them on. I doubt you could make a clear judgment on any of the qualities you mentioned for your students.

In a way, you must submit to the kind of anonymous insulting that celebrities face. But I think the key is to filter out the crap, and improve on those points you deem as constructive criticism.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Lord Omlette]

Nope, anonymity is the only way to get feedback from students. Our school provides anonymous evaluationsn for our Professors:

raises/promotions + firings + who teaches what + "Do we offer this class next semester" are all based on anonymous evaluation. Otherwise kids are too scared to say anything because they're afraid of reprisal, and we never get the feedback we need.

Your "drop the hammer on the other foot" idea is intriguing though, I'd love to see something like that

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[iabervon]

I think that would be great. I think that would give potential employers a much better idea of what a person is like, particularly because you'd probably have a mix of good and bad reviews, which would tell you what sort of situations the person does well in. (And I'd like my employers to see that, despite sleeping through all of my classes, I still learned the material.)

Unfortunately, having been a TA for a couple of classes, I know that no professor is actually going to have time to write that much detail about all of the students. Much more likely is that a professor would manage to review a few of the most noteworthy students ("She came to office hours every week for extra help on material she clearly understood perfectly." "He kept correcting my sign errors before I'd finished writing the equations."), and they'd forget entirely about the existence of Mr. Smith. Besides, it would be hard for Mr. Smith to not know what professor had given that review, unless he's taking multiple courses which teach square roots, so anonymity isn't very helpful.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[DrEasy]

Except that the grades are not out there for all the internet to see.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[geekoid]

If you can't see the difference, then you shouldn't be teaching high school gym, much less be a professor.

That said, I'd have no problem with a site like that. I wouldn't want to work at a company that takes an anonymous post of a damn web site as a qualification.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong, doesn't the elevator in your ivory tower office support the weight of you perched atop your high horse?

The reason sites like those exist is so we students, who are paying good money to go to school, don't unknowingly get stuck with asshole professors like yourself. You might hate having bad students in class, but it's your job! I hate dealing with customers at my job too, and I can't stop people from posting negative reviews about our company's customer service.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[freeweed]

suppose that someone started a "Rate-A-Student" web site, where professors could post messages anonymously

When you (a professor) start paying me (a student) to attend your lectures, by all means.

Rememeber who's paying your salary. I have a right to publicly complain about services rendered in exchange for money. Feel free to open a retail outlet where you publish details about annoying customers, and see how long you stay in business.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately we can't grade attitude.

I hope you are joking.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Tim C]

If you have the natural talent, it's perfectly possible to miss most if not all of the lectures, copy the notes off a classmate, and cram like mad just before the exam and still get a good mark.

Not the sort of thing that most employers will want, though, apart from the "natural talent" bit. Grades do not tell the whole story.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[demi]

Do you ask everyone to evaluate students, or just the ones that feel a need to make their evaluation public?

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[demi]

Unfortunately, having been a TA for a couple of classes, I know that no professor is actually going to have time to write that much detail about all of the students.

Who cares? That's exactly how ratemyprofessors.com works. There's no fairness in the distribution--it's just whatever a student felt like posting, so why not allow teachers the same dumping ground? Just as with ratemyprofessors.com, the teacher could keep identifying information out of the review. It would be a little harder than with the ratemyprofessors.com but hardly impossible.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[kannibal_klown]

As someone already mentioned, the MAJOR difference is...

the student is PAYING for the services of the teacher! And a student should be able to "shop around" for a good teacher and class.

For example, when I was in college, I always asked around about a professor before signing up for a class because I didn't want to waste my time or money on moron, jerk, or someone that was just plain lazy. Hell, a professor teaching Database design better be competent, or everyone of his students will lose out and not get the skills or training they need.

If there was a site that worked the other way around, that that would SO be libelous, I don't even want to imagine the ramifications. People's futures would be ruined before they would begin.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Darken_Everseek]

I'd have absolutely no objections to a site like that; how many profs do you think even know the names of the majority of their students? Especially for introductory courses, with upwards of a hundred people per class. A few stand out, of course, but they're usually the ones who take the time to go for help.

Only once in four years of university did I have a prof memorize the names of that many people. He was new though, so the rampaging hordes of apathetic students hadn't quite caught up with him. It did impress the hell out of me, though; even if our first assignment was to hand in some home-made photo ID.

Re:How'd you like to reverse the roles?

[Lord Omlette]

It's not mandatory, but on the last few days of class we go around exhorting *everyone* to please please please go to the website, you're the ones paying thousands of dollars for this, your opinion matters, blahbblahblah.

Since we switched to website evaluations, we've gotten 75% feedback (at least on the last two classes that I was a TA for)

We're being sued as well, but not shutting down...

[Anonymous Coward]

The company I work for is being sued for comments posted in our forum. Our lawyers assured us that the case is without merit. They explained that we as the provider of the forum are not responsible for the content. Clearly the operator of this site doesn't have the money to defend themselves against this frivolous lawsuit. He should start a defense fund, I'm sure many people would donate, then, when he wins and the plaintif has to pay his legal bills he can use the money to improve the site!

We're going about running our forum as usual, we'll let the lawyers fight it out. Luckily I work for a media company who has deep pockets. The way I look at it, all we need to do is fight one of thse lawsuits and it will set a real precedent for others in our local area not to sue us.

Article lists wrong reason for shutdown

[YrWrstNtmr]

The site was taken down because a professor complained about comments made against him, and threatened to sue.

No. The site was taken down because the site owner caved (temporarily) in the face of a potential lawsuit. There was no legal decision, no jackbooted thugs at the door, no massive DoS attack, no trashing the First Amendment.

The site owner took it down himself. And it appears it will be coming back online, with some form of moderation.

Re:Article lists wrong reason for shutdown

[Anonymous Coward]

> no trashing the First Amendment.

You trash everyone's rights when you refuse to stand up to even the most mundane challenge. He caved before the first hearing. That is his choice, legally, but he actually had a moral obligation not to cave in.

One reason it sucks to be an American: You are supposed to have a sense of duty and patriotism, and you are supposed to be driven to stand up for right and wrong, regardless of the personal costs to you, even if it means forfeiting your life.

If you think that bounden duty sucks, the consequences of us NOT doing so are going to such MUCH worse.

Mark my words.

Re:Article lists wrong reason for shutdown

[lommer]

Um, how is what you posted any different from the quote you took from the summary? where does it say that any legal decisions, jackbooted thugs, DoS attacks, or the first amendment were involved?

The summary says that a prof complained and threatened to sue, and that the site's owner (a reasonable assumption, as nothing to the contrary is mentioned) took it down. You say NO! the site owner caved to a potential suit. Where exactly is the difference!?

jeeze i'm getting tired of trolls that can gramatically outwid the mods into thinking they're intelligent...

Re:Article lists wrong reason for shutdown

[jackb_guppy]

Yup it is coming back, with him being part of censor staff... NOW the lawsuit can be real, since he is no longer a publisher... but an editor.

Re:Article lists wrong reason for shutdown

[Anonymous Coward]

What a dickhead. He did not refuse to stand up to the first challenge. When the site was named teachreview(without the s) he went to court and won. If this goes to court it will be the second time.

How many times would you go to court for a personal site? How much lawyer fees would you pay, troll?

Re:Problem is...the truth is a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"A determined effort to slander his teaching ability -- when very people know him anyway -- could literally ruin his career, as tenure decisions are made in part on teaching ability."

Yeah...well, if every student who takes the guy hates him, then maybe that's a clue?

I dunno...I think if you see 3 bad reviews and 30 good ones, that's a "A" in pretty much any course in the world.

But if you have 600 reviews and all of them bad, well...that's taking the proverbial clue-stick and hitting the idiot over the head.

Hey bad teachers suck. Why should I pay for suck?

LOL

[Spl0it]

What kind of teacher review site is this, everything negative that is 'mentioned' or 'complained about' gets removed? so essentially it becomes a teachers marketing website? lol

Probably caved because ---

[NixLuver]

Anyone can file suit against anyone at any time for any reason, and he said he didn't have the time or money to be involved in a lawsuit, even a winning one.

aye that's libel

[Anonymous Coward]

>>"Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic."'

Well the teacher's right. Unless one can prove that they have been diagnosed as that and that its applicable to what they were saying then its libel and yes as a publisher you could be sued for libel.

People often make the mistake that they have freedom to say whatever they want and that's just not the case at all, those rights have to do with government interference not personal.

CollegeSucks.net

[Anonymous Coward]

CollegeSucks.net has reviews since this site is gone...

I don't agree

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unmoderated posting of these things on the internet is a bad idea, personally damaging, and maybe harmful to careers."

Who would moderate? The professor?

Your entire argument boils down to this:
"If bad words get around about my teaching, I could be ruined".

Well. Yeah. Isn't that kind of the point? Well, not really, but as a professor, you are selling your ability to teach to student. If you suck at teaching, then a student should know that and be able to avoid you.

Teachers resist this kind of feedback because they refuse to acknowledge their first responsibility is to their students.

It would be refreshing if a professor created his own blog/rating system where students could rate him, and then he could respond if he wanted to comments.

Everybody would understand that a comment of "You suck" is a joke. But a comment of "The professor was consistenly 15 minutes late for class, his tests covered material that I'd never seen, and his attitude towards his students was awful. I don't recommend him/her". This is legit. This should be viewed for all the world to see. And if a professor isn't willing to be held up to scrutiny for students paying $10's of thousand per year, then maybe he/she should find another line of work.

These kinds of sites are dangerous, IMHO.

[DonnyCarcharo]

I'm a teacher and a lot of the students at our school use a site similar to TeacherReviews.com to help find out general information about the teachers prior to taking a class. When the site was first promoted across the college via a horde of seemingly omnipresent leaflets, it was actually a useful tool and students (as well as teachers) put a lot of stock into it. Of course like anything where people are allowed to anonymously post their opinions it's only a matter of time before that system is abused. In our case it took about 3 semesters before bizarre, oddball (sometimes obscene) comments started to show up in teacher's reviews. I myself fell victim to this and went from a near perfect score to a slightly battered rating through a span of strange, bogus comments from unregistered users. Had I not seen these same exact comments on other teacher's profiles I might have been worried. What concerns me however isn't necessarily the bad ratings (which cannot be removed), it's that students STILL refer to this site regardless of the validity of the reviews and there's not much we as teachers can do about it. Never mind the fact that upper management is sure to start trolling the site to get the "real, inside scoop" on their employees. Shudder. In my opinion if you're going to operate a site that can negatively impact a person's career perhaps you should make sure the information posted on the site is remotely legitimate before it gets posted.

Re:These kinds of sites are dangerous, IMHO.

[WildBeast]

You can delete those reviews by sending a friendly email to the administrator.
So, you're smart enough to have noticed those same exact bogus comments on other teacher's profiles but you're assuming that the students are too dumb to notice that to.

Re:These kinds of sites are dangerous, IMHO.

[jackb_guppy]

Then use your voice and post the review of site have others also post the same. But do not so poor in judgement to demand censor your critics.

The sites also can not censor. For once they do than they take on the role of editor and become liable.

Re:These kinds of sites are dangerous, IMHO.

[DonnyCarcharo]

So, you're smart enough to have noticed those same exact bogus comments on other teacher's profiles but you're assuming that the students are too dumb to notice that to.

I wasn't belittling the intelligence of the students, I'm just simply making a statement that these types of sites can be dangerous to someone's career. That's all.

I mean it's an open forum to criticize someone at their job by people who may or may not have even ever met the person they're criticizing. And while I respect that some students would realize this (students were the ones who brought it to my attention, I had never even visited the site on my own prior to this) it's certainly plausible that other students won't notice. And even if that were to impact just one student's opinion of a teacher, that's a bad thing.

Here's a real experience with paranoia for you

[MichaelCrawford]

From my advogato diary:

• Trip to the Emergency Room

In summary, sometimes I think the cops are after me, because flashes of light look to me like the lights on a police car.

But you know, I'm still a productive member of society and all.

Once again....

[Hao Wu]

.... one single pantywaist law-boy ruins a good thing for thousands of other people. Thanks professor, you hero- where would we be without YOU?

Tired joke

[Anonymous Coward]

in soviet russia, teacherreviews.com force YOU offline!

A new era of litigation

[EvilBuu]

I predict that two weeks after everyone initiates lawsuits because they read something on the internet that is outlandish, false, or offensive, we will either hang all the lawyers, undergo a communist revolution, or revert to the stone age.

This is ultimately a case of libel, yes? The words were written by (likely anonymous) visitors, not anyone employed by the site. Either the prof's issue is with those contributors, or he's trying to set the precedent that all webmasters and forum hosts must verify EVERY FUCKING PIECE OF INFORMATION posted on their sites.

(I'm actually looking to becoming a lawyer, but hold your tomatoes: I want to fight AGAINST bull flop like this.)

The problem is many professors are very proud

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not flamebaiting I'm talking *many*.

The problem is many professors are very proud of themselves, that kind think they know everything and are better than anyone else and those are the reasons they became professors (to show everyone they know).

They stamp their Msc or Ph.d on every piece of paper with their name and think they have the right to humiliate or f**k their students.

<flamebait>They don't care if someone use their code for free and close it altought they receive credit (status) for it</flamebait>

I'm not impressed that those kind of professors reacted that way when their proud was affected.

Those kind ...

I Wish I Knew About This ...

[tjasond]

When I was taking classes from professors whose only reason for teaching was the fact that they couldn't work in groups, this would've been extremely useful. I read through the author's planned censorship and I completely disagree. If there were ever a valid complaint to make public it would be of the ass clowns that pass themselves off as knowledgable experts in universities around the country but have nothing to back it up. And they're supposed to be the teachers? ...

What is everyone's problem with accountability these days? The lack of accountability is everywhere, especially the places where it counts, like our schools and our government. My New Year's Resolution: Make everyone who should be responsible for something accountable for it, and I encourage you to do the same.

We need accountability, we lost it somehow in the midst of our "political correctness." Look guys, it's okay to tick people off. Do what's right, stand up for yourselves! Read "Profiles in Courage" by John F. Kennedy. That book is about real men in American history. Back in those times, politicians were Statesmen, not sellouts.

I don't write to /. often, but this one really gets to me because it's dealing with our young adults who deserve to be informed. It also deals with certain professors who deserve to be canned.

Re:I Wish I Knew About This ...

[pkalkul]

Profiles in Courage was ghost-written by Joseph Kennedy's (JFK's dad and former Prohibition-era bootlegger turned politician) staff workers. Real statesmanly.

Anonymous teacher rating sites are worthless

[madmancarman]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but anonymous teacher rating sites are largely worthless because, with no accountability, there's no reason for anyone to be truthful, whether they're supportive or critical. We've seen the effect anonymity has on people who post to usenet, send email, and troll slashdot - no direction connection with real lfie and a person's reputation, so no real accountability.

There's a similar web site called RateMyTeachers.com that lets you rate high school teachers (its sister site, RateMyProfessors.com, offers the same service for college profs). I've been teaching high school for 5 1/2 years now, and after my sister emailed me a link to the ratings site, I immediately told my students that hang out in my classroom during lunch to go to the site and say the meanest, most ridiculous things about me possible. Why? Simply to prove the point that if students who like me can say awful, untrue things about me and have them published on the internet, then it's impossible to take those reviews any more seriously than a slashdot poll.

Now, as a professional educator, I value feedback and constructive criticism (it's a fundamental basis of education, so if it's good enough for our students, then why not the teachers?), but like any feedback, it needs to be accompanied with sufficient explanation and some degree of trust. Unfortunately, there's no incentive for anyone to be constructive or even honest on sites that allow anonymous ratings. Sure, you might be able to get an overall view of how students liked or disliked a teacher or professor, but giving them a numerical rating from 1.0 to 5.0 is as useful as basing a person's abilities solely on their SAT, ACT or IQ test score.

If a student really wants to have an effect on a teacher, they should go and talk to them about the problems they were having or make some friendly suggestions. Is this going to work on every teacher? Absolutely not - teachers can be some of the most egotistical and defensive people, and there are some you simply can't reach. (You should see teachers react to having other teachers come into their classroom for peer review - you can almost see their skin crawl.) However, I've found some of the negative comments I received about my teaching, especially early on when I was student teaching, which was such a bad experience that I considered not going into teaching at all, and from students who try but are still struggling, are some of the most helpful when I try to improve my teaching abilities.

However, I simply don't think online, anonymous reviews do anyone any good any more than high-stakes testing helps schools or students improve. The only way to improve a professor or teacher is to try to approach them about their shortcomings, and if that doesn't work (which really wouldn't be surprising), then switch classes and take someone you can enjoy, or suffer through it and hope the class goes quickly.

Re:Anonymous teacher rating sites are worthless

[Ender77]

While it is good in theory to talk to your professor/teachers, you should also be carefull. Some teachers are just mean, and if you complain to them it could come out in your grades. I HAVE seen and experienced this before first hand, a group project I helped on recieved a low grade with a note saying we didn't do something, when we politely pointed out that we did do what he said we didn't(showed proof in our documentation) he got angry and refused to change our grade. After that we kept getting low grades on ALL our projects no matter what, and the excuses given for the low grades were pure BS.

If you feel like you can talk to your professor then go for it, but if you do then I suggest you have a witness with you just in case, it is better to be safe than sorry.

Re:Anonymous teacher rating sites are worthless

[int18]

If you run into that problem, your university should have some sort of academic grievance procedure you can follow, so you can lodge an official complaint if you feel people are being unreasonable. Mine does - the new software for it was developed by students :-)

Re:Anonymous teacher rating sites are worthless

[madmancarman]

Some teachers are just mean, and if you complain to them it could come out in your grades. I HAVE seen and experienced this before first hand, a group project I helped on recieved a low grade with a note saying we didn't do something, when we politely pointed out that we did do what he said we didn't(showed proof in our documentation) he got angry and refused to change our grade. After that we kept getting low grades on ALL our projects no matter what, and the excuses given for the low grades were pure BS.

Yeah, I've seen this happen to, on more than one occasion with some of my co-workers. Another poster suggested an academic grievance process, which would be helpful, but I guess it's really up to each person to decide whether or not they can approach their teacher or prof without some sort of retribution. Ideally, professional educators would behave like what they are - professionals - but sometimes they're worse than the kids.

Re:Anonymous teacher rating sites are worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

I have similar history with a maths Teacher.

So there I was cruising along through High school winning national maths competitions (literally, I was actually doing advanced maths tutoring from Uni in preperation to going to overseas competition.) when in my 11th year I struck the paranoid teacher, out of their depth syndrome, with a mean streak problem.

I went from straight A's in maths to a near fail, based almost completely on my complete dismissal of the need to do homework and effectively ignoring the class I was sitting in most of the time (see I can admit some liability). Of course the fact that I was doing my university calculus assignments in my notepad at the same time should of been a clue. I was still hammering the actual assessments easily.

So I cracked up somewhat told her she was nuts and actually skipped the class for the next 6 months. Whereupon the teacher outrightly failed me, even though I had indeed done the Exams and handed in the assignments to schedule. During this time I was actually written up twice in the school newspaper for my achievements and advanced studies. It was like I was in 2 worlds at once and the Administraion was not noticing or at least not visibly doing anything.

Everything hit the proverbial fan though when it was discovered that all the travel, scholarship and booking information for a 3 month trip to MIT was withheld from me. (in 87 from Australia that was a heck of a big deal.) The teacher had been listed as my current maths teacher and for some reason the information and forms etc had all been sent to her rather than my Uni Tutor who put in the initial application. So I missed out.

Now after one screaming confrontation later, that saw the teacher physically restrained by my Tech Drawing teacher and the Librarian (who I had asked along as a witnesses), everything went nuts for about 10 days.

End result: I go nowhere, but my grades are reexamined and adjusted back up. Teacher takes a 6 month leave of absence and actually never returns. All court cases dropped.

It appears the teacher was and had been victimising several other students in other classes as well when they were doing well without the need for teaching and operating outside of the box. The teacher saw it all as some form of insult and once the victimisation started with me and I chose to ignore it (and then simply show for assessments only), she really went over the top.

My 3 attempts over the year to bring it to the attention of higher up's were ignored. Mainly due in my opinion to the teacher being the shool Education Union Rep. It was only after lawsuits were initiated by my family and the Teacher was actually criminally charged (with assault) that the school system stepped in.

My twelth year saw me back in class and winning the school math prize. Was listed in the yearbook as most likely to become a professor or win in court representing myself. Went on to Uni, discovered computers, got bored with maths and enjoy myself to this day.

Would the same work for the other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of these days an anonymous faculty review site of students will appear--and then the whining from the spoiled 18 year olds will start.

I can see it know: "Name: Spoiled Half-Ass Mr. Half-Ass was in several of my classes and he is a world class turd. etc. He never turned any assignments in on time and cheated on his final exam. Do not hire this useless waste of his parents' tuition money."

I am a teacher

[b17bmbr]

I am a high school history teacher (and geek on the side!!). I don't give two cents worth about teacherreviews.com. And yes, I'm on there (the ratmyteacher.com site I think), and yes, I've checked. Why would I have been rated low? Hmmm, perhaps because I am not the easiest history teacher on campus. For instance, our semester project is an historical biography of a 20th century figure. Kids ar reading everyone from Roosevelt (both), Hitler, Stalin, Che, Reagan, Dr. King, etc. Some of the books I had to say no to simply because the person, while interesting, was not an historical figure. Or perhaps because I assign more reading than just the book. Last semester we read from Locke's Second Treatise, Rousseau's Social Contract, and Hobbes' Leviathan. The assignment was to write about what each would have said about the US constitution. That is why I am not the "favorite" teacher. I can deal with that. I would rather be tougher and challenge them. How 'bout a teacherreview.com when they're 25, eh?

Re:I am a teacher

[Lord Omlette]

Republicans: party of big gov't
Democrats: party of really big gov't

Bush II - 8 percent spending increase
Clinton - 2 percent spending increase
Bush I - 4 percent spending increase
Carter - 2 percent spending increase

What the hell? Didn't you just say you were a history teacher?

Re:I am a teacher

[Cycline3]

Some of my favorite professors were my hardest. Don't just think becuase you give homework you'll get a bad rep. And don't think that automatically makes you a great teacher either. It simply doesn't work that way.

Re:I am a teacher

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats pretty funny stuff actually. Real Republicans will stay home on election day October 2004. Bush II is worse than any tax & spend Democrat to ever sit in office. The best thing a Republican can hope for is to have him replaced in 2004 so that he doesn't completely sink the economy. There will always be 2008 to try to get a real Republican elected. In the meantime the bum needs to go.

Re:I am a teacher

[Scudsucker]

As someone once said:

Democrats tax and spend.
Republicans borrow and spend.

Too bad

[KalvinB]

People have a right to their opinions.

If I want to put up a page blasting a teacher for being terrible I have a right to be able to do so.

The only motivation this site should have for moderating people's opinions is to maximize credibility. If reviews consist of "he's a poopyhead" nobody is going to take it seriously.

It's also not criminal to make outlandish comments against people. Would a reasonable person believe the teacher is diseased in such a way? Then it's not libel. It's just stupid. This is why comedians can put words in people's mouths and not get sued. And it's why tabloids can avoid being sued.

If the teacher wants to do something to hurt the site he should start by pointing out it's without credibility and no better than a supermarket tabloid.

The site should go back up immediatly in protest and with a new review for the teacher: "anti-free speech."

If he just wanted the unfounded comments gone that would warrent some sympathy. But since he's attempting to put the whole site down, that's undeniably anti-free speech.

Put that on your resume and smoke it.

Ben

who was the prof?

[Ozone Depletion]

Does anyone know who the prof was or what school he/she taught at?
Because I have a sneaking suspicion that I might know who wrote that...

[cue mystery music]

Maybe it's me but...

[JumperCable]

...but if you are good at what you do, you don't need to worry about the effect of random anonymous comments.

If you google...

[wzoo1]

www.ratemyteachers.com and www.ratemyprofessors.com are essentially the same type of sites but ran by someone else... Humm... I actually like the teacher/professor review sites since it's FREE SPEECH (1st admendment, duh...) & it gives us (students) an opinion about the teachers/staff. (I use ratemyteachers.com)
Anyways... that's my thought... ;)

well thank you. I appreciate it

[MichaelCrawford]

I've been thinking for quite some time of writing a book.

email me if you want to talk about it some more.

Travesty

[Anonymous Coward]

I find the taking down of this website to be an absolute travesty and a disservice to all teachers whose students post feedback on the site.

As an executive manager myself, feedback is absolutely critical to personal and professional improvement. Managers who do not listen to the folks they manage are often have very short and exlosively misguided careers. Often the personnel themselves are significantly more experienced or more recently experienced in the field that one manages, so to ignore them is to make a constant slew of inevitable mistakes. Managers and execs MUST take into account the opinions of their folks to achieve success.

In the same vein, teachers are managers of students and the learning process. These teachers must have an avenue for feedback (even if students only feel comfortable commenting in annonymous web-based environments such as TeacherReviews) to improve. To deny students and teachers themselves this feedback, is to admit that you are unwilling to improve.

In regards to the few blatant examples of potentially undeserved negative feedback, anyone with a little backbone and self-confidence should be able to see through these. Ignore the few so as not to invalidate the mass.

Within these terms, notification of the professors that comments have been written on them is potentially an extremely valuable addition to the site. The limiting factors that the site author proposes should be dropped out of hand as they limit the value of the vast majority of content, but the lack of quality in a few posts.

Bottom line, put the site back up. You are providing an invaluable tool to both students and teachers. The constitution and court precedence clearly protects you (as delineated by other posts) so any suit should be thrown out in the preliminary stages. Teachers should (and hopefully do) applaud your efforts, not resort to whining to the 'principal' when they get called a bad name.

Guess he'll become even more popular now

[totatis]

So, basically, in order to avoid being seen as some psycho by a few students, he looks like an asshole to the whole world.

This slashdot publicity should really help him regain his reputation !

I Got Shut Down The Same Way

[Cycline3]

My anti college site is offline too - for the same reasons. The forums and content got too hot for the administration and they wanted to go to court. I did once - and won hands down - but I was still out the money. So, in the end they still win. Cause they have the tuition of thousands of students and I don't. There is no free speech in America anymore unless you are rich. Any one that tells you other wise is a liar, wrong or both.

Re:I Got Shut Down The Same Way

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't go to court. Then you'll see how free you are... Revolution is the only way.

Re:I Got Shut Down The Same Way

[Anonymous Coward]

(By the way, that's "Not very free at all", in case anyone didn't want to try it for themselves)

Re:I Got Shut Down The Same Way

[Famatra]

My anti college site is offline too - for the same reasons. The forums and content got too hot for the administration and they wanted to go to court. I did once - and won hands down - but I was still out the money. So, in the end they still win. Cause they have the tuition of thousands of students and I don't. There is no free speech in America anymore unless you are rich. Any one that tells you other wise is a liar, wrong or both.

Well if you feel you cannot speak out effectively then you should try other means of expression, like anonymous p2p sites like Freenet.

Freenet , and some other anonymous p2p applications, exist exactly for this kind of court threatened censorship. The only drawback to this medium is since everything is anonymous you must be more discerning of what you read, so stupid / gullible people need not bother installing it.

Time to set up a eastern european server, then

[xtal]

Unmoderated posting of these things on the internet is a bad idea, personally damaging, and maybe harmful to careers.

Then the prof can cite evidence to the contrary and demonstrate what a great prof they are. Perhaps post examples of their assignments and notes, and their fine consultations with students and maybe a positive reference or to from a past study. Like I have to provide in the real world (tm) to get a job. I have a lot of schooling, and I have had excellent profs - and some that were so horrible I literally walked out of class and hoped someone else would teach it next term.

Don't like it? Welcome to the internet.

I think these are great. Perhaps someone should set one up outside of the clutches of the US legal system, and go to town. It's also one of the few effective means students have to make their opinions known - universities are not democratically run and a bad run in with the adminstration could ruin that STUDENTS academic career. They are the ones forking over the big bucks, remember.

I will refrain from making psychiatric diagnoses of academic officials who see fit to unleash lawyers on some site that is not affliated with the university. A written rebuttal would have been more effective, and I am sure the teacher reviews site would have predominantly displayed it if it was such a big deal.

Academics are supposed to hold themselves to a higher standard. There were many other choices and avenues open. Boo!

Re:Time to set up a eastern european server, then

[demi]

Then the prof can cite evidence to the contrary and demonstrate what a great prof they are.

In order to do this on a fair basis, the student's identity would have to be known so that the credibility of the review could be called into question. If a student claims that the professor didn't cover 50% of the material that was included on the final, the professor should have the right to respond, equally publically, that the student only attended 50% of the classes.

Re:Problem is...the truth is a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no bad teachers, only bad students.

pure bs

[gt25500]

I've checked out this site in the past. Good teachers get good reviews. Bad teachers get bad reviews. Perhaps we should get rid of movie and book critics. The fact is, this teacher was most probably an asshole and deserved the reviews he got.

Anecdote

[Anonymous Coward]

A teacher friend of mine told me about a student he had in his persuasive writing class. This student had given him a number of problems throughout the class, asking for extensions, requesting a meeting between the teacher and the students' psychiatrist, etc. At the end of the semester my friend had to give the student a poor grade because the student just hadn't done the work required.

The student wrote an inflammatory letter about the teacher to my friend's superior . His superior agreed on a meeting with the student where he basically told the student - "The point of this class was to teach persuasive writing, and after reading your letter I would tend to agree with your teachers evaluation."

Um, How does Slashdot handle this?

[Mulletproof]

I mean we're talking about the same thing really, right? Lord only knows how many people get panned and flamed on this forum, any one of which could be considered libel. I know part of it is the disclaimers plastered across the site, so what happened with Teacher Review? Maybe Slashdot simply has more money to fend off these attacks?

Re:Um, How does Slashdot handle this?

[WildBeast]

Yeah, Slashdot has got the money not to mention the huge publicity if anything like that was attempted and you can be sure that the huge members base will be helping out with money very quickly.

Re:Um, How does Slashdot handle this?

[tvh2k]

I think the difference is that a site like ratemyteachers.com solicits users opinions, and attempts to censor them to remove the libelous material. Slashdot, OTOH, just leaves everything be (minus the moderation system, but that only ranks not censors) so it remains the authors original work.

I've taught physics myself

[MichaelCrawford]

not as a professor, but as a teaching assistant. I taught numerical analysis when I was an undergrad at caltech, and kept teaching right after my first visit to a psych ward.

In grad school at UCSC, I was teaching physics lab, and ended up in the psych ward again.

But I got good reviews from my students.

You forgot to say IANAL

[PCM2]

Actually, slander is by definition spoken. When printed or published, it is libel.

That actually depends on the jurisdiction. The state of Illinois, for instance, makes no distinction between the two -- all types of defamation are treated the same under the law. On the other hand, in California the definition of slander is much more specific than that of libel -- meaning you might overhear a spoken statement and quote it in print, and while the original speaker's statement might not be deemed slanderous, your putting it in print could still be considered libel. (Source: The Associated Press Stylebook.)

Re:You forgot to say IANAL

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, it's not relevant in this case anyway. Unless the people behind the site actually wrote the review, they're totally protected by 47 USC 230.

Also, my .sig does indicate that IANAL. With luck I'll be changing that later this year!

Re:You forgot to say IANAL

[demi]

Yes, well, part of the point is that it really had nothing to do with whether he would win or not; the fact is that the nuisance, expense and risk of a lawsuit, even a (likely--but never any guarantees) successfully defended one, is a sufficient bludgeon to make it not worth it to operate the site.

By the way, it looks like the site's going back up, more or less. But only because the professor in question withdrew his threat.

One BIG mistake...

[lommer]

* Easy professor removal. I believe professors should have the right to make their reviews be private. A professor will have the ability to hide all reviews from public view. Reviews posted will be emailed to that professor, but not shared with the rest of the world. The number of reviews and possibility other information will remain on the site.

I FULLY agree with all of the proposed changes except for this one. Enabling this totally ruins the purpose of your site, as good professors will leave review on, but those professors who consistently get bad reviews will just take them off the site. I think that allowing a professor to make all reviews private is a horrible idea - though it will help protect you from lawsuits...

Re:One BIG mistake...

[Anonymous Coward]

Enabling this totally ruins the purpose of your site, as good professors will leave review on, but those professors who consistently get bad reviews will just take them off the site.

The fact that Professor Whoever has made a choice to keep student reviews of their performance private would let you know what sort of ratings they receive.

"IANAP"

[jellybear]

Maybe we should say "IANAP but he is a schizophrenic"

remedy is against publisher, not the author

[Charles Dodgeson]

The professor might not like what content was up there, but his remedy is against the AUTHOR of the statements, not the SITE.

Sorry. Remedy is against the publisher not the author. The distinction does matter in this case.

Still, of course that doesn't explain why the removal of the particular defamatory reviews isn't sufficient remedy. As long as the publisher is willing to remove defamatory material upon request, the professor in this case has no case.

If the removal of the reviews in question is not some how sufficient for the professor, then my only conclusion is that he is likely a bipolar schizophrenic

Even under the libel laws in the UK (which are nastier than in the US) a simple "take down upon notice" policy is more than sufficient. There is no reason for the site to retool.

Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad I used the last mod point yesterday.

Paranoid and Schitzophrenic.... not yet!

[failedlogic]

You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until you see his reaction when he sees his bandwidth bill after getting a /.'ing ;)

On a separate note, I'm a 3rd year university student. I think anyone can attest that they've had good & bad professors.

I think this site may well be valuable to students. This site is certainly prone to slandering. I would have loved to have read reviews of teachers before taking a class. In university you don't always know students who'd taken a class. It's easy to miss a class from a good professor and equally easy to sign up with a bad professor. I think some amount of review should be made of the reviews and perhaps proof of enrollment. I don't advocate censorship but this would at least remove slanderous or untrue accounts.

Admittedly, determining what qualities make a good or bad professor is subjective. On the other hand, universities should be more forthcoming about the results of teacher reviews. They discard the reviews as if they never happened. Students cannot find out from the faculty or administration which teachers are performing well and which are not.

Re:Paranoid and Schitzophrenic.... not yet!

[gangien]

On a separate note, I'm a 3rd year university student.

Well i'm a 4th year university student so there :P. (joking joking.. no flames please).

Personally I find other peoples opinions of professors largly worthless. If a student recieves a bad grade in a class, whether deserved or not, are they gonna recremend(sp?) that professor to other students? no. Then there's the students who love a particular prof for similiar reasons. I think it's hard enough to get a decent review of a prof in person. Online it only gets worse imo, the extremes come out a lot more common than IRL. Take /. for example..

Admittedly, determining what qualities make a good or bad professor is subjective.

I think this is my biggest problem with these sites. Not that they should be illegal or anyhting.

Re:Paranoid and Schitzophrenic.... not yet!

[anubi]

I have had very similar experiences with my college instructors. There is this one guy, quite old, teaching Data Structures here. Oooh, some of the things I have heard about this guy. I talked to the guy a bit before signing up for his class.

The problem? This guy really gave some nasty homeworks. Yes, really time consuming. But there is a big difference between time consuming and busywork. He was trying to take a bunch of people who barely knew the most basic "Hello, World" C++ students and bring us to the level we could understand how to code damn near anything.

So he had these five projects we had to complete in the semester. The first one just got us familiar with class structure - instantiating and deleting objects, the second one made a several linked lists of these, the third had us make a binary search trees of them, the fourth had us do a maze, and the fifth had us do a graph.

No big thing really, but it did take a lot of time. Especially doing it the way he wanted it done. His was not simple textbook snippets. No, his were all wrapped up in an application, like that which would be quite suitable for use in a business. He wanted all the bells and whistles, like templates, inheritances, operator overloading, copy constructors, and file operations. But he was also very flexible. He let us code in any C++ compiler, but he did insist we use the input data streams he provided and our programs had to generate the output streams he expected.

And that guy could spot plagiarism a mile away.

Some students needed to take as many courses as possible and get documentation they "passed". They weren't happy. This guy assigned most of the course grade to the projects, and if you didn't do them, well let's just say he would let you try again next semester.

Some of us were coming back to school after layoff situations, looking mostly for skills on how to program using the object-oriented methods.. and we sought out anything this man taught, because he - by far - gave us the biggest "bang for the buck" of any instructor on the campus. I felt that I got the equivalent of 12 semester credits when I only paid for 4.

Re:Paranoid and Schitzophrenic.... not yet!

[gangien]

actually the particular situtation i was thinking about as I wrote that, was remarkly similiar to yours.

Thoughts on Alternatives.

[DarkHelmet]

Amazon.com has a nice little feature that says, "Is this review useful?"

And by default, you can see the review of the item that is most relevant.

How can this not apply to Teacher Reviews? If a review of the teacher is particularly bad, but gets voted as useful / accurate, then oh well.

Maybe reviews should be blammed Newgrounds Style, but with a few modifications. After a certain number of votes, if the review is found slanderous / not useful, it becomes invisible and flagged for review.

Also, why not instead of censor it, allow the actual teacher room to respond to his / her own review? If there are 200 upvotes on a negative review of the teacher, the teacher should have the right to defend his / her own philosophy.

Apparently this fellow doesn't care for his work *too* much. If he fought the good fight, I'm sure the ACLU et al would help foot the bill.

Thoughts? (I'd prefer responses over moderation on this one)

Re:Thoughts on Alternatives.

[haggar]

Except that the "Was this review useful?" voting option never works like that, in practice. What happens is that people vote down negative reviews of products they like, and vote up the positive ones. It has nothing to do whether the review is factual and sheds light on some negative aspects of the product that would be indeed good to know.

So it would be with the professor reviews: if a professor that is popular with most students, gets a negative review from an unlucky student that got in the crosshairs of a professor, his review will be voted "unuseful" while it will actually be very useful, because it would shed light on a "wolf in the guise of a sheep". It's no so useful writing a negative review of a prof that everybody knows is a skunk. However, that review will be voted overwhealmingly "useful", even though it's not.

That's one of the reasons I don't give any credit to the "Was this review useful" voting on Amazon. It means squat. I rather read the reviews regardless of how many positive or negative votes they got.

Re:Thoughts on Alternatives.

[jred]

Amazon.com has a nice little feature that says, "Is this review useful?"

And by default, you can see the review of the item that is most relevant.

How can this not apply to Teacher Reviews? If a review of the teacher is particularly bad, but gets voted as useful / accurate, then oh well.

Amazon has probably already patented it.

F***ed Company

[salesgeek]

They need to simply follow Pud's lead at F***ed Company and post the cease and desist letters. If you piss off students so bad you need to get a lawyer to shut them up, there is something wrong with you.

Re:F***ed Company

[iwein]

Well i would not be so blunt. There might actually be something wrong with some students.
As Dany says himself: the intent of the site is not to insult professors.
So if a professor gets insulted there, who is wrong?

Technically he didn't even need a lawyer to shut that particular (or any other) student up in this case because (as I understood it) the insult was instantly removed when there were complaints about it

Actually -- TeacherReviews is coming back.

[dylan95]

Actually -- TeacherReviews is coming back.

I put up another blog post this morning at about 4am about it:

Quoted from
http://www.dylangreene.com/blog.asp?blogID=3 88

==================
TeacherReviews.com is coming back, and it's going to be better than ever - for both students and professors.

The professor who threatened a lawsuit has decided to drop the case. This happened after we talked about the situation, the site as it is today, and the intent of the site, which has always been to help students, as opposed to insult professors. This professor is now helping the site by providing feedback to the new features from a professor's point of view, which is something I have not looked into before.

Here are some changes I've been working on:

Redesigned and rebuilt the entire site from scratch. Not one line of HTML, ASP, or stored procedure code is from the old site. There will be a fresh new look that will hopefully be easier for you to navigate, and the system will make it easier for me to plug new features into.
I've reorganized the database. For example, departments are now associated with classes instead of professors - since a professor might teach classes in different departments, but classes typically don't change departments. All 34,000 reviews are still there.
Reviews can be "Flagged for Removal." Anybody can flag a review, but only volunteers and I will have the ability to permanently delete them. When a review is flagged, you will see the grade and the flag, but not the content unless it is unflagged.
When a Flagged Review is removed, it is considered Banned from the system. If a user has too many Banned reviews, that user risks being banned from using TeacherReviews.
Professors who ask not to be reviewed will still have their names in the system and it will still accept new reviews for them in case they change their mind. Their reason for not wanting to be on the site will replace their reviews.
Helping out:

Contact your editors: TeacherReviews can make a great story for your school or local paper. I've been interviewed twice this week from different papers. Who's next?
Donate: Donations will go toward improving TeacherReviews unless you say otherwise.
Create Fliers: Schools always have players for posting flyers. Save those fliers because I'm also going to create a Flier Exchange to share your fliers with others.
Finally - once again, thank you everybody who wrote in. As of right now (~4am), my blog entry "What Happened to TeacherReviews?" has just under 200 comments. I've received over 100 emails, and I think I managed to reply to every single one of them. If you didn't get a reply it might have been eaten by my spam filter.

So... Save your TeacherReviews.com bookmarks. The new site is coming soon.
==================

My first time being slashdotted and I was off watching The Daily Show...

Re:Actually -- TeacherReviews is coming back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to say it Dylan, but this story probably might have been better off laying low for a while.....I can't help but think this mob will bleed over to the new TR when it rises again....and...... well, cross-fingers .....etc.

You had plenty of support, and personally I can't help wonder about a group of nerds who flock to the sacred cow everyday to be told what they need to care about......

Have you read some of these postings? Wow, I get a little frightened just posting here....not the most comfortable atmosphere 4sure...mainstream has yet to not butcher a complex issue in the history of mankind.

later
-K

Use a trust method

[macdaddy]

I vote for a trust method or mechanism to weed out the trolls. A review from a student that has only submitted a single review should have very little weight on the professor's overall score. In fact it should receive a low "trust" rating on the website. As that student submits more reviews of other professors that student's "trust" rating should increase. Think of it like karma; until you prove to a subset of the masses that your comments (reviews) are ontopic, well-written, and worthwhile your karma (trust rating) won't be high enough to adversely affect the thread (professor). This would be one simple solution.

Along these same lines they could implement a peer review process for review submissions. A new user's review could be kept in limbo until, say, 10 other reviews (perhaps once they reach a certain level of "trust") have given the ok to it. Effectively these Trusted Reviewers would act like moderators and weed out the intentionally inflamitory reviews, spam, or poorly written reviews from the well-written and on-topic reviews. The anti-spam project Razor uses something similar to this called the Truth Evaluation System or TeS. It's all done automaticly, using spam reports and revokes to ascertain what a registered user's confidence level should be.

Why can't something like this be implemented to solve their problem? It still doesn't prevent a person from commiting libel but it does help weed out the intentionally imflamitory reviews and blatent personal attacks on educators. I've often commented on how I think such a review system should be used on Slashdot for the moderation system. I think all negative-scoring reviews should be confirmed by a second moderator before the post is scored. This would be best accomplished by not penalizing the moderator for participating in the confirmation process by losing a moderator point.

Publicly ID the prof and spread the review!

[enosys]

Someone should publicly identify the prof and spread the review and perhaps even his offline contact info all over the place (anonymously of course). I tried to find the review but couldn't. I hope someone has it.

Yes, I do think that biased defamatory reviews are a bad thing. It's just that I think that shutting down a site over this is far far worse and for that prof deserves some publicity in return.

RMT is better...

[jkmiecik]

There is a different website, called Rate My Teachers that has a MASSIVE system of moderation in place so comments like the ones from this story never see the public. Before you say it's impossible to moderate all of that - the top moderator on that site has reviewed over 60000 comments. That's just the top one out 3662 moderators.

Forget it

[SnprBoB86]

www.ratemyteachers.com
and
www.ratemyprofessors. com
are still around.

They are based on the same system (operated by the same people) and they have a pretty decent system for regulating comments and reviews.

My major complaint with both of the fact that ANYONE can annonymously mark a comment as inappropreiate which allows anyone to "deface" the site.

Also if a school's administration isn't careful just anyone (READ students) can become the admin of their www.ratemy*.com account very easily by writing a simple e-mail.

i cant spell and i didnt type this comment in ms word first... sorry :-P

-SniperBoB-

Censor

[benguru]

Wow, this is very insane. A site complies with a teahers demands, and he still sues. What should they do go back in a time machine and stop the internet from being invented? I hope the ACLU helps Teacher Review, and I hope they win. Also what is bad with saying teachers are bad, must you always be nice to your teachers even if they are horrible. Also how do we know this guy isn't insane, and maybe he does deserve these comments. Also calling someone paranoid is horrible, I call my brother it almost everyday, and he doesn't care.

Another Similar Site

[lhpineapple]

For those who are still itching to post, there's always www.ratemyprofessors.com.

I've used these reviews before as a guide, but never to make a final decision whether or not I want to take a class with a professor. It seems more likely that a person will post comments because they're upset and just want to complain.

Not very different than Slashdot.

Great...

[No. 24601]

now even his BLOG has been forced offline.. Damn Slashdot!

Way to give into the first sign of presure...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 2 years I've worked for the company I'm still at, the 11 employees I've seen have all said something to the affect of my boss being a "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic". If you asked my boss about it he'd say it's unfounded.. which doesn't mean it's not true. Before you jump ship Dylan why don't you put up a disclaimer to which should be obvious to the world.. the oppinions expressed by the users of your system are simply their oppinions.. not libal.. oppinion.. Maybe I just have a biased view on this prof being that I'm picturing him just like my boss, but if people are saying things about you that you don't like.. just maybe it's *your fault*

"Forced?"

[Anonymous Coward]

The headline is quite misleading. Big surprise, on slashdot.

Nobody forced anything.

A site owner chose to take action upon receipt of a litigious request. The site owner is apparently quite young, or at least green to life in the business world where a threat of a lawsuit should be regarded as only slightly more serious than a polite request, particularly if the threat was not preceded by a polite request.

In this case, the site owner would have been wise to note that, had he been ordered to take his website down purely on the basis of the complaint, it would probably amount to a landmark decision. This complaint is quite distinct from trademark or copyright complaints. Libel or defamation cases are rather difficult to press. It is even more difficult to press a case against a plaintiff who has already ceased and desisted! Civil liberties groups, useless as they are, would almost certainly not have taken the professor's side, given the circumstances (the site had already ceased and desisted).

If you politely ("reasonably") ask for compliance, and your request is honored, you really don't have a case to press under a lawsuit. The only exception would be if you can demonstrate actual damages. That would not have been easy for this plaintiff.

But the bottom line is, nobody forced anything. Someone made an impolite, but reasonable request, followed by a threat. Such threats are routinely encountered in the real world, and they rarely amount to squat.

Yes, this is OT (Was Re:Schools)

[UndercoverParrothead]

Definitely doesn't render correctly in Moz.

Part of the problem is no way of tracing libel

[Anonymous Coward]

If students can make any comments that they want,
and there is no way to track the comments back to
the individuals then there will always be a few
trolls that ruin the whole thing.

Of course, you want people to feel that they can
be honest, but not completely unaccountable.

There is a similar CS professor review system being
used at UIUC (bang.cs.uiuc.edu). There they require
authentication by your university ID, but then
allow you to post without having your name
attached to your review.

I suppose some sort of a Wiki method, or at least
moderation by moderators would help the situation.

this is bad

[c4ffeine]

Students need to be able to talk about their teachers with other students without fearing legal action.

For example, our school has a teacher that lies to students, only grants A's to girls in his classs, picks on students (the students he picks on never get more than a C), and has failed more students than the rest of the teachers at our school COMBINED.

It was only through googling that I discovered that: other people at my school had noticed, and that people at the school he used to teach at had the same problems.

Right now, we're using this a evidence to get him fired. We couldn't have done it without being able to talk freely.

By the way, for the interested, his name is Dr. Eysturlid. Anyone else except IMSA students heard of him?

A shame -- it really helps

[shadowmatter]

Although I've never used TeacherReviews.com, here at UCLA we have a similar service called bruinwalk.com where students can rate their professors on axes of effectiveness, difficulty, concern, availability, and give an overall rating. Almost every student here uses it to find classes with the best professors each quarter, and a good number rate their professors at the end. What's more, some professors even go online and check their ratings and reviews to figure out what they can improve upon, and what they're doing right.

Although some students leave worthless feedback, and some people use it simply to find the easiest professor, I think sites like these are needed -- after all, it's your education, and if you're a good student, you'd want to make the most of it for your money. I guess I feel you're almost entitled to it. If you don't have a good professor, then you simply aren't as motivated, skip class, slack on the homework, and come out learning very little. In some classes, books can only take your knowledge so far; from thereon, it's the professors that make the difference. So if universities are there to promote knowledge and further understanding, shouldn't sites like these be the next logical step?

- shadowmatter

surprise, surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who goes to the trouble to design, develop, and launch a service like this that doesn't stop to think:

"Hey, what if the people that submit the most often are mostly the *dumb* kids who hate *all* their teachers?"

More Important Blog Exerpt

[HardCase]

"TeacherReviews.com is coming back, and it's going to be better than ever - for both students and professors."

Read it here.

Re:HOW DOES ONE BUGGER?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ben Dover, I'll show ya!

Ratemyprofessors.com

[Popageorgio]

Go to ratemyprofessor.com for the same type of service. I use it for picking classes.

Libel

[That's Unpossible!]

For the clueless... yes, it is illegal to print falsehoods about a non-celebrity (and in most cases, a celebrity).

Good thing it's gone.

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I had a math prof who was possible the most inept and awful teacher I had ever had, but he was a good person, know his field, and when I took advantage of office hours, he walked me through calculus person to person, and I passed.

Most students who complaine do not take advatage of office hours, and just thought it would be an "easy A". Fuck them, they need to be dropping frys.

I took a honors chem class, and spent HOURS with the prof who just happended to be the head of the department, no one else took advantage of his time.

I did not take spelling.

Can't they just require some humor?

[blueberry(4*atan(1))]

If the site requires teacher reviews and posts to be funny, wouldn't it be "parody" which is immune from lawsuit?

Re:Can't they just require some humor?

[cpt kangarooski]

Just being or claiming to be a parody isn't enough. Just like it isn't enough in the copyright realm. Instead it merely increases the likelihood that it is not harmful, whether this is because it is not serious and thus not defamatory, or whether it is really a fair use, and not not infringing.

But there's no magical shield by virtue of being a parody. That's always a step towards something else.

Maybe?

[blueberry(4*atan(1))]

Is it just possible you *do suck?*

The Obvious Solution

[atubbs]

The obvious solution is to implement a slashdot-like system with regards to reviews. By default, reviews will be given no clout, and it takes review by peers to validate them before they are even displayed. Thus "THIS TEACHER FUCKING SUCKS" which while possibly true offers no value will not end up being seen unless somebody is browsing at the troll level. That way constructive and critical comments will both be available, but only those that are thought out and respectable; anything below that can be taken as heresay.

America -- The offended society

[Elpacoloco]

I am incoherently angry! I am tempted to shout and yell, but I'm going to attempt to keep it under control!

Why does everyone seem to think that they deserve only positive reviews, and that negative reviews are a crime against them?

I want to know who this professor is so I never have to take a class that he teaches! My reason for this is that I am already convinced that he is an idiot!

Re:America -- The offended society

[onelin]

to an extent, I agree with you. People get way too offended...

but think of it this way, if someone publicly posted that you were a pedophile, or something seriously offbase, especially if it was related to career, you WOULDN'T care at all? Some kids can be smacktards and way overdue it, so I can see there being a "possibility" that this is not just someone getting too offended, but getting rightly offended because it's slander. In this case it was "bipolar paranoid schizophrenic" which, while not as bad as my example, it's certainly total BS. It shouldn't be a big deal to take down crap like that.

How about adding a listing that says "we have removed xx reviews for this professor" ...students can still judge if they think the prof is, in fact, an idiot.

Career-Killing Trolls and the /.ers Who Love Them

[Schwartzboy]

I can't think of a scenario in which someone's career could be ruined by a Slashdot troll.

In principle I agree with you, but for the sake of an alternate viewpoint, here's one for you:
Somebody's reading /. from work, which I admit is a stupid thing to begin with if the work policy forbids non-work activities on company time. Person looks at an article with very few posts, or browses at -1 so that one of the "GNAA" trolls comes up. HR person walks by, looks at screen. HR person takes offense to...well, everything in the GNAA-troll's post, brands the employee as a "white supremacist" who actively engages in anti-minority activity on company time with company equipment. Depending on the person's line of work and the amount of BS the HR person can wield, that could ruin part or all of someone's career, I guess.

Hey, it could happen. That scenario, or something oddly similar, is more likely to happen now than it was 20 years ago...okay, I feel kind of sick now.

I'm a Teacher

[Anonymous Coward]

What I did in response to a similar site when I became aware of it, was look around and see that it was possible to rate the same teacher numerous times from different IP addresses.
I also saw comments that were quite humorous but had little to do with teaching, like (in parapharase) *he's not my teacher but he jogs by my house each day and I like his gym shorts*. The comments and ratings were still up. So I couldn't really take the site seriously. But some students (I would say a small number that the media likes to sensationalize) were really *getting into it*.

And I have worked at colleges; I saw a comment earlier about college reviews staying private. Where I worked, those comments usually become public but after some sort of statistical analysis is done, and the professor/lecturer/TA has a chance - at least in theory - to *reflect* on the semester.

Well, I would consider the professor's lawsuit in the article a bit over the top, and as others have noted, perhaps not on the firmest legal ground, but there is something of a message in all of it in my opinion.

It seems people have become so used to the anonymous rant or slam, and in turn, the forums (or simple *forms* for they are sometimes little else) for displaying these results, that they become the only places where teachers/politicians/*fill in your public figure here* check, to find out how those they should be having a dialogue with actually feel.

When I found out about the site that some of our students were using, I simple let my students know (they are high school freshman mostly - though apparently anyone can sign in at the site I linked to) that I checked for feedback in class, and I was always willing to hear any new suggestions.

Here's what I posted, and the classes are all going great after the usually rough start to a freshman high school year in a tough science class. It's a little *edgey* in tone without being over the top, and if any of them actually used that page to access the site - at least the links to the main pages of information they needed to know for the course were close at hand.

grademyprofessor.com

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI. If you go to http://www.grademyprofessor.com there is a pretty good professor grading system based upon previous students experiences. You can add schools, departments, and professors.

tenure's effect on teaching

[jeisner]

Once profs have tenure their incentive to teach better is dramatically reduced. If they can get more grants doing research with no chance of being fired for imcompentent teaching then you can believe the grants will come first.

As a not-yet-tenured computer science prof, I think this is a misleading, even backward, account of how tenure affects teaching.

Do you really think that untenured profs are under pressure to teach well? At a research university, our tenure case depends much more on the ability to get grants and do influential research. Of course we untenured folk are expected to teach and do everything else well, too, but given that time is finite, we're usually advised to teach adequately without wasting too much time on it, and make sure the research is brilliant. So you ought to expect that it's untenured faculty who neglect teaching in favor of research.

You're correct that tenure may further reduce the incentive to teach well. But hey, it also reduces the incentive to get grants, do research, speak politely to one's colleagues, etc. So why do you conclude specifically that teaching will lose out to research once the pressure's off? Here are some guesses that are more logical but still misinformed:

• "Tenured faculty have more freedom to allocate their time among these activities as they see fit, without the dean or tenure committee looking over their shoulder. Some may prefer research, others teaching."

  This is sort of true, but there are many other pressures on how profs allocate their time. Taking away the tenure issue doesn't suddenly free us up to do what we like. There are always a zillion things that have to be taken care of today.

• "Tenured faculty have no incentive to do anything, and 'allocate their time' to sitting on their duffs. So they teach worse and do less research."

  Fortunately, this cynical proposition doesn't at all match my experience of CS profs. Faculty who make it to tenure tend to continue working very hard. They generally have a strong work ethic and identify with their jobs. Usually they also have a sense of duty toward their undergrad students, grad students, and grant sponsors.

You may be thinking: Ok, tenured profs may keep working hard, but won't they spend all their time on research once they can get away with it? Don't professors just prefer research? Obviously profs at research universities do enjoy research -- after all, we emerged from a Ph.D. still liking it enough that we took a job where independent research was required. But we also enjoy teaching (or at least mentorship) -- otherwise we'd have gone off to do research in industry, at twice the salary and half the hassle. So don't assume we'd all just like to ditch the teaching in favor of research as soon as we can.

Now, it may well be that your original conclusion happens to be right, and tenured profs do focus more on research than untenured profs. But here are three possible explanations for such a correlation (if it exists):

• Causal explanation (which you proposed in your post): "Their priorities changed as soon as they got job protection."

  Doubtful (based on conversations with many tenured faculty). Tenure is unlikely to change my priorities at all. I do what I do because I like to do it and because other people (especially students) depend on me to do it. If you get tenure, nothing changes, and you're very relieved about that. You just go on doing what you were doing before.

• Selection bias explanation: "The profs who spend all their time teaching don't get tenure. So the ones who are left after tenure were the ones who preferred research in the first place."

  This explanation has some merit (since a few great, committed teachers do get thrown away like this), but it doesn't go too far. In my experience, most faculty who are denied tenure were trying to play the research game and are not noticeably better teachers than the

Re:tenure's effect on teaching

[chialea]

Ah, someone who makes sense. :)

Even as grad students, we're very much pressured to be able to speak well, write well, do brilliant research, and teach adequately. TAing is referred to as an infinite time-suck, which it is, instead of being a priority, which it should be.

But hey, I'm just working on my bitterness quotient. If I'm going to graduate in 5 years, I've got to get it up there!

Lea

Freedom of speech?

[KZigurs]

Hello guys, are you really telling that your legal system is SO screwed now that you cannot post your negative opinion about some person online? Somehow I have always believed that this was quite an important point of Freedom of speech, that USA is so proud of. Or isn't the CNN the only entity in USA that has no rights to say anything true or unpleasant to someone else... Fuck the professors. I'm sure that even in case if maintainer of site GETS suied, it would be a simple post in a site to raise all the necessary funds for best legal defense someone can afford (and truthfully in such a case it would require about three hours of work from a competent lawyer + court appearance). Get a life, dear paranoid americans. Do you really will always consider that someone is threatening your positions? Then they were commies, now they are students. And your army still walks around the world doing whatever it wants without any reason.

Re:Freedom of speech?

[saddino]

Hello guys, are you really telling that your legal system is SO screwed now that you cannot post your negative opinion about some person online? Somehow I have always believed that this was quite an important point of Freedom of speech, that USA is so proud of.

The US legal system has always defended against slander and libel. And thus, you're free to make as many negative opinions about people as you wish. However, you may not state falsehoods about people as fact.

IMHO, the system probably doesn't seem as "screwed" if you are the victim.

speak for yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Lazy cheater

Caveat emptor!

[zenith744]

So let's ponder this for a moment:

College professors earn tens of thousands of dollars per year as their salary.

College students pay tens of thousands of dollars per year as their draconian penance for learning.

Seems to me the person paying should have access to reviews of the product being purchased (forgive the crude analogy).

who scored you "Insightful"??

[corbettw]

Abortion doctors get shot, gays get crucified, blacks get dragged behind pickup trucks, planned parenthoods get bombed, black churches get burned.

Republican tend to resort to violence early and often.

First off, only two wars in the history of the US were initiated with Republican Presidents in office: Gulf Wars I and II. Every other war from the War of 1812 on were started by Democrats (I'm including the Civil War in this, as it was Southern Democrats who seceeded from the Union and sparked the war). So to claim that Republicans "resort to violence early and often" is just plain assinine.

Secondly, no political persusasion is free of nutjobs out to hurt or destroy innocent people (incidentally, the nutjobs who burned down black churches and tried to blow them up in the South in the 60s were all Democrats, as was Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the KKK). Trying to paint all conservatives as violent maniacs is hateful speech, pure and simple.

Why is it that liberals constantly feel the need to attack conservatives and their principles in such crude and childish fashion?

Re:who scored you "Insightful"??

[Malcontent]

First of all you are neglecting to mention the military actions in panama, granada and afghanistan. The US goes to war at least once a decade after all. Also vietnam was widely opposed by democrats and supported by republicans.

Yes in the sixties the parties were "switched" in their positions but both parties switched their positions later. It's no accident the democrats "lost" the south when they backed full rights for blacks. Today, right now, democrats are generally opposed to using war and violence as a means to solve their problems while republicans are of the opposite opinion. They favor war and violence whenever possible in all possible ways to solve social ills. Whether it's war, death penalty, harsh prison terms, public flogging or what have you. Even their terminology is all about violence. War on drugs, War on hollywood, war on this, war on that. I think it's telling.

"Why is it that liberals constantly feel the need to attack conservatives and their principles in such crude and childish fashion?"

It's not crude and childish it's simple observation. No member of the KKK today is a democrat, no member of the aryan nations is a democrat. Democrats don't crucify gays or shoot abortion doctors do they? Can you imagine a pro choice activist shooting a priest or bombing a church? I can't. Like it or not that's life. Republicans kill people that disagree with them more often. Not only that but they do it for ideological reasons. Trut me no liberal ever painted a shwastika on a synagauge.

"Why is it that liberals constantly feel the need to attack conservatives and their principles in such crude and childish fashion?"

Because the the person I was responding to specifically stated that republicans might smash the head of liberal professors with a sledgehammer. Go read it, it's pretty disturbing. he seemed gleeful at the idea that a republican would render the IQ of a liberal professor to that of a poodle with a well aimed whack in the head.

Really, if you don't want the stink don't roll in shit. If you go around saying that liberals should be hit in the head with sledgehammers or that hippies should be buried in mass graves what else do you expect people to think of you?

Re:who scored you "Insightful"??

[corbettw]

Today, right now, democrats are generally opposed to using war and violence as a means to solve their problems while republicans are of the opposite opinion.

Yes, you've come so far from the ancient days of 1998, when President Clinton thought it was a good idea to bomb the hell out of Bosnia.

Whether it's war, death penalty, harsh prison terms, public flogging or what have you. Even their terminology is all about violence.

And yeah, you're right, no Democrat would start something like the War on Poverty, would they? Oops, guess they would.

Because the the person I was responding to specifically stated that republicans might smash the head of liberal professors with a sledgehammer.

What he seemed to be saying was stifling dissent can lead to violent repercussions. I think that's a no brainer, don't you?

No member of the KKK today is a democrat, no member of the aryan nations is a democrat.

And you know this how? You might be surprised how many Yellow Dog Democrats in the Deep South keep an extra set of sheets in the linen closet. Don't forget, a lot of them good ol' boys want nothing to do with the party of Lincoln.

Really, if you don't want the stink don't roll in shit. If you go around saying that liberals should be hit in the head with sledgehammers or that hippies should be buried in mass graves what else do you expect people to think of you?

*sniff* Smells fine to me. If you're smelling shit, you might check yourself. Oh, and I'd appreciate a pointer to where I said it's OK to hurt or kill people with whom you disagree.

Re:who scored you "Insightful"??

[Malcontent]

"Yes, you've come so far from the ancient days of 1998, when President Clinton thought it was a good idea to bomb the hell out of Bosnia."

Bosnia was a special case wasn't it? There was a genocide going on. US co-operated with both the UN and NATO. In fact the whole operation was a joing US-NATO operation. Little details you forgot to mention.

"And yeah, you're right, no Democrat would start something like the War on Poverty,"

Right because a war on poverty is exactly like the war on drugs right? NOT!.

'What he seemed to be saying was stifling dissent can lead to violent repercussions. I think that's a no brainer, don't you?"

No I don't. That's the supidest thing I have heard in a long time. Besides even if he wanted to say that he could have. He chose to say instead that liberal professors might get hit in head with a sledge hammer.

"And you know this how? You might be surprised how many Yellow Dog Democrats in the Deep South keep an extra set of sheets in the linen closet. Don't forget, a lot of them good ol' boys want nothing to do with the party of Lincoln."

You keep amusing yourself with those notions if it helps you. I guarantee you no KKK member would ever vote for a democrat. Hell the vast majority of white men in south don't vote for democrats.

"*sniff* Smells fine to me. If you're smelling shit, you might check yourself. Oh, and I'd appreciate a pointer to where I said it's OK to hurt or kill people with whom you disagree."

I was reffering to the original poster (who is a republican just like you). I was also talking about other republicans who regularly kill people who disagree with them such as the well publizised murders or abortion doctors and church burnings. These are ideological killings not motivated by anything other then hatred and ignorance. You just don't see that from democrats.

That's the shit I am talking about. As a republican you are walling in the same shit as those people. These people who murder and preach hatred all the proudly calling themselves republicans. The stink gets on you whether you like it or not. Maybe it doesn't stink to you because you agree with them who knows or maybe you are just used to smell and don't mind it. A fellow republican is talking about smashing the head of liberal professors and it doesn't bother you what does that say about you?

Re:who scored you "Insightful"??

[GeneralCern]

Please see: Senate Democrat Robert Byrd.

Typo fixing...

[macdaddy]

Whoops. I found a few typos that made this a little hard to read.

Paragraph #1
OLD: "...reviews of other professors that student's..."
NEW: "...reviews of other professors then that student's..."

Paragraph #2
OLD: "...10 other reviews..."
NEW: "...10 other reviewers..."

OLD: "inflamitory" NEW: "inflammatory"

OLD: "automaticly"
NEW: "automatically" (whoops!)

Paragraph #3
OLD: "imflamitory"
NEW: "inflammatory"

ADDITION: "Confirming negative-scoring moderation attempts could permanently end the damage done when trolls receive moderator points."

Sorry about that. Sometimes my fingers run off and leave my mind behind. That should make it a little easier to read.

Timing is essential.

[TPx]

Slashdot:
TeacherReviews.com Forced Offline
Posted by timothy on 06:58 PM February 10th, 2004

The author's weblog:
Tuesday, February 10, 2004 12:51 AM
Exhausted and sick, but I have good news!
TeacherReviews.com is coming back, and it's going to be better than ever - for both students and professors. :)

Re:Timing is essential.

[KZigurs]

Bullshit. There is no point to bring it back online if it was so easy to take it down in first place. There are numerous teachers and profesors around, and unless site maintainer doesn't decides to fight and win the first case, there will be problems again and again. That's life...

Prove This

[manual_overide]

This statement is false.

Re:Prove This

[flynt]

The proof is obvious. QED.

Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[Adolph_Hitler]

Why the double standard? Teachers get to grade students. Teachers get to write reports and give labels to students such as ADHD, or whatever. Why the hell cant students do the same? In a fair system they can.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[R.Caley]

Teachers get to write reports and give labels to students such as ADHD, or whatever. Why the hell cant students do the same?

They can.

The problem is when someone stands between the person making the judgement and the world at large. They become vulnerable to legal attacks.

A UK site which was set up to allow people to find old friends had the same problem because it allowed people to post comments. ISPs providing Usenet servers have had this problem. /. might if it more often talked about individual people who weren't (at least within the nerdy sub-culture) public figures.

Usenet could be given the local equivalent of US common carrier status everywhere to avoid this problem, but web sites have more of a problem.

Perhaps there needs to be a legaly recognised `good enough' method for such sites to authenticate users which would allow them to pass any legal comeback through to the person who actually wrote the problematic comments. That would work for things like teacher reviewing which are after the fact, but still leave a problem for sites dealing with issues where users might have a legitimate reason for wanting anonymity.

How do we allow, for instance, a police officer to post anonymously that his superior is corrupt, in the hope of justifiably sinking the superior's career, without providing a method for crooks to anonymously sink the career of a good police officer who is a thorn in their sides?

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[arkanes]

How do we allow, for instance, a police officer to post anonymously that his superior is corrupt, in the hope of justifiably sinking the superior's career, without providing a method for crooks to anonymously sink the career of a good police officer who is a thorn in their sides?

You can't. This is why freedom of speech is important, because the ability to say things like that is neccesary. Contrary to public opinion, it's really hard to ruin someones reputation just by saying nasty things about them unless you've got a highly controlled distribution channel - websites like these don't meet that criteria. The editors of the New York Post, on the other hand, can very easily ruin (or at least mar) someones reputation because it's NOT a public forum where anyone can be heard - they don't have to provide alternative viewpoints.

Public forums that allow for the free posting of all viewpoints (like Slashdot) should be inherently protected from libel claims based on those posts.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[R.Caley]

Public forums that allow for the free posting of all viewpoints (like Slashdot) should be inherently protected from libel claims based on those posts.

This effectively a call for the repeal of all libel laws and any law which allows for reparations for damage caused by speech, since anyone can set up such a forum as a token to allow them to say anything they feel like.

Consider a newspaper with a letters page. If they set it up in such a way that they do not editorially control which letters are printed, they would be free to print anything. Indeed, newspapers tend to print letters from people who object to what they have previously printed -- it makes them look even handed at no cost, and allows them to put a tag at the end of the letter saying `Being a baby raping communist folk dancer, he would say that wouldn't he'.

The accused never has the credibility of the accuser. This is why we have a burdon of proof set at `beyond reasonable doubt' against the accuser for serious (ie criminal) cases. (random, off topic, and UK-centric rant: until David bloody Blunkett gets his way).

Freedom of speech is just that, freedom to speak. It isn't freedom from the consequences of your actions. The problem is how to allow some people to indeed escape the consequences of their actions, because it is in all our interest that they do so, without allowing all to or giving the decision on who does to those with most reason to abuse that power.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[Nurseman]

Teachers get to write reports and give labels to students such as ADHD, or whatever. Why the hell cant students do the same?

Actually, a teacher cannot give you the "label"ADHD. It is a diagnosis, that can be given only by a medical/psychiatrist MD. Usually the teacher/ social worker and MD all fill out forms, they are compared, and then if the child scores "high" enough, they are given the diagnosis "ADHD" That said, I think Ritalin is handed out WAY too much in schools these days. When I went to school, these were "problem kids" who got a little extra attention, and usually came arround. Now we drug em and stick em in a corner, not very helpful I think in the long run.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[arkanes]

No - the immunity would only apply if you allow ALL comments without editorial or censorship. If everyone has free reign to speak, then nobody has any greater credibility. Newspapers do NOT print every letter recieved (unless they're very small) - it's a practical impossibility.

Note that I'm not talking about immunity for the people posting the comments, neccesarily - I'm talking about immunity for the people HOSTING the comments, which is where people attack.

I also think that you tend to over-estimate the credibility of an attack, particularly in a forum where the accused has an equal voice.

That said, I also don't have all that much against repealling or at least limiting our current libel and slander laws - truth should (of course) be an absoulte defense, plausible truch should be near-absolute, opinion rather than stated fact should have a very high burden of proof of both intent to and actual harm before the speech is even removed, much less damages awarded. The more free your speech, the more free your freedoms - there is no way that unrestricted speech can make people less free. Only restricted speech can do that.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[R.Caley]

Note that I'm not talking about immunity for the people posting the comments, neccesarily - I'm talking about immunity for the people HOSTING the comments, which is where people attack.

Which is why I suggested that a first step woul;d be to allow such immunity for forums where the participants can be identified (to some agreed standard). Then it is clear who is responsible for a statement. The problem really only occurs for anonymous speech.

there is no way that unrestricted speech can make people less free.

The obvious case is where someone with an agenda controls the media through which one can speak. If all the means of distributing speech widely are owned by Rupert Murdoch, or the polit beaurau or whoever, then your freedom of speech becomes freedom to speak to yourself and your friends. You don't need to control writers if you can control who has access to a printing press (or then current technological equivalent). In such a situation more free speech amplifies the inequality -- you may now be free to talk about some topic which was previously forbidden, but if you dissagree with Rupert's POV you will be drowned out by all the people who agrree with him and so get a huge megaphone. Which is not to say that even in such a situation freedom of speech shouldn't be advocated, just that one has to be aware that there will be a painful kick-back.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Teachers get to write reports and give labels to students such as ADHD, or whatever.

Where I come from, "labels" such as ADHD are medical conditions diagnosed by doctors. They're not labels assigned by teachers.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[Rick_T]

> Why the double standard? Teachers get to grade
> students. Teachers get to write reports and
> give labels to students such as ADHD, or
> whatever. Why the hell cant students do the
> same? In a fair system they can.

Are teachers allowed to post student grades by name on the web (or anywhere else, for that matter) for all to see? No? Exactly what double standard exists, then?

(FYI - Profs aren't allowed to post grades even by SSN anymore, though many turn a blind eye to the practice.)

In my humble, not-speaking-for-my-employer opinion, I think students would be a lot more motivated if we DID post their grades by name.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think Ritalin is handed out WAY too much in schools these days."

PARENTS have to waive their own rights before the drugs can be administered. It's the parents who ultimately make the choice, not the schools, and not the doctors, except in the unusual case where the child is the ward of the state.

It's the *parents* who are over-medicating their children, period.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[arkanes]

The obvious case is where someone with an agenda controls the media through which one can speak.

I consider non-governmental restrictions on speech to still be restricted. My belief is pretty simple - forums that provide uncensored and unrestricted speech (as a practical matter, this pretty much limits it to the internet) should have near-blanket immunity to claims of libel. Anonymous speech absolutely MUST be protected as well - it's imperitive for our political process if nothing else. You're 100% correct that its incredibly difficult to get a message out that isn't approved by someone in a mass media conglomerate and thats one reason why the people who own those conglomerats can be held responsible for thier content - this is basically identical to the common carrier exemptions in place today.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[R.Caley]

I consider non-governmental restrictions on speech to still be restricted.

But Rupert Murdoch deciding not to broadcast your speech to the Upper-Thistlewait slug balancers guild semi-monthly seminar on the importance of paperclips in the soft furnishings industry is not a restriction on your speech, just his right to use his property for what he chooses.

The resultant problem is not censorship, but a kind of DoS attack on certain subjects. Eg in the UK, the Murdoch press (I keep using him because I don't know a US equivenent, but I'm sure there are some) is rabidly anti the EU (coincidentally, so is Rupert:-)). Whatever ones personal opinion on various EU related issues, this high level of background noise makes sensible public debate very difficult.

I dissagree that anonymous speech is vital for the political process. I don't think the UK or US is that far gone yet (I worry about France, but then I'm English and we always worry about France:-)). In a reasonably open system, political speech needs to be done in open and public spaces. You need to be seen to stand behind your statement (hopefully along side lots of other equally obviously real and different people). Once you start to act in secret you have given `them' a wonderful stick to beat you with.

There are other areas where anonymous speech is vital -- corporate corruption being an obvious case. Anonymity for government employees is a different thing, they are just in the position of employees of any other organisation.

Re:Why is it bad for students to grade teachers?

[Nurseman]

PARENTS have to waive their own rights before the drugs can be administered. It's the parents who ultimately make the choice, not the schools, and not the doctors, except in the unusual case where the child is the ward of the state.

Although you are right, I think the parents are often bullied into giving their kids the meds. They are scared, they are told their kids will be expelled, they are threatened by Child Welfare agency's etc. Yes the parents have the final say, but they are often poorly informed, poorly prepared to deal with this. I have worked in the medical field for more than 20 years, and have seen way much of this. Patients do not ask enough questions, and doctor's, nurses and other professionals don't offer enough information and alternative treatments. BTW I have nothing against any medication, including Ritalin, as long as other less intrusive means have ben tried and failed.

tisk tisk

[jar92380]

Its sad, isn't the site protected by freedom of speech?

Careers as professor

[TekGoNos]

I really dont think his career is in danger. First, the people who employ you tend to ignore online boards. As another poster pointed out, you are more likely to post on these boards if you disliked the teacher.

Then, teaching is just one point in a professors value (and actually, the least important).

At my university, a professor has to be good at two of the following 3 points :

1. Research
2. Teaching
3. Service to the community

The most important point is research. Some universities pay only attention to it and ignore the rest. But even at a normal university you can be the worst teacher in the world and still be promoted and respected as long as you are a good researcher and do some service to the community.

Then, there some stupid syndicates that prevent teachers from being fired, even if incompetent.
At my university, a professor cannot be fired (for student evaluations) and a teacher can only be fired if he gets 3 disastrous reviews in the same course in a row. While I understand that a professor might be valuable for the university because of his research, a teacher hasnt any other value.
[rant]We have a complet morron that changes the courses he's giving every 2 sessions and therefor cannot be fired. Even as everybody agrees that he is incompetent (quote from a collegue : "he's the only teacher I know who can not only not teach, but has no idea from the subject either") but we still havent managed to kick him out after (at least) 5 years.[/rant]

Syndicate have done valuable things in the past and are somewhat necessary to balance the power of the employer, but when they are protecting the incompetent, they just ask for their own doom by loosing the support of the public.

IAAP

[Anonymous Coward]

As a psychologist, and an instructor at a university, I can sympathize with both (1) the students who want to evaluate potential courses, and (2) instructors who not only have to deal with problematic students, but sometimes are actually pressured to kiss their ass.

Courses and professors are not simply to be rated and "consumed" based on how pleased you are with your performance in a class. That's not to say professors shouldn't be evaluated, but rather, that student ratings shouldn't be the primary means of doing so. There is a conflict of interest inherent in student ratings: students who perform poorly, who are required to take a class, etc. tend to rate professors lower than individuals who perform well or who are taking the course as an elective. This has nothing to do with the professor--it has everything to do with a student blaming a professor for their own performance problems.

There is a disturbing trend among universities, possibly fading, possibly not, to strive toward a product-consumer model, where students are the consumers, and the university is the producer. A more appropriate model to aim for is one in which both students and professors are seen as producers, and the university community is the consumer, so to speak. Students should go to a university to contribute, not to consume. The same should be said for professors.

Having said all this, I don't in general have a problem with a website, forum, or whatever, publishing student ratings of courses. Students talk about classes anyway, and these sorts of things just open up the flow of communication. I also see plenty of colleagues who can't teach a damn, and should probably be forced to reconsider the abuse they give to students.

If a student really did post something about a professor being a "paranoid schizophrenic," fine, but then someone should be held liable for, well, libel, because it's not a label that should be taken lightly (whoa--that's some sort of inchoate tongue-twister). As other posts have noted, there ARE young professors trying to get tenure, whose lives ARE affected by disgruntled students with a GPA of .5 who can't accept blame for the fact they failed all their classes because they didn't study for whatever reason. When those students begin to make false statements about professors, those statements should be scrutinized, because they affect the life of someone else.

I hope this website stays running, but I also hope that whoever runs it realizes that they need to be responsible for the things that appear on their website. If they put this stuff up, fine, but they should be prepared for lawsuits surrounding exactly these sorts of things. I also think that whoever visits these sorts of sites thinks long and hard about why they are seeking out this information, and why they are seeking an education.

There have been suggestions of moderated ratings and that sort of thing. It's not such a bad idea. Perhaps appropriate moderations should be done in exactly the same way that universities and professors are asked to consider ratings? E.g., that ratings be weighted lower if they are coming from individuals with lower GPAs, lower grades in the class, or if they are not taking the course as an elective? There would be problems in this in a non-university site, because you would have no way of verifying grades, but ideally, this is the way it could be done. Allow other professors to moderate them? Who knows. I guess it could be done.

Re:IAAP

[Anonymous Coward]

although i perceive "process" rather than "end-product" to be a more effective focus to achieving any goal. as a college student, i strongly disagree with the opinion of professors who demand that students "produce". school is not my job. i am not being paid to attend; in fact, quite the opposite -- i'm going into massive debt and expect a large return on investment (roi). that said, how do you deny that you are not an indirect employee of each and every student you teach? in short, i am _paying_ for brains -- YOUR BRAIN! if i lived in kurzweil-land, i'd just pay upfront for a scan of your brain and be done with it, rather than having to meet your arbitrary expectations of what i'm to produce for _you_ on top of paying your sallary.

as far as "blaming for performance problems", perhaps my view is biased by my own polytech, but i've never seen or heard of students not owning up to their lack of effort on the _optional_ faculty evaluations. in fact, quite the opposite -- students know they can't fairly evaluate a professor in a class that they didn't try in and generally rate "pretty good" for everything.

however, there is a strong trend that in classes where professors won't accomodate different learning styles of students because they're more interested in their research than in passing on their knowledge to future generations that the venom gets sprayed like a firehose.

Re:IAAP

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of trying to silencing "irresponsible" viewpoints you disagree with, maybe people should just learn not to believe everything they read, including if it comes from "a psychologist and a professor"?

Oh yes, ...

[MasTRE]

... I do not care.. GFYS

Query?

[juuri]

Why don't you just establish a rating system for reviews. Allow students who submit reviews to also rate other submitted reviews. This would easily allow you to move the trash down below a viewable threshold. It would also encourage people to leave longer, more detailed reviews full of useful content.

Re:Query?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, "mob rules" is so much more effectve *roll eyes*

Does wonders for this place......

Re:Query?

[juuri]

Well it doesn't work at slashdot specifically because no one is accountable. This is the reason I don't moderate on slashdot, since it is a hollow faceless act.

Meta-moderation obviously doesn't do a good job of checking bad moderation either, in my opinion the whole moderation system at slashdot is broken beyond repair. I have +3 to anonymous and +2 applied to trolls when I browse so I can at least see more than the mob rule opinion.

Re:Query?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, I thught you were gonna flame me ...haha

Yer alright, man......I just can't see how it's gonna work, like you said withouth offending someone, what good is it?

furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if entire schools "opt-out". Those teachers dodn't like anything that threatens their livelihood and most of them are pretty damn insecure to begin with.

anything underground or semi-underground that ever came to light in the public eye, has yet to survive.

Prof's email?

[phorm]

Anyone get the prof's email? If anything, we could let him know what we think of this idiocy (no threats please, well-supported points are much more powerful than baseless threats).

OT: sig

[http]

Section 10.5.4 suggests
/* xxx */
would be more appropriate than
**FIXME**
since your sig does actually work.

Here is an opposite example from a famous prof

[Poligraf]

Link

Ok..

[msimm]

I think you make some good, somewhat classical slashdot comments. Webs of trust are something of a buzzword around here. We seem to love to scratch our heads about this sort of thing.

So here's what I don't get.

Why aren't more sites using these types of systems? I mean: like a couple of years ago. Slashdot introduced a sort of democracy to the internet and we now have some semblance of order (mixed with a good deal of choas). But I look around and I see NONE of it being commonly put into use outside of Slashdot or sites like Kuroshin or blogs based on slashcode.

Then something like this happens and someone pipes up and suggests some form of moderation. Then everyone installs PHPbb or whatever they preffer and they go back to sleep.

I'm not trying to harp on anyone here, but if any of you are responsible for chosing or deploying web services look for a product that alows moderation for christ sake (and if your vender doesn't have it BITCH ABOUT IT). I mean we all know its not a sliver bullet, but not having it just sucks and honestly, at this point it just doesn't make sense.

Relevant Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

The professor would not win. A service provider (website) will not be held responsible for what their users say if they remove anything illegal after a reasonable amount of time after receiving a complaint.

Here is a relevant legal case:
Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc.
9th Cir.
08-13-2003
"Internet dating service was statutorily immune from liability for sexually suggestive profile of actual person posted by identity thief who provided essential published content. Law.com link "

Owen
OP-Design

what happens if a site does censor posts?

[Anonymous Coward]

won't they then be potentially liable for any libel? In the sense that any untrue statement that doesn't get censored has been in effect approved by the host?

ratemyprofessors

[sewagemaster]

for highschool, there's:

ratemyteachers.ca (canada)
ratemyteachers.com (US)

for college/university:
ratemyprofessors.ca (canada)
ratemyprofessors.com (US)

From an authoritative source

[JohnsonWax]

There are a lot of comments here regarding appropriate means of evaluating, etc. I'm involved in developing and deploying assessment tools at a major university. Here's the deal:

1) Evaluations do correlate to grades assigned. Evaluation boosting is a real factor in grade inflation at many universities. It's not imaginary, and has been carefully studied.

2) At most major research universities evaluation usually don't play a significant role in tenure. A strong publication profile will overwhelm a mediocre evaluation profile. Most research universities that I'm familiar with do, however, use these evaluations to try to improve instruction. This is particularly true with non-tenure track instructors.

3) Evaluations really aren't particularly useful in instruction assessment. Studies have shown that students generate rather accurate assessments after only 5 seconds exposure to the instructors teaching style. They're more reflective of personality assessment (so are most job interviews, but that's a different thread) than instruction quality. Developing some kind of standardized system overlooks the fact that the surveys themselves are of limited value.

In spite of good intentions by universities the fact is that end-of-term evaluations just don't tell us anything particularly useful. Regardless of what students think of their instructors, the only really valid instruction assessment is direct measure: test what the students know when they enter the class, test what they know when they leave, see if the difference is what you expect in a semester and correlates closely with what students needed to learn. Indirect measure through surveys is useful, but mostly in trying to dissect what went wrong when the outcomes weren't met. Even then, you generally need direct observation by a 3rd party to identify specific actions to take.

Simply and incompassionately stated, who gives a shit if the guy can speak english provided the students learn what they need. If students don't learn what they need, that's the real issue, and then you walk back to figure out what went wrong. If you learned it, and the guy was a dick, the bottom line was that you learned it. Individually it says almost nothing about instruction and almost everything about the student, but collectively it says something provided that the starting and ending expectations are a reasonable distance apart.

What makes this difficult to implement is that the start and end of term student assessment *can't* be done by the instructor, rather by a 3rd party and then all manner of academic freedom issues crop up not to mention that it's a lot of extra work against strained budgets. BTW, the first programs that you'll see stepping up on this are engineering programs as part of their accreditation efforts.

This, by the way, is what has led us to standardized testing by absurdly overextending the 3rd party beyond that of the school board all the way to the district, then state, then nation. There's simply no value in determining if students aren't meeting outcomes if the assessors are so far removed from instruction that they can't provide meaningful feedback other than to say 'you're leaving students behind', and the people that actually can do something about it locally are so far removed from the assessment that they have no control of the situation.

But the bottom line is that sites such as this provide almost no meaningful feedback. Even sanctioned end-of-term evaluations provide almost no meaningful feedback related to instruction.

sounds like

[timmarhy]

this guy was an asshole and deserved the bad review in the first place.

True

[unassimilatible]

The Chronicle for Higher Education linked a story not too long ago that said just this: Easier, or grade-inflating professors tend to be rated higher, whereas challenging professors tend to be rated lower.

It's like the mom who gives her kid candy: "My mom is cool."

Yeah, but she's a lousy mom!

Re:True

[Debillitatus]

Excellent point. As I was saying in another post, I have read my online reviews, and a lot of feedback is on the order of "guy too hard, don't take class". Maybe I am, but everyone who takes my class learns something (or so I like to think at least). I don't really care what the evaluations are, because at the end of the day, they don't really matter.

Re:True

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I recently rated a professor VERY low on his evaluation, he gave me a B in the course (I honestly deserved a D- or F), and I DID recently review another professor whom I'll probably receive a C from quite highly even though his exams are a bitch! Guess that destroy's your theory, huh?

Wish I had this when I was in high school

[Felinoid]

First let me point out you can't be an effective teacher if you start off forming an advisarial relationship with your students.
Having said that I remember one teacher when I was in high school who was truely sick.

She was contantly pulling little stunts.
For example: After my mother and father devorced the school recomended I see a psycologest to help me addapt. Standard procedure I guess.
When this teacher discovered I was seeing a psycologest she announced to the class I was suffering a nervous breakdown or something to that effect.

She was always dropping hints about me being mentally retarted and other insults.

I had no idea how to deal with the situation.
Eventually she assulted annother student for no apparent reason and last I heard she was being sued for it.

Thies teachers are rare. But rare dose not mean non-exsistent. If the teachers today inspire this sort of reaction it really dose not matter if what the students clame is true or if the student body is just getting back at a hateful teacher the teacher failed to establish anything approching a student teacher/mentor relationship.

If they don't trust you they won't believe anything you try to teach them.

You're both wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And often you can't defend with truth

Nonsense, at least for defamation. Privacy torts (e.g., Public Disclosure of Private Facts) allow one to sue for truthful statements, but never defamation (libel and slander). Truth is always a defense to defamation.

And the parent post is wrong. The working definition (which does vary from state to state) is:

Defamation

The unprivileged publication of false and defamatory statements concerning another.

The Libel-Slander Distinction

Libel - written or printed defamation or defamation that has a more or less permanent physical form.

Slander - all other defamatory statements, mainly oral defamation.
Generally requires proof of Special Damages
Exception: Slander per se
Allegations of: Crime involving moral turpitude; loathsome disease; professional incompetence or misconduct; serious sexual misconduct.

The Libel-Slander Distinction
False and Defamatory Statement
A defamatory statement harms the reputation of another.

"Of and Concerning" the Plaintiff
Allegedly fictional accounts that resemble real people are defamatory only if a reasonable person would ID the subject as the plaintiff.
Statements of personal opinion are usually not statements of fact concerning plaintiff.
An individual member of a group cannot recover for defamatory statements about that group.
e.g., The Sopranos case

Publication Communication of the defamatory statement to one person other than the plaintiff ordinarily suffices.
One who repeats or republishes a defamatory statement may also liable for defamation.
e.g., Internet message board Webmasters?

Defenses and Privileges
Truth is an absolute defense to liability.
Not a defense in some other torts, e.g., Public Disclosure of Private Facts; Trade Secret law Absolute privilege shields the author from liability regardless of knowledge, motive, or intent.

Conditional (or qualified) privilege V shields the defendant from liability unless the privilege is abused.
A conditional privilege of sorts has emerged as a compromise between defamation law and the First Amendment.
Defamation and the Constitution
The amount of protection the Constitution gives to defamatory statements depends on:
- Whether plaintiff is a public figure/official or a private person.
- Whether the matter is one of public concern or private concern.
- Other conditional privileges: Protection of publisher's interests; Protection of interests of another; Intracorporate communications; fair comment

In order to recover for defamation, public officials and public figures must prove actual malice on the part of a media defendant.
Actual malice: Knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth

Telling article quote:

[Denyer]

"I don't know if students would be comfortable posting truthful reviews."

I'm sure that isn't what he meant to write, but the suggest that anonymity conveys truth is a poor one.

It may enable it in some cases, but the best solution is to rate by positive reviews you can trust. Silence speaks louder than anything.

Goin' to the movies. Wanna come?

[kfg]

"Gee, I don't know, is it any good?"

"Well, it got four and a half stars stars."

"Wow, it must be great. What's it about?"

"Well, it's about about the rapture. It's called Apocolypse Now."

"Hot puppies! Let's go."

Fade out as our two, young adventist school girls trip blithly off to the watch a movie because they didn't need to know anything more than how many stars it got.

KFG

Why an evaluation system is needed

[gjb6676]

The following is a letter I wrote a year ago defending the RIT Professor Evaluation System (http://professor.ritstuff.com).

----------------

A majority of students on campus find the PES a valuable tool; this was made obvious by the outpouring of support from students following the forced shutdown of the system. The current 'official' pencil and paper system RIT uses for evaluating professors is not sufficient, nor are it's results made public. The PES was created to meet the shortcomings of RIT's system.

Students at RIT pay thousands of dollars in tuition. They pay this money in return for a first-rate education. Why should a student have to settle for a professor that is sub-par, or doesn't mesh well with their learning style?

The PES system is needed for two reasons:

First, it allows students to identify professors that integrate well with their learning style. There is a multitude of teaching styles at RIT, since a student's goal is to receive the best education possible; students need to choose a professor with a teaching style that is effective.

The PES allows students to easily identify how professors conduct their lectures. A few of the questions that are often answered by the PES include:

• Does this professor use PowerPoint slides?
• Are these slides available online?
• I don't learn well by taking many notes, does the class involve writing for 2 hours straight, or is the lecture more thoughtful and interactive?
• Does this professor favor group projects?
• If I happen to miss a class, does this professor post notes and/or homework assignments online?
• What type of testing does this professor employ, essay tests, multiple choice, the sometimes nice but often harder take home tests?
• Does this professor permit note cards with formulas for math-based tests?
• How helpful is this professor outside of the classroom? I often need extra help after class, and a professor that is in their office often is beneficial for me.

The second reason students need the PES is to identify substandard professors. I can attest from personal experience, and I'm sure many others will agree with me: There are a small percentage of professors at RIT that are inadequate. To put it bluntly, they are not good at teaching. They may be very intelligent and proficient in their field, but when attempting to convey these concepts to students, they lack any ability. These are the professors that often received the nasty and/or offensive comments.

Although the PES has some flaws, and has been unfair to a small number of professors, the benefits clearly outweigh the disadvantages. The criticism should not be focused on the PES; the public outcry should be directed towards the RIT administration for not changing the official system to meet the needs of the students. The students have demanded a system like this, and unless RIT revamps its official evaluation system, the PES will be a popular tool on campus.

"Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic."

[jellomizer]

of course a "Bipolar Paranoid Schitzophrenic" is the exact type of person who would sue a company because he got bad press from it. A well adjusted person would go well that is only one review and let it slide off there back. And if anyone confronts them they just say well you can't please everyone. But the Paranoid person who sees this sees a much bigger plot happening to them, so they will do all in their power to stop it. A Bipolar person who sees this as wrong will go to the extremes to stop it (I.E. Sue someone). But if he saw it as good then he will support it with all his effort.
As for Schitzophrenic that could possible be an exaggeration. But it sounds like he still needs to take a Chill Pill.

I like it

[Epistax]

At RIT we had a couple systems. One was physically on the campus ethernet and was removed. I can understand that. Now we have two to choose from off-campus.

One of the most significant lines in a professor evaluation is where you say what grade you got from the professor. One professor at RIT I got complaints about even before I was a student there. His review average was a D/F (roughly). However, almost all his poor ratings came from people who didn't do well. I took the class, liked him as a professor (Not as a person, the guy's an ass), got an A and gave a good review. I've given glowing reviews for someone I've received a B from. I've also given very bad reviews to professors I got an A or B from. Just because I can pull it off doesn't mean the professor helped.

The numbers some sites have you report are pretty useless. It is the descriptions that matter. I had a professor I described as bipolar because he is. It he may not have ever been diagnosed (I'm guessing he has been) but shows all the symptoms and can't fulfill his job because of it. He can't be fired because of tenure, and no one wants to approach him professionally to discuss it. What's the alternative? Students don't take him. They read about him, and decide they'd rather delay their class than take it with this guy.

University IP

[spikedvodka]

I Don't know exactly how this works for faculty, but at most universities that nice "AUP/TOS/Student agreement" you signed when you were accepted has a clause that says anything you create while at/enroled in the school, or anything that you send across the network automatically becomes the [intelectual] property of the school.

I can only assume that the same holds true for faculty/staff.

Also most corperate entities have similar clauses in contracts.

just my $0.02

Boston College

[Trefoil3]

BC's undergraduate government runs a system similar to this, but is now heavily moderated. One of the main complaints from professors when it started was that anyone could post anything, but since this practice went into place the backlash has dwindled. I do think that sites based at the school level will always do a better job at being more informative to that specific student body. A national site could never do that.

In a Ligitigious Society Freedom of Speech a Myth

[FreeUser]

It most certainly *IS* legal to say that someone is "crazy" or "psychotic". This is clearly a matter of opinion; regardless free speech still applies.

Absolutely correct.

Now, I personally think he's a fuck-nut and is clearly psycho. Can he sue me for saying this? Not in a million years.

Unfortunately, you are wrong. In the united states, any fuck-nut, however psycho, can sue anyone, for anything, at any time, including for making the public observation that said fuck-nut is indeed a fuck-nut.

Now, he won't win the lawsuit, but he'll make you spend a lot of money defending yourself ... probably more than you or most people can afford.

Which is one of the many reasons freedom of expression has become such a farce in the United States ... even before Ashcroft and the Baby Bush administration's more blatent attacks on our fundamental liberties, litigious attorneys have been in a position to use barrotry and financial coercion to abridge our freedom of speech for decades.

It is an appalling state our judicial system has sunk to, "of, by, and for the lawyers," and it shows absolutely no signs of being reformed anytime soon.

In a ligitigious society, freedom of speech is a myth.

Pitiful.

[icypyr0]

This is just pitiful; the very prinicipal that the site is supposed to stand for (an open forum of objective reviews) will be completely trashed by allowing every professor that wants it to privatize their reviews. Its just despictable that one professor could scare Dylan Greene's pants off to the degree that he would take down the site. Fight the fight! The law is clearly on your side...

Fighting liar with liar

[Colonel Cholling]

When I was at Mississippi State University, a similar website was started to allow students to review professors. While some of the posts were informative or insightful (maybe they need a karma system?) others were clearly the result of some trustfund kids slamming good professors because they actually made them do work.

When word got around that some departments were actually taking comments about teachers at face value, I decided to engage in some creative culture jamming to demonstrate the fact that just anyone could post just anything. So I started adding reviews for professors who did not, in fact, exist, or at least were never employed at MSU. Highlights included this army ROTC instructor, this history instructor, and this French instructor. I also included a review of Paul Erdos in the Math department-- one of the departments that had been taking the reviews a bit too seriously-- and found it mysteriously deleted. But at least they realized that there is no "fact-checking" mechanism on that site.

In retrospect I can't say whether I had any effect on school or society, but it at least provided a few hours' entertainment.

Situation Update

[onion_breath]

The author of the site has posted an update, just thought you folks would like to know.

Rate Yourself

[avaric3]

One of these sites was advertised during the morning announcements in our school.

One teacher saw that he had a few negative comments, so what did he do? He rated himself about a dozen times and his rating went up. At lunch time that day, we discussed the site and voted each other up. We also voted a few of our more annoying "colleagues" down. I had a good rating before, but now my rating is almost perfect :)

As long as anyone can post without registering this will always be a worthless tool. Make it so that you have to register and tie that registration to an *ISP* or *university* email address (no hotmail ,yahoo, etc) and you will cut down on the crap significantly. You don't even have to post identifying info, just limit who can post.

Politics

[The Ape With No Name]

I am proudly listed on a couple of this "This Fucking Prof Sucks" site. Without variation the comments are about the course content and then extended to me. To be simple, I am a prick when it comes to fumbling, ill-thoughtout NeoConSpeak from 20-year-olds. I allow and encourage debate in my classes (World Regional Geography and Geography of Central Europe) but I do not tolerate things like "If there is no food in Ethiopia, then why don't these stupid people leave!!!!" or "If people in Serbia were real Christians, they would not have these problems!!!!!" The tone goes from one of interested and thoughtful if naive comment from one student to shrill near screaming from the next neocon student. I tried reasoning with people who say ignorant shit like this, but most of it is deeply held, "there's only one way" ideology.

Before someone jumps my politics, I am a American centrist, which by no means makes me a communist or some other horseshit meaningless 50 year old ad hominem attack. I voted for John Edwards in the primary.

For example, I say this: "Isn't interesting that the US has a lower Human Development Index than certain other countries. Why is that?" It is an interesting question. I consider good responses to be some nod to certain economic or spatial considerations about the US, or a questioning of the index's methodology (a very good question actually) or a discussion of structural poverty problems particular to the US (they exist). There are other things. Invariably, I get: "The UN cooks those numbers up to make the US look bad." Oy vey! (Now when does the UN have the time to do this what with all the corruption, plotting world domination and all? ;-p) After fielding these responses for a while with discussion and more in-class analysis, even a workshop on US/UN relations, I realized that this is a pattern. The same students (white, middle-class male) were making the same objection with almost verbatim responses to the question. Guess what? I have been targeted by the conservative student union for teaching the heresy of alternative (or in this case, mainstream, but not jibing with Dick Cheney) analyses. These kids are upperclassmen (I mean that 'men') plants. I just ignore them now, or say nice things like "we can talk about this after class." But to them, airing notions like "American foreign policy is the policy of a good and just empire, therefore it can't be bad" (Actually heard this gasser and wrote it down) is nothing different from a stump speech and MUST be said aloud and in class. And, if these were actually well articulated points of view, I would love to hear them, but they are not. It is horseshit regurgitated from blogs and listening to Neil Boortz and Rush Limbaugh. I reward creative thought and hard work with 'As,' hard work with 'Bs.' mediocrity with 'Cs.' I give few Ds and Fs (sometimes: none). The kids who call me 'commie' do poorly not because I single them out for bad grades I have found. It is because they don't do their class work and make low grades on exams. I guess they are following in GWB's footsteps in some respects.

I just don't care if they 'out' me. My classes are full and I am on my way to tenure. Oh yeah, right. They want to do away with tenure. They can REALLY CONTROL the information then.

So scratch my name on noindoctrination.org and teacherreviews.com, this means you really love me.

Pitiful spelling! C-

[Anonymous Coward]

prinicipal = principle
despictable = despicable

Sincerely,
Your English Professor & Your Typing Tutor

P.S. Please don't slam us on TeacherReviews.com. TIA!

http://ratemyprofessors.com/

[slagish666]

http://ratemyprofessors.com/

I know someone had at least one bad professor

[LowTolerance]

Dylan Greene's site Teacher Reviews which allows students to post reviews of their professors.

Although it has many words, this is not a complete sentence.

So let me get this straight...

[Frobozz0]

So let me get this straight... the student called him a "bipolar paranoid schizophrenic" and then he hunts up the web side to find out what people are saying behind his back. He then sues based on outrageous claims of being paranoid and schizophrenic.

LOL.

Hey, the guy may be innocent but he sure as hell isn't helping his own case.

God Bless America and God Bless Free Speach...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait they said something about me...sue the bastards.

I don't know about everyone else...

[FanaticalDesperado]

Christ is God in flesh, whether you believe it or not.

I would like to see the evidence that led you to such a strong belief.

A natural comparison would be Doctors

[ianscot]

In the mid-90s I was tangentially involved with setting up a Web site for a major insurer on which they included personal information about Doctors. This site was completely controlled by the insurer, which was a staff model HMO -- so the Doctors on the site were full-time employees of the HMO, and basically they had to consent to the site. (It'd be different for a more loosely-defined network in a non-staff-model outfit, I'm sure.) The idea was to provide patients with some better way to choose a physician.

Anyway, some of the technophile doctors liked this idea a lot, and it had started with one of them. Lots of the rest of them resented the site as a marketing idea that was beneath them as professionals. When they were asked to provide a personal essay to describe their interests, for example, they sent a taciturn phrase or two at most. The HMO took a fair amount of heat from its doctors about the project.

The idea of patient feedback was floated, in talking about this site originally, but got totally panned by even the technophile docs. The idea of patients with a grudge was obviously on their minds -- and the potential positive of patients who were able to choose doctors based on, say, other patients' descriptions of how communicative they were, that was a complete non-starter. Even the positive votes definitely wanted to control the content on the site completely. At the highest levels of the HMO mother ship, they were just wanting to save on calls asking for a woman internist who spoke Spanish, and to get a little marketing capital too.

I had plenty of profs in college who were totally uninspired classroom speakers. Those people don't want to have students telling each other about them any more than the ordinary word-of-mouth can let that happen.

I used this site all throughout college

[killerz298]

I never heard of the site in question, but I used a different site which is great. http://www.ratemyprofessors.com I never enrolled in a class without consulting it first and I found it to be VERY helpful! I agree that if teacher eval were published it would help the students but since most universities fail to do so, there must be some other way for students to know what they are getting into BEFORE it ruins their GPA! All too many times in college have I been subjected to taking the SAME EXACT CLASS as one of my friends and he never went to class and got an A and I tried my hardest, went to class everyday, did all the assignments and still only got a B. The reason is NOT because he is just naturally smarter, it is because the professor I had just "didn't" give out A. I find this to be a major failing of our educational instutions. I believe that students taking the same exact class should somehow be treated equally, it is only fair.

Media Law

[jcrosby]

I am not a lawyer. If anyone has a link for what I am describing, please reply. It is my understanding that media law allows free speech protection for the hosting site as long as all posts are left uncensored. However, once you censor or edit posts, you, as the hosting entity, assume liability for the content. If this is indeed the case, it looks like the "I'll sue" trick worked and that future "I'll sue" tricks will have a better case.

So where's the contact info for this professor

[theLOUDroom]

I'm sure a lot of us have a lot of constitutionally protected things we would love to say about this guy.

Is there some sort of "litigous asshole" hall of shame that we can induct this guy into?


If you're worried about your reputation, threatening people with frivolous lawsuits is not exactly the smart way to get it back on track.

Who cares if TeacherReviews goes?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the site already deletes the reviews of all teachers who protest, then we know that the worst teachers GET A FREE PASS. These are the very folks we most want reviewed!

Review sites only have value if they have bad reviews. Otherwise they're no better than the car magazines...

"Oooh. We love this car a little more than we love that one, but because we can't afford to piss off the manufacturers, we love them all!"

Useless.

Limited free speech is an oxymoron.

wonder if you've been to see my dad...

[Scudsucker]

...he's an ALJ for the Social Security Administration and does hearings on disability benefits. Usually claimants are notified in the mail of the outcome of the hearing, but he tells paranoid schizophrenics right away. Its also one of the reasons why he has an unlisted phone number. :)

I didn't look at your site, but I hope you are doing well personally and with your work.

So?

[mwood]

Let the prof. sue the posters who made libellous statements. Oh, wait, that would be too hard; let's just sue the site's owner, who didn't write them.

Speaking as a professor...

[Debillitatus]

Let me say that I don't much care whether or not I am featured on such a site. But the reason is that I really know that these sites are complete wastes of time and energy.

For example, I have a profile on ratemyprofessor.com , which is something similar to this site. I was reading the comments, and they were somewhat amusing. For example, one of my reviews said that I spoke so well I should be elected the prime minister of the UK. (Keep in mind that I'm an American teaching at a US university, so this is clearly facetious.) There were a lot of more reviews which were clearly put there for the purposes of humor. Some were serious, but there's no way to know.

The real problem with these types of sites is that anyone on Earth can write a review. At least with the official evaluations at the end of the semester, you need to be in the class to give input. This can be written by any random crank. I cannot stress enough that any information you get on a site like this is useless, because it can be written by anyone.

Furthermore, a lot of students give really high marks to easy professors because it is easy to get an A. I know that I didn't, because I am a hard-ass. On the other hand, if you just want an easy A, I certainly don't want you in my class. So maybe this will select out some people I don't want. Again, though, if you want to learn something, you don't want the easy guy.

All in all, deciding which professor to take based on a site like this is like deciding whom to vote for based on a Slashdot poll. And for exactly the same reason. It's probably better than reading tea leaves, but not much.

Now, as far as this professor goes, I don't know why he would get bent out of shape. At the end of the day, very few professors care at all what the students think, and for those that care at all, don't care much. I don't know why he gives two fucks what is on some random site.

I can say for myself that I have gotten some good feedback from evaluations and I have tried to incorporate suggestions into my teaching style. But this is a rare event. More than 99% of student feedback I have received is completely useless and was a waste of time, most typically it's someone with an axe to grind.

And I think a lot of students fool themselves into thinking that this feedback will actually matter in the long run. Let me put it this way: it is almost inconceivable that student evaluations can affect a professor's life. If he is tenured, then the probability is exactly 0. If he is tenure-track, then only if his research is borderline will these kinds of evaluations come into play, but I would say that this plays a role in fewer than 1 out of 1000 cases. Again, like I said, if you want to give constructive critism to a professor that you think might take it to heart, give it a shot. But I have seen tons of "axe-grinding" evaluations, even of me, and I can state unequivocally that they are a waste of graphite.

And by the way, the reason for this is simple. If you're at a good school, the school isn't good because you, the undergrad, is there. You are there because the school is good, and the school is good because the international reputation of the research is strong. Research is what matters. End of story.

Re:Speaking as a professor...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would seem that the professor who considers research more important than the education of others has already stagnated in way of learning himself. While I would agree with the basic premise of your argument and frustrations, I submit that your emotional outburst and arrogant attitude suggest you believe that writing such a post will have an effect upon the world, much in the way "..I think a lot of students fool themselves into thinking that this feedback will actually matter in the long run". I suggest only a more humble attitude in dealing with those around you who you may also be able to learn from.

Re:Speaking as a professor...

[Anonymous Coward]

Professors like you are deluding yourselves. The simple fact is, students would not be flocking to rating sites like RateMyProfessors.com if the ratings were worthless, as you proclaim they are. And, by the way, we don't care if profs read the ratings and learn anything from them; that is not the purpose of these sites. The ratings are for STUDENTS, so we can avoid bad professors such as yourself.

slashdot

[cb8100]

I'm going to force slashdot to shutdown since I've been called the mods called me a troll once.

Precedence

[leprasmurf]

It seems to me that they are having the same problem /. had with microsoft. Couldn't that be used as some sort of precedence to assist in any legal battle this guy may have if he decides to go down that path? For that matter, is it just me, or did he make a mistake by altering what was posted as it opened him up to be liable for all content and censorship of said content?

I've never used the site, but it sounds like a good one, I know a couple teachers who I would like to warn people about. I wish I would have known about it before last semester.

rating system

[Anonymous Coward]

All they need to do is change the blog, to a survey form. Decide on a bunch of parameters and rate them from 1 to 5 using radio buttons.

That way, the professors can't cry "he's a meanie, he doesn't like me" and ratings will be very easy to tabulate.

It is about time this happened. I had several professors that were extreme assholes, just because they could be and get away with it. What better way to get back at them then to rate them so no one wants to take their classes.

We had no one that was ballsy enough to participate in a consensus. They were afraid of backlash from the professor's buddies.

Maybe the days of the "lame professor who is also an arrogant prick" problem are nearly over. They need to go. There is no room in the ed system for these assholes.

l8,
AC

Don't do us any favors, sheesh.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're the sort of person who is going to cave in at the first threat of litigation, you really end up doing the community a disservice in the long run, thanks but no thanks.

Remember when Digital did the DejaNews archive? That worked so well, nobody else bothered to archive news. Then when they decided to take down DN, there was serious potential to lose news archives, and some actually were lost.

Bwahahahah....

[raehl]

I went to the University of Illinois. I was accepted into the Chancellor's Scholar program, which requires some set of nerdy grades/test scores to qualify for and an essay read by the current members and faculty supporters of the program to be admitted. About 1% of students are in the program, so we can safely say that the program represented no worse than the top 2% of the class.

Now, part of being in the program is getting to take special honors classes that are pretty much limited to Chancelor's Scholars. Basically a variety of interesting classes covering some cool material in-depth. (Yes, I'm aware that's a fragment.)

One semester I took a shakespeare class that involved some peer reading/editing of papers. I am sad to report that only about 30% of the students in this class were capable of writing a simple essay with an introduction, body, conclusion, and complete sentences.

And we're talking about the top 2% of college students.

It's sad. Nobody can write anymore. It's perfectly possible to get through high school having never written a good paper and still get good grades because nobody makes you write essays anymore and even if they do, as long as your answers are right they don't really care about form.

And I think it's starting to have a negative impact in rather visible areas of our society - like journalism. I think journalists are getting incredibly dumb - because you don't need to be a decent journalist to write for a major publication anymore - anyone who can actually write complete sentences is so rare that they'll do.

Re:Bwahahahah....

[InfiniterX]

I remember taking an undergrad engineering management course which involved writing a few group papers.

The final paper assignment was to write a 20-page paper on the given topic. The topic could easily be subdivided into four sections, and in a dramatic stroke of irony, the professor had put people into groups of four to complete the assignment.

Plan seems simple, right? Everyone writes five pages, we wrap on a nice little introduction and conclusion, and merge our references into one nice section at the end. I wrote my five pages early on and thought everything was in the bag.

No. The other group members contributed five badly-written pages, and the content on three of them overlapped with what someone else in the group wrote. Suddenly all the redundancies turn an easily-done 20 page paper into an 8 page paper which needs lots of work at the very last minute.

What scared me was how these people might write code later. There was a failure to analyze the problem, figure out what other people were doing, and fill in the gaps... just like every group-oriented software project I've ever taken part in.

Get a lawyer...

[SvnLyrBrto]

> all of your time - 24/7 - belongs to the university. In
> principle, an invention you create on the weekends is owned
> by them

I don't know what state you're in, but in some, employment clauses like that are illegal and unenforcable. In fact, every time I've been hired at a tech job here in California, at contract time there was a seperate page to sign explicitly saying that such clauses were illegal and unenforcable and that any clauses like that in the rest of the contract that said so were null and void.

(I'm not sure why they did it THAT way, instead of just removing said clauses from the rest of the contract. My guess is that the court ruleings rendering such clauses illegal were fairly recent, and nobody had gone through the bother of sorting through all of the legal gunk in all the various employment contract and writing out the relevant passages. But I may be wrong)

cya,
john

Interesting idea....

[Elpacoloco]

Yeah, I think I understand where you're coming from. Indeed, students can be pretty "smacktard" like sometimes.

Yeah, removed review listing sounds okay.

First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Enough said.

Blanket statements....

[SvnLyrBrto]

... and absolute "no"'s and "nevers"'s tend to be easily proven wrong.

Don't think that anyone should ever free ride just because he has that (D) next to his name on the congressional roster.

I seem to recall quite well that one of the big muckety-mucks amongst congress' democrats turned out to have been a klansman, something which should disqualify anyone, wether they put the (R) *or* the (D) after their name, from ever holding any public office. As I recall, this flap was dug up after Trent Lott got called to task on his praise for strom thurmond's segregationist politics. In fact, as I recall from a few of his bios, when he finally had the good grace to die, thurmond himself was a registered democrat at one point.

You'd do better to replace "democrat" with "liberal" in much of your post, as the two do not always (or perhaps even often, given the dems tendancy to veer to the right and be all buddy-buddy with the reps, of late) coincide. *I*, for example, could walk down to the post office, fill out a new voter registration card, and be a registered republican by the end of the day. But few people woulf ever mistake me for a conservative.

offtopic comment

[Anonymous Coward]

An 18 y/o is legally an adult; they are supposed mature enough to exercise the rights and duties of citizenship: vote, serve in the military, get married, enter into contracts, and so forth.

Yet they cant drink wine, what an odd country.

Egads...

[raehl]

It pains me to no end to say this but...

Looks like you had a failure in project management. Whose responsibility was it to oversee the people writing the paper to make sure they were performing the right tasks and that the results of that work could be implemented?

Apparently they do have project managers for a reason...

to limit the damage caused by your other group members when they get jobs. ;)

what about book or software review sites?

[Carbon Unit 549]

By your logic the comment systems on amazon.com or download.com would be worthless. On the contrary, I have found these services to be very reliable on the whole.

Re:what about book or software review sites?

[madmancarman]

By your logic the comment systems on amazon.com or download.com would be worthless. On the contrary, I have found these services to be very reliable on the whole.

I typed in the subject for my post before I wrote it, so it doesn't completely represent what I was trying to get across. Teacher review sites can have some useful information, but because they're necessarily anonymous, you can't truly fully trust any of the ratings on an individual basis.

The same is true of Amazon. Taken together and interpreted as a whole, the reviews can be helpful in trying to gauge the quality or desirability of a product, but individually they're susceptible to bias and outright misinformation. Take Michael Moore's latest book, "Dude, Where's My Country?". Look at some of the recent 1-star reviews (I've bolded things that appear to be personal attacks instead of useful advice):

• Michael Moore, here are a few words of advice: Take a shower, lose some weight, shave once in a while, and, most importantly, stop writing stupid books and making fallacious movies. To everyone else: For a better read, pick up something by someone who hasn't been brainwashed. And maybe listen to a Led Zep CD or something! Then watch the O'Reilly Factor and FoxNews. Just my advice
• Ignorance is bliss and that pretty much explains why this book sells. People believe anything that is published. No facts, pure bias and opinion. I read two chapters and sold the book on ebay. Obviously i'm not a pure unquestioned right-winger since I bought the book. I believe in facts and research, not opinion. The book pinpoints and streamlines the typical media bias, brainwashing and filtering of facts. If you are a braindead, DON'T-HAVE-MY-OWN-OPINION dopey liberal, you'll enjoy the book. If you want to waste your money go ahead, you have my blessings.
  (One note about this: the first chapter of the book, whether right or wrong, is heavily researched and contains many, many footnotes that attribute statements to the published news articles they were drawn from.)
• This book is a liberals screaming cry for help. Founded on the communist manifesto, the author is highly skilled in spreading lies. The book is really a waste of time if you're looking for the truth. A better book would be," The Real Lincoln",or Webster's Dictionary.

Of course, there were 10 5-star reviews submitted the very day that book was released, so you can search for bias on the other side of the political spectrum as well. For example, "Bias" received a 1-star review within a day or two of being published: "This book is full of (...), innuendo, and (...). There is just as much of a conservative bias in the media as there is a liberal bias. It just shows up in different places. Don't believe this poor analysis. The media may present a distorted veiw, but this book gets IT ALL WRONG. " There may be legitimate 5-star and 1-star reviews for books on Amazon, but it's difficult to take any of them seriously with crap like this.

Admirably, Amazon does some things that teacher rating sites could pick up on - rating of reviews (i.e., "23 out of 30 people found this review helpful") and featured "Spotlight Reviewers", who put their names and reputations behind what they write. Unfortunately, the number of teachers and professors a person will have in their education is probably not as large as the number of books they'll read, so I don't know how useful those features would be with teacher ratings.

I guess I probably should have said "Anonymous reviews are untrustworthy and subject to unsupported opinions and personal attacks" instead of calling them completely worthless, but I feel they're about as useful as a slashdot poll - possibly interesting, somewhat amusing, but not much beyond that.

RateMDs.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of rating doctors:

RateMDs.com

This happened at my college too

[Anonymous Coward]

There was (is) a professor named Erbacher. He threatened to sue the students of his first class at SUNYA because they wrote, on their own time in a non-school weblog, how inadequate his teaching was.

BTW, Erbacher turned out to not be such a bad guy. I might have respected him more if he didn't consider me and my classmates such scum simply for not going to Berkley or wherever it was that he got his PhD.

Tests usually should be relevant to the assigned material, not an indicator of whether your photographic memory absorbed every footnote in the chapter from last week. And, a slideshow is not an education, it is an educational aide.

Oh yeah, when I dropped the class (with 200 other students, ie everyone who could drop without hosing their graduation or being deported) and took the summer course, I got a B, one of 2 people who got above a C+. (the grading looked like he did it on the bus... A,B,C+C+CCCCCCCC-C-C-D+D+DDDDD-FFFFFF) So I know I wasn't the problem.

That summer course was a *joke*, because the teacher (a grad student) didn't care a bit about the class. When I (politely) brought it to the attention of the head of the CS department, he nominally insulted me, and added that "one grad student is more important than any number of undergrads", so I could stay or drop (as in, try and get a refund now, haw haw). Also, all 40 of us bought ~$400 dollars of textbooks on C that summer, of which we opened only one, which cost $80. Thanks for robbing me blind, m*****f*****s.

The real problem with Teacherreviews is that...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you want to make it a site that offends no one while still retaining its usefulness. That cannot be achieved in my opinion.

I'm not saying you're obliged to take a stand. I realize you really don't have a dog in this fight. But if you want to keep TR going, you have to take a stand. If you give in every time a professor rattles a lawyer at you, the site will be watered down into nothingness.

(and yes, I do remember the fight with CCSF professors Wall and Brown)

Re:The real problem with Teacherreviews is that...

[Anonymous Coward]

You make sense. As a matter of fact, that professor may have already won this one. The fact that he took it down so easily says alot.

He could have just said fine I'll remove your comments and put it backup. Now the torch is being passed, and the grassroots feel of it will be gone forever.

I think the lawsuit may have been just the excuse to get out of it he was hoping for. As I read through the original comments on his blog after it happened, most were just selfish cries to put it back up so they can schedule their classes. Only a few people had any fire in their bellies.

I'm in school and I think at the end of the next class when they hand out the evaluations, I'm just gonna write , "If you want to discuss any issues with me, I'll gladly tell you what could be better, for a small fee of course. This is America after all, and nothing is free."

or something like that, you know get right to the heart of it :)

I don't understand this about professors

[Anonymous Coward]

As an SFSU student who uses (okay, used) the TR website, among the bad reviews I could immediately distinguish between the thoughtful ones that made legitimate points and the ones posted by idiots who shouldn't be in college.

I frequently took teachers who had accumulated a long list of bad reviews complaining about the teacher's expectations, insistence on attendance and punctuality, and overall no-nonsense approach to teaching. I always found such teachers to be great because I too have high expectations. It seemed to me that such bad reviews scared away poor students while attracting, or at least not affecting, serious students. Logically, the result would be a class full of more motivated students, which should please a motivated teacher.

Considering this, why then such a thin skin when it comes to such bad reviews. After all, the more poor students know that you have high standards, the better, no?

My theory is that only poor teachers really care about bad reviews.

But no matter what the law says...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you still have to get a lawyer and go to court so that the judge can explain to the other side what the law says.

The TR webmaster said he was not willing to do that. That's his prerogative, but the problem isn't the law, it's his unwillingness to use the law to protect himself.

Actually, it wasn't him

[Anonymous Coward]

The named defendant was a different person. As I understand it (having attended the college where this all took place), after the original webmaster won the fight, he got together with some other folks (among them Dylan Green) and started the new TR site.

No

[unassimilatible]

Guess that destroy's[sic] your theory, huh?

No, anecdotal evidence doesn't destroy anything. Every rule has its exception.

Just because you vote with integrity has no bearing on what everyone else does.

Re:Schools - run by egotists w inferiority complex

[smashmore]

Until the mind is clear (school boards, the body doesn't know where to go. The top is not accountable to the public. They want all the authority with no responsibility. They are the first to bash administration and teachers over political issues when they haven't set the policies and procedures to determine success. Measurement should be first at the top before one can expect the workers to know what to do. Elected or appointed people for the most part are self indulgent (getting more for their children), one issue ollies (allows anyone to have their 15 minutes on stage with no credentials) or grown up children with bad childhoods. The glue is that almost without exception they are egotists w inferiority complexes that want no personal accountability.

reviewum.com - Give PROFESSORS a Grade!

[reviewum.com]

reviewum.com
Professor Reviews & Teacher Ratings

I've got a similar site to the one discussed in this thread. We've had in place many of the features that Dylan is going to be implementing on his site and I applaud him for taking these steps!

Come by and take a look at my site and let me know what you think. I love receiving feedback and am always looking for ways to improve the site. For example we recently converted the site.

Old Site:
Coded in: ASP
Database: MS Access
Very little control and access to statistics, tools, etc.
More expensive.

New Site:
Coded in: PHP
Database: MySQL
TONS of control along with access to exciting features, statistics, tools, etc.
Less expensive. :-)

We've even got a great new incentive program for students to get things going at their campus where they can earn up to $150!

http://www.reviewum.com

We don't need no education ....

[freaker_TuC]

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher leave the kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!