Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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?
Scorta futuere amo!
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.
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.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
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
that if you make a tangential remark related to SCO/RIAA/Microsoft, you get modded up to funny?
Matt Fahrenbacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
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.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
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.
The Ezine Directory
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.
And it's only either if its not true.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
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.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
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.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
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...
There already is such a system.
It's called "grades."
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.
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?
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
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.
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.
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.
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 !
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")?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
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.
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)
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
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.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
> 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.
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.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
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.
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.
.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.
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
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.
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.
--- I do not moderate.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?