RateMyProfessors.com not just for students anymore

Theresa Kattula / contributing writer

Although the Web site RateMyProfessors.com is meant for students to use to rate professors, some professors use it to post comments about themselves.

RateMyProfessors.com is a Web site that allows anyone to rate professors by giving instructors a numerical value in the categories of easiness, helpfulness and clarity. While the site does not restrict anyone from giving ratings and comments, the site is there to help students know a little about a professor ahead of time, according to John Swapceinski, the Web site’s creator.

Ken Wright, assistant professor in the Writing Program, has posted humorous negative and positive comments about himself. He also writes comical comments in response to ratings that have been posted about him.

One student commented on the site about Wright writing humorous comments about himself. The student wrote, "Don’t listen to the bad comments [because] he posts them himself to keep his class number down! Ken is awesome!"

Sophomore Rebecca Chavers said, "I just don’t see the point of professors writing about themselves, even if it is to be humorous. It’s something for the students to give insight of past classroom experience."

A new section was added to the site Feb. 6, as a way for users to reply to ratings and give feedback. This part can serve as a place where profes sors can respond to the ratings and not rate themselves. This section, however, requires one to enter an e-mail address to access it. Wright said that he would not use this part of the site if he were to continue to write comments.

Sophomore Mary Cameron thinks she would stop using the site if she started finding out professors were using it to make themselves look good. "It would make the site lose credibility," she said.

This summer, Swapceinski is thinking of requiring some students to have a login ID such as their e-mails to access the page. He would require students to use the login ID if their school has more than 5,000 ratings. JMU currently has over 25,000 ratings. This would help monitor the number of times a person rates a certain professor.