Site offers professor ratings

How many times have you enrolled in classes wondering what the professor is like? Have you ever taken classes where you wished you had a different professor? For several undergraduates, these questions are crucial when choosing future courses. \nNow the worries and concerns felt by students nationwide can be eased by logging in to www.teacherratings.com, a Web site created to inform and guide students throughout the enrollment process.\nJohn Swapceinski, the Web site's owner and webmaster, said he initially thought of the idea while suffering through a computer operating systems class at San Jose State University. He said his professor graded harshly, was rude to students and had a drastically high withdrawal rate for her classes.\n"I was wishing that I had known how bad this teacher was so I could have avoided taking a class with her," Swapceinski said. "Unfortunately, none of my friends had known anything about her, so I then thought, 'If only there was a Web site where I could have looked her up …'" \nUpon arriving at the site, the user must select from either a list of universities categorized by state or by manually typing in the university's name to get information on the chosen school. From there, a current listing of teachers will appear alongside their titles and student ratings. Positive rankings are symbolized by a smiley face and negative rankings are marked with a frown.\n"The site seems like a good idea, but there wasn't much on it from IU," junior Zac Engle said. "In fact, I added the first two reviews on professors from IU."\nSwapceinski said the Web site receives between 50 to 150 new ratings per day, and currently there are 13,414 ratings for 4,066 teachers from 427 universities nationwide. Swapceinski said he makes additions and improvements on a weekly basis.\n"Although there's only two professors ranked for IU, I think the Web site has a lot of potential," junior Melissa Lear said. "As word travels around campus about the site and more professors are ranked, I think it would be extremely beneficial to many students."\nAlthough the site isn't considered a moneymaker for Swapceinski, he said word of mouth spreads the news of the Web site efficiently. He said he has included the site with major search engines. \nAlso, Swapceinski recently combined forces with College2Extreme Network, an advertising agency specializing in advertising for Web sites. This organization enables teacherratings.com to cover its own costs rather than feeding into Swapceinski's personal funds.\n"I'm really impressed with the idea," Engle said. "It is nice because it gives students a forum to express real opinions about their instructors." \nDespite the positive feedback from students, Swapceinski said many professors strongly dislike the Web site. He said teachers sometimes oppose the ratings because the numbers are not statistically valid and are considered worthless. If a teacher obtains negative reviews, he said most likely students dislike the teacher in general, along with their teaching methods and communication skills.\n"It is not very scientific, but some knowledge is better than no knowledge at all," Swapceinski said. "No knowledge is (usually) what most students have to go on when making their class schedules"