IT'S THAT time of year again, the time in which even the least-academic University students get in touch with their inner nerd: spring semester course selections. There's something refreshing about seeing a brand new COD (the course offering directory, not the fish), either as a chance to engage in new intellectual pursuits or a motivation to make it through the current semester's now-stale classes. Unfortunately, students only get a catchy course title and maybe a sentence synopsis to whet their intellectual appetites. If University administrators and professors wish to see students rely less on sources of information like RateMyProfessors.com, students need to be offered a viable alternative to these resources, specifically in the form of much more extensive course evaluations on the COD.
The current course evaluations are about as helpful as your Chemistry TA explaining molarity in figuring out what the class is actually about. The evaluations currently online more than likely were written about a professor no longer teaching the course. Even if the Web site offers evaluations of the right professor, only the bare bones of all information pertinent to choosing the course is listed, and the evaluation in no way provides an accurate idea of what the class entails.
Conscientious students should have a better way to put together a course schedule. Students need to be able to distinguish between a class that requires 10 hours of work a week and a class that just requires minimal cognitive functioning.The current course evaluations system has a rudimentary method for gauging the amount of work a class entails, but it does not distinguish what type of work. Students would appreciate knowing if a course requires five hours of reading a week or five hours a week for extensive research paper preparation.
Administrators may worry that a more detailed course evaluation system will devolve into a streamlined method for students to identify difficult classes and subsequently load their schedules with "guts." When the online course evaluations system began in 2004, administrators expressed concern that "only students who had strong negative feelings would fill out the evaluations" ("New online course evaluations debut," Dec. 12, 2004). This underestimates the scholastic dedication of the majority of University students, students who normally search for a less rigorous course to balance out their already challenging course loads. Major and minor requirements in and of themselves already set a reasonable bar for academic rigor and intellectual specialization.
University professors -- and a recent Cavalier Daily lead editorial -- scoff at Web sites like RateMyProfessors.com that provide more detailed descriptions of the courses and professors. Of course the "hotness" rating of the professor is not the best gauge for the academic merit of a class, but any sane University student realizes this. The lead editorial rightly points out that the uselessness of the current course evaluations system lays in its ambiguity. "Overall, this was a worthwhile course" really gives little insight into the course because individual students have different value judgments about what is "worthwhile." Was the class worthwhile compared to the number of hours of work and study it required? Or was the class worthwhile simply by virtue of how interesting the material was? This Web site is the current best available source of course evaluations, and students will continue to use it until a better alternative is offered.
The Academic Affairs Committee of Student Council needs to work with the University to reform the online course evaluation system so that it adequately informs students while maintaining respect for professors. Co-chairs of the committee, A.J. Frey and Kathryn Serra, responded in an e-mail that "there are hesitations concerning posting data that originates from a rather small sample size --the size of the majority of classes at UVa." This is a valid concern, but not enough to gloss over the issue. Frey and Serra also point to the online Course Forum as a better way to get an idea of what a class is like.
RateMyProfessors.com and other such Web sites do have the downside of insulting professors with its no-holds-barred feedback policy. While certainly other students appreciate this cruel honesty, it is not respectful of professors who willingly work to earn abysmal salaries to teach us here at the University. A University-sanctioned course evaluation system could offer a more civil alternative without sacrificing honest critiques of courses.
Marta Cook's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at mcook@cavalierdaily.com.
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