Which professors are interesting? Which courses are difficult? What should I take to fulfill a specific requirement?Questions like these are circulating around Grounds as the stress of signing up for classes is once again upon us; however, theCourseForum is working to ease the anxiety surrounding registration.
Creating theCourseForum
"TheCourseForum is basically a review Web site for classes and professors here at the University," said Whitney Hawkins, second-year College student and publicity head for theCourseForum.
The Web site was created in 2005 by University alumni Alan Webb and Jeff Bordogna. Hawkins said the site currently has more than 4,500 course reviews and more than 6,500 graphs showing class grade distributions.
Bordogna said as a second-year Engineering student planning his third-year schedule, he had room to sign up for classes outside of the Engineering School. His advisor, however, did not know about College courses, and the Web sites he looked to for guidance had advice that was not only limited, but not very helpful. As a result of his experience, Bordogna decided to create a better way to get information on University courses and professors. He joined forced with Webb and set out to create theCourseForum Web site.
What's been missing
TheCourseForum allows students to do side-by-side comparisons of courses and see class grade distributions, features other Web sites do not offer.
Hawkins said the evaluations found through the Course Offering Directory lack the clear format and easy rating system of theCourseForum.
"The COD evaluations are just absolutely impossible to read," she said.
Bordogna said while a certain percentage of a class must fill out an evaluation for it to show up on the COD, only one review is needed for it to be posted on theCourseForum.
He added that he believes the number rating systems used in evaluations on the COD and ratemyprofessors.com are not as helpful as comments, grade distributions and the breakdown of class work that theCourseForum provides.
Hawkins said theCourseForum is also tailored specifically to the University.
"It's run by U.Va. students for U.Va. students," she said.
While ratemmyprofessors.com is a a subsidiary of MTV, theCourseForum has no corporate backing, according to Hawkins.
"We run it just because we think the information needs to be out there," she said.
While theCourseForum currently boasts information and resources unavailable elsewhere, it is still striving to better help and inform University students.
Hawkins said theCourseForum will soon be launching a new version of the Web site that will be easier to use. She added that those involved are also considering providing students with the ability to e-mail those who wrote class reviews, because "people can't probably say everything they want to" in the reviews.
The ability to e-mail reviewers, she said, would allow for a more open dialogue between University students about professors and classes.
Hawkins added that theCourseForum is always open to suggestions on ways to improve.
theCourse-what?
Hawkins said advertising for theCourseForum during the last September add/drop period was so successful that the high number of people trying to access the site caused the CIO server to crash. Yet Hawkins said the Web site is still under-utilized.
One student who was not reached by theCourseForum's advertising is second-year College student Vivien Shum. She said she had not heard of theCourseForum before.
While Shum said she uses ratemyprofessors.com, COD course descriptions and advice from friends, she said theCourseForum's grade distributions would be very helpful to look at, because they would allow students to pick GPA-boosting classes.
Fourth-year College student Sarah Curtis was less enthusiastic about the ability to see past class grades.
"I don't know how useful I think grade distribution is just because ... I've been in classes where I've been above the average [and] below the average," she said.
Curtis said she turns to the English department Web site to plan her schedule is. She said she uses it because it shows her the requirements she still needs to fulfill and is easy to navigate.
Although second-year College student Ryan Bugas said he uses theCourseForum, he also uses other review Web sites to prepare to register for classes.
"I feel like I have to use them for different things," he said. "I mean, it would be nice if they were all combined into one."
While he said he thinks the grade distributions on theCourseForum are very helpful, the low number of reviews is a drawback.
To increase the number of reviews, theCourseForum recently held a contest in which students who posted three reviews on the forum by Nov. 9 would be entered into a pool to win iTunes gift cards. Hawkins said this contest was simply to encourage students to write more comments about classes and professors on the site.
Bugas said he thinks theCourseForum is rising in the ranks of review Web sites.
"I wouldn't only use that Web site, but at the same time, I feel like ... it's a great tool to assist me when I try to finalize my schedule," he said.
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