A Web site making use of the data collected by the Student Opinion on Resources and Teaching forms filled out at the end of the semester is expected to go online next week.
After nearly four years of development, students will have a way of finding out what the general opinion of a professor is before signing up for their class.
The first year and a half of development was spent deciding on what questions to ask, said Shaun Phillips, ASMSU Academic Assembly College of Engineering representative.
“The students wanted broad questions, but faculty didn’t want any questions that would railroad them,” he said.
ASMSU is MSU’s undergraduate government.
Phillips, who has been testing the site for the University Committee on Academic Policy, said that officials hope to make a few final tweaks and fix as many problems as possible before announcing the site to the public.
The Web site is part of a trend appearing at universities, allowing students to rate their professors, and make their educational experience a public affair.
But not all faculty members understand the effort.
“I don’t mind it,” said William Pratt, a physics and astronomy professor. “But like everything else, one wonders what they’re reacting to.”
Phillips said professors shouldn’t touch the forms.
“The biggest problem is that some haven’t been handing in their forms,” Phillips said.
A similar program at Iowa State University has met with the same kind of difficulties.
“Faculty, wherever they are in higher education, are really hesitant to change the status quo,” said Andrew Tofilon, president of Iowa State’s student government. “I myself was a little wary of teacher evaluations because they can be abused. So the faculty just wanted to make sure it was the perfect fit before they would endorse it.”
A new, independently run Web site containing databases filled with information submitted by students debuted in Iowa last month, providing students with the opinions of their peers when scheduling classes.
This Web site is the prototype to a new university-sponsored system expected to come online next year.
“Right now we’re just working on the actual design of what the evaluation will look like and what questions will be asked,” said T.J. Schneider, director of academic affairs for Iowa State’s student government. “We want to start a pilot program at one of the colleges here next fall, and then spread it out from there.”
The Web site is one of the last steps in a two-year initiative between Iowa State’s student government and the university’s administration.
“We’re putting in place a standardized feedback form, and then students can measure things like the workload of the course, how accessible the professor was, how well the grading represented the course objectives,” Schneider said. “We thought by making the information valuable to students, we could make it valuable to administrators and faculty. Sort of like killing three birds with one stone.”
