<p>[Nole</a> Ratings - FSU Professor Ratings](<a href=“http://www.noleratings.com%5DNole”>http://www.noleratings.com)</p>
<p>Regarding using the ratings from such websites - caveat emptor. </p>
<p>Usually only those who wish to complain (as opposed to addressing issues during the term with the faculty member) list ratings. Many with high ratings don’t take the time to rate faculty so you tend to miss the high marks and those rated highly may only reflect one side of the story. What works for one student may not work the same for another. The best professors are not easy, but they inspire you to work and learn, which seldom is accomplished without personal reaching and growth. Such means you tend not to get easy high marks.</p>
<p>parent2noles,</p>
<p>Your assumption that “only those who wish to complain … list ratings” is slightly off.</p>
<p>Although NoleRatings.com is just getting started (and therefore wouldn’t be very useful as part of this argument) I can tell you that on other similar websites the vast majority of ratings are positive.</p>
<p>However, I do understand your position: What you are trying to argue (among other things) is that websites such as this suffer from selection bias. Luckily, the design of NoleRatings.com takes this into consideration: In viewing a professor’s ratings students can choose to view only high ratings from students who received a low grade, or only low ratings from students who received a high grade (these options will allow you to filter out many of the “complainers” that you mentioned).</p>
<p>Regardless, I absolutely agree with you that “what works for one student may not work the same for another”. The purpose of professor rating sites isn’t to provide a hard and fast answer as to whether a student should take a certain professor, but rather to provide the student with a general impression of a professor based on their peers’ opinions. Armed with this information, the student may be better able to judge whether that professor is right for them.</p>
<p>Just an FYI FSU does have official course evaluations which are available to all students. In blackboard (after logging in with FSUID) you can check previous semester official ratings of professors. These ratings are done in all classes through a scantron rating.</p>
<p>This allows you to see ratings from all students, but unlike ratings sites they do not have a comments section.</p>
<p>I’ve started to rate mine~!
I wish more of my professors were rated last year or had more ratings to go by (for a couple are coming back with rightly low reviews- if only I had known the class average with curve would be a high D/low C with a chunk of the class dropping it!)</p>
<p>What I find the most helpful from these is Why the prof is good or bad and if I’m lucky how the class is run. So in my reviews I’m trying to include how much manual work there is (via # of assignments/quizzes/exams- ex. in a history assignments to buffer my grade are a bonus whereas in a math class I rather skip the extra work and have straight exams/quizzes.) If notes are posted online or not (with my disability acc I can get a notetaker however I much rather rely on a book or online notes with lecture notes acting as extra explanation… which doesn’t always happen.) If the book was used or not. Study guides (or some sort of exam review) or not. Harsh/fair/easy grader. Class average (if possible.) Ect.
I try to leave my personal opinion of the prof in the stars. I wish more people would do it this way! I don’t care if the prof is boring or not but I def have preferences for my method to absorb the material!</p>