Educators question RateMyProfessor annual college rankings

Heidi Jaenicke, a blogger for the Scottsdale Community College Chronicle, said in a recent post that RateMyProfessor’s appeal is evident to anyone who’s ever been subject to the whims of a professor, but students should be wary of its rankings and ratings.

“It’s fun to turn the tables on the teachers who always do the grading on us,” she wrote. “For the same reasons professors don’t allow us to cite information we find on sites like Wikipedia,” RateMyProfessor should have a screening process that makes the ratings more accurate.

While there are legions of professors who track their rankings and students’ feedback on RateMyProfessor, Doering said he abstains from the anonymous postings and bases his classroom success on face-to-face conversations with students.

“I simply do the very best teaching my courses and leave it at that,” he said. “With the internet, you can find just about any perspective and thus, as a professor, I take postings like this lightly.”

It seems Doering wouldn’t regret a peak at his RateMyProfessor page, which is littered with praise, calling Doering “very constructive” and a “phenomenal teacher” who “makes learning fun.”