Rick Adams wrote:
I agree with almost everything you're saying here, so take this as mere
nitpicking around the edges for the sake of discussion. :)
Oh, and I also haven't read many of the evaluations on that site, so this
is merely "on principle" on my part, and not really an argument about the
site in question.
> If so, then clearly you wouldn't be harmed by their
> publication. Students aren't stupid (well some are, but . . . :), they can
> recognize sour grapes as quickly as anyone else. A web site such as the
one being
> discussed will either contain so little information as to be valueless to
> students anyway (in which case it will disappear from disuse),
The web site you describe as containing little information would be
valueless _as a source of legitimate information about the quality of the
course_, but that doesn't mean that it won't have other kinds of value for
(some) students. Again, look at the radio call-in shows
(Limbaugh/Schlesinger etc.). Do we really need an academic equivalent? Why
make it easy for that fraction of students (the "well some are, but...") to
pool their invalid gripes?
Of course, a better way to head this off is to encourage feedback, and
listen to it, and then make changes when those changes are called for. A
couple of years ago I compiled the data and wrote the report for a
department review we did. We gathered data about our department's
performance from our current majors and minors, alums, other faculty and
staff, and current supervisors of alums. We had the help of an I/O
psychologist who was with us part-time, and he created an instrument that
brought in quite a bit of good information, both positive and negative. I
was among the guilty parties for some of the negative comments, and I've
done my best to fix the problems (e.g., not returning phone calls promptly:
a _big_ student gripe).
> Sorry, but I fail to see any distinction between the
> anonymous speech of two students in a student union and the
> same speech online.
Agreed, for the most part. Yet I do think that the potential for a "radio
call-in show" kind of situation to develop makes the online version a bit
more offensive. Two reasons I hesitate to say that, though: (1) the call-in
shows have someone on the other side promoting the idiocy, and obviously
these web sites do not, (2) from my brief look at the site, this fear simply
hasn't been realized - there _were_ both positive and negative evaluations.
So if I were to be actually trying to get rid of these sites, or undermine
them, I think I'd deserve the "Chicken Little" award.
> When that topic came up on TIPS some time ago it wasn't
> addressed with anywhere near the opposition or concern that this new
website is
> receiving--perhaps we all need to reconsider where our
> priorities should be--with academic integrity or protecting ourselves from
the
> opinions of students.
Really? I remember quite a bit of opposition to the term paper sites. But
I'm getting the feeling that you read my original comments as a suggestion
that faculty _should_ undermine the site (by posting false evaluations).
Looking back at what I wrote, I see I wasn't clear enough to head off that
impression. I merely meant to say that _if_ faculty were that concerned
about the site, it would be _possible_ to head off the problem by posting
enough false evaluations to undermine the site. I wasn't suggesting that it
would be desireable or ethical for faculty to do so.
--------------
All of that nit-picking being done, I have one less nit-picky comment. As
Mike Scoles notes, one of the evaluations did refer to a faculty member as
"a raging homosexual". Suppose s/he is not gay. I have also heard a student
refer to one of my very most warmly inclusive colleagues as a "racist". I
sure as hell wouldn't want to own a site that carried slanderous statements.
Those can't be balanced by positive statements from the students who like a
teacher. How many "he really cares about his students" comments balance one
false "he's a flaming homosexual"?
If the site routinely "publishes" such statements with no fact-checking
(and of course there won't be any), I'd imagine there could be some kind of
legal trouble. Is it akin to a newspaper printing a slanderous article from
a correspondent? I think one might be able to make that argument stick.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
