By By Anne Verghese
Editorial Staff
The largest online record of college professors is ratemyprofessors.com. A site that began in 1999 and now has over 8,000,000 ratings for professors hailing from 56,500 schools in the United States, Canada and other International schools. ratemyprofessor.com allows students to rate their professors on various categories: easiness, helpfulness, clarity, and rater interest.
For the past three years students have been rating their professors on these categories using a scale of one to five, with five being the highest. UMBC's very own Jim Thomas was one of the few elite chosen for this ranking.
Thomas teaches in the Philosophy department and currently teaches Philosophy 100 and 152 in the spring. He also mentors Philosophy 400, a class for those who are interested in doing independent study in philosophy.
On the site, one of Thomas' students commented saying, "There are funny teachers who can't teach, and good teachers with no sense of humor. Jim Thomas is a great teacher and keeps the students laughing most of the class. Even if you don't care much for philosophy, take this class. It is interesting and worth going to."
A tradition that began last year, ratemyprofessor.com broadcasts on its main page the professors and faculties who are rated highest on the site. Every month the number of people who view the site increases by approximately 18 percent. The site reaches about 2.8 million college students and every month more than 80,000 students log on daily.
"It's important for us to shine a light on professors around the country who are doing great work at every institutional level," Carlo DiMarco, Vice President of University Relations for mtvU, which owns and operates ratemyprofessors.com commented in a recent press release. "The 2008 ratemyprofessors.com rankings mirror the voices of students sitting in classes and listening to professors' lectures. These students have elevated the teachers they feel are the best to the top of these lists."
RateMyProfessor.com created the top list by using a five-point Likert scale as well as a binary scoring system for the ratings that have been generated by students. For each professor on the site, their individual rating value was first standardized around the mean score of each professor's list on the site. Next, using the standardized scores from 2006, 2007, and 2008 and using a 15 percent weight for 2006, 25 percent for 2007 and 60 percent for 2008, a weighted score was then computed.
These scores according to RateMyProfessor.com "reflect a combined, long-term performance rating of just over two-and-one-half years, with an emphasis on the most recent ratings." Using these weighted scores, professors were then ranked from highest to lowest. Only those professors who have a score of 10 or more were included in the list.
The universities which were home to 'top 10 Rated Professors' include: Brigham Young University, St. John's University, Liberty University, University at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo), University at Albany (SUNY Albany), University of Texas at San Antonio, Wright State University, University of Central Florida, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, and University of South Alabama.
Being chosen as one of the top-rated professors is an honor not only for Professor Thomas but for UMBC as well. However, this tribute does not appear to have come as a surprise to many of Professor Thomas' students and staff members.
"Jim is very smart, very funny and a very warm and engaging person. His colleagues in our department like and respect him very much and I know students do as well," Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department, Stephen Braude, said. "We're absolutely delighted he's received this recognition."
Copyright: The Retriever Weekly