So....remind me again why we don't care about this site? A student in my lit class, seeming like she was trying to be nice, told me one of the people in the class had just posted a slam on this site.
I tried not to look, but yesterday, I did. The funny thing is, I do not think it was one of the three students I recently had little conflicts with here.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
The Site That Must Not Be Named. From Bella.
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I think that if you're doing your job, you're probably going to get bad reviews from time to time, and the student is probably upset because you didn't give in to her. This may not be the best analogy, but I tend to think of situations like this as similar to customer service experiences. When a customer service representative makes an exception to company policy and gives you a break (e.g., waives a fee on something or offers you a refund), you feel pretty happy about it. And furthermore, if you're given a customer service survey to complete afterwards, you're probably going to give this employee a good review. On the other hand, if the customer service rep follows policy and doesn't give you a break, how are you going to feel when you fill out the customer service survey? In fact, in the latter case, you're probably more likely to actually fill out the survey than in the first case.
ReplyDeleteI think that a lot of us who care about doing a good job also care about student feedback, and that's probably a good thing (despite the very real limitations of student course evaluations and the site that shall not be named).
I also wonder if perhaps gender might be a factor in this negative review, since we know that studies have shown that students are harder on female professors in student course evaluations.
Anyway, I hope you soon forget about the negative review and start to enjoy your summer! :-)
I have not tried this, but I have it on good authority (including but not limited to participants on this site) that all one has to do to have an especially bad (or even mildly critical) review is to email the site organizers saying that it is libelous. Whether or not it's worth doing that is a valid question, but it might explain why some of your colleagues don't (apparently) get periodically slammed. They may "weed" their reviews by reporting the really bad ones.
ReplyDeleteI've never bothered to try to have a review removed, but I do check my reviews now and then, and if I'm drifting into yellow-face "caution" territory, I put up a few reviews of my own that say, in both numbers and words, "she's tough but fair." I usually adopt the voice of a student giving advice to future students in the class (a pretty common student approach, at least in my experience) and give some actual good (if fairly obvious) advice for succeeding in the class, e.g. "there are lots of little assignments, but if you keep up you'll be okay."
I don't think I'd bother with this if I were tenured (and reasonably sure that my department, institution, and the tenure system in my state would survive though retirement -- gotta add those qualifications these days; tenure isn't what it once was), but I'm contingent, and might just need to job-search again one of these days, and I teach a required course that many students resent having to take. Given those factors, I periodically curate my online reputation on TSTSNBN (and then I get lazy and ignore it for a few years until the renewal of multi-year contract looms, and I decide maybe I'd better pay attention again, just in case some dean decides to check the reviews).
I imagine small business owners feel much the same about Yelp. At least we're not alone.
I've done it if I thought the review was just nasty. "HE SUCKS!". It worked. I've never done it for the occasional other negative review.
DeleteI've had reviews removed with my rationale being one simple word "Libel." It is usually removed within several hours.
DeleteI don't have reviews removed simply because they're negative, but when they are patently ridiculous, e.g. "Prof hates his students, and wants them to fail." or, my favourite, "Prof is terrible, his course is so hard. You'll have to work for an A+."
Because, students apparently prefer the perfessers where you don't have to put in any effort for an A+.
Holy shit, it works. I have several negative ones that are honest enough ("he grades hard!" "if you don't read, you can't pass!"), but one said I was "rude" and "liked to make students feel stupid." I just wrote "this constitutes libel" on the untrue one and, bam, it's gone.
DeleteCassandra, I'm sorry you have to worry about how some imbeciles might react to the opinions other imbeciles express about you. Out of curiosity, is it difficult to vitiate your writing to ape a student "teaching evaluation"? Or are you not that concerned with authenticity? Think we could pick out the real ones--throughout the site at large--if we wanted to play that game?
DeleteReport it--copy and paste statements from the site's legal section
ReplyDeleteMTV doesn't really care about the site, its purpose, and surely its validity. It's now more just click bait. In other words, as I understand from friends, it's easier and less corporate hassle to remove questionable reviews than to argue that a 19yo college sophomore has an opinion that its lawyers should defend.
Gender bias? yes. That's been the case for as long as I've been teaching. A colleague and I years ago would make the same case about something: she was feminazi b^&*h, yet I was a "cool guy, interesting and open-minded."
Are you a female, minority, gender-non-conforming, or other marginalized demographic? Those groups tend to inspire harsher student feedback.
ReplyDeleteActually, the-site-that-shall-not-be-named does serve a useful purpose. Every time I get a bad review there, it stops me from having twinges of conscience when awarding bad grades richly deserved by terrible students.
ReplyDeleteSorry the formatting was all fucked up. I was on a plane all day.
ReplyDeleteCrystal, you are the greatest!
DeleteApologies unnecessary.
DeleteWhatever you're doing, Crystal, it's working very well from this end. As this example shows, those who primarily want to have a conversation can ignore a bit of odd formatting and carry on with no actual inconvenience. Hope you didn't get too much email commentary from the peanut gallery.
DeleteStrelnikov would know exactly what to do in this situation.
ReplyDeleteAh, Strelly!!!
DeleteThanks for the comments, everyone! I felt better just having posted here!
ReplyDeleteIt is a glorious feeling.
DeleteThe thing that amazes me is that the other students take it so seriously. I teach a required freshman seminar in which the students are assigned centrally and don't get to choose their professors. I had one come up after the first class and say "So, Rate My Professors" says you are a hard grader and assign a lot of reading. You showed us a lot of books, so I know the reading is true. Are you going to grade hard in this class?"
ReplyDeleteAround registration time, there is usually a flurry of "who are the easy profs for Hamsters 205" messages on social media. It's 8-to-1 "Waah, there's not enough info on RMP" to "Look, dummy, those reviews aren't representative" from the kids who are stats literate.
They are anxious, and their anxiety manifests in illogical and often annoying ways.
DeleteThis, of course, explains not only RMP but a whole host of the minor (and major) annoyances associated with teaching college students these days. And remembering that anxiety, fear, etc. are at the core of many annoying behaviors is often helpful. Well, at least a bit helpful.
No, nope,that site does not take down "libelous" comments any longer. Try.
ReplyDeleteI did. It worked.
Delete