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[summers_off]

Two things...
First of all I do know someone who managed to have comments removed from their RateMyProfessor rating, but they were pretty nasty, embarrassing and untrue comments.  You can certainly try.

Second, instead of just telling them the average, let them know how many scored 90+, how many score 80+, etc.  I do that and have never gotten any complaints (even though I have students who score below 50).

Good Luck!

[fluti31415]

I think everyone's right on target with this one. Just rate yourself. But I'd be sure to give myself the kind rating that I want. Don't just say you're the greatest thing since sliced bread,say things like this:

• S/He is really good at explaining things, but is really tough on cheaters.
  Even though I'm not doing well in his class, s/he can tell I am trying and works to help me.
  This prof really shows you where calculus is used in real life. But then, you have to work

harder problems, because they're real life.

Stuff like that. Warn the slackers in advance.

[cc_alan]

Two things...
First of all I do know someone who managed to have comments removed from their RateMyProfessor rating, but they were pretty nasty, embarrassing and untrue comments.  You can certainly try.

Second, instead of just telling them the average, let them know how many scored 90+, how many score 80+, etc.  I do that and have never gotten any complaints (even though I have students who score below 50).

Good Luck!

I tell students not only the average but the percentage of people who scored a 70% or better.

I didn't always tell this information. I had a student who was doing poorly and told people that everyone was doing poorly and I didn't give a fig about anyone's grades. So, I started telling the class what the averages were to make sure this student understood he was one of the few doing poorly.

Alan

[neutralname]

While you are at it, you can rate other friends too.  I saw a friend with students complaining about him, so I added a glowing review on RMP.  I've also created one fictional professor for my college, but I confess I gave him bad ratings. 

[oldadjunct]

I "spin" generalized comments about class performance on any given assignment depending on needs.  I would never be mathematically precise in the way of OP, but I am not a mathematician.

Rather I might say something like "Wow, you guys are really starting to get it.  This last group of papers had a number of A's.  Nice job".  Or, "Ohhh, bad batch, eh?  Look, here is what is going wrong...."  In the first case maybe there were only 2-3 A's, but I felt a need to build confidence.  In the second, perhaps with the same 2-3 A's, I might feel the need to issue a wake up call.  In either case the response tends to be that the group feels a more cohesive sense of accomplishment, or motivation.

But I never feel compelled to report back to the class their general grades as a way to validate my grading.

[aegi3]

What does it mean if your name appears on RMP with a "restricted" banner on top of it? I mean I know that they have found something that bothered them, but what?

[moderator]

Here are some recent articles related to this discussion:

The Art of the Bogus Rating (9/27/2006)

Let's Sue (7/28/2006)

* U. of Saskatchewan Fires Tenured Professor Accused of Maligning Colleagues on RateMyProfessors Web Site (3/10/2006)


*must be a subscriber to access this article


Best,

Moderator

[captainwillard]

I've never looked myself up on there (but our assistant registrar once volunteered to me that I not only had chili peppers but was highly rated).  I really don't want to know.  The site's existence is a nightmare and I hope they are eventually taken down by libel litigation.

Any employer that would consult the thing is a school that doesn't deserve me or you on their faculty.

All that said, as an adjunct you've really got to do what benefits you.  If you are being evaluated positively for giving low grades, go for it.  But when I adjunct ed I was evaluated solely on student opinions.  My average grade floated right up toward B+, my classes grew, the students treated me like a star, and my chairman once applauded when she saw me in the hallway (I am not making this up).  On the other hand, when a tt job came up there I didn't even make their long-short list, so who knows, really.  But don't destroy your own career to make some administrator's numbers look better.

Good luck!

[poresp]

Where I completed my grad study, we had "slam tables," or tables with big, white pieces of paper taped over the tops.  The pieces were separated into sections labeled "American Studies," "Chemistry," "French," etc.  During Fall and Spring registration, students could simply come by and drop an anonymous message about a prof that they liked or disliked in the section provided. 

One day, in my imprudent and somewhat innocent youth, I thought it a good idea to stop by the tables to see just how much my students loved me (as I also adore the experience of teaching my students).  Yet, when I mowsied on by the slam tables, I saw that one of the two comments about me was so scathing (and absolutely wrong, factually speaking) I almost felt sick (the other comment was a statement denouncing the first in my defense, which is what kept me from losing it).  It took me a few minutes (and conversations with several fellow grad student instructors) to realize that only those students who love or hate you will actually go to the trouble to write any sort of comment on a table, website, bookcover or random chalkboard.  It is only the voice of the (usually few) extreme opinions that you will hear, not those of the average student. 

My point is that you should not take ANY of the comments personally, especially when teaching calculus, a topic notorious for frustrating many a middle-of-the-road student.  Rather, you should probably ignore the comments you read as the words of the overly-frustrated student possessing relatively little in terms of time-management skills and emotional control.  I also agree with captainwillard that, if your employer takes at all seriously any of the statements found in this ultimately meaningless electronic slamfest, you should consider finding a more amenable place to work.

[larryc]

At the suggestion of someone here in an earlier thread I rated my seld at RMP, saying that I was a great teacher but that I loved flunking plagiarists, oh my God don't cheat in his class! 

And I gave myself a chili pepper.

[drsyn]

 

I can truly understand being depressed, seeing the ratings and getting an unholy glee at fixing them.

Other than that, I can't imagine going in and adding to my ratings.  Seems like it would put you at a lower level than the students who trash you because they got a bad grade.

[smart_e_pantz]

 

I can truly understand being depressed, seeing the ratings and getting an unholy glee at fixing them.

Other than that, I can't imagine going in and adding to my ratings.  Seems like it would put you at a lower level than the students who trash you because they got a bad grade.

I went halfway on this.  I rated myself; but, I used the actual written teaching evaluations from my class to do so.  So, the positive comments I added were actually comments I received from students on my formal evaluations.

[oldfullprof]

Poresp-- Were you at UT, Austin?  I made the slam tables there a few times as a grad student instructor.

[histgradstudent]

Or you could just grow up. These things are almost certainly much less important that you think they are. First of all, I think we underestimate students savinness about the reliability of things like RMP. They understand that things they read on there can be unreliable. Secondly I don't even think most students consult RMP much. If you look at a lot of the ratings there aren't many comments. My guess is that means a pretty small percentage of students even look at the things. I went to school when RMP was around and I didn't know anybody who used it to decide which classes to take. We asked our friends or other people in our classes because we knew that was a better way to get a feel for what a class would be like.

So relax. Whenever anyone posts on this topic he or she always seems to think that RMP is a viloation of their privacy or akin to libel. I do not know nearly enough about the legal issues, but I think teaching is essentially a public performance. Students should have the right to comment on a professor's teaching if they choose to do so and sitting around and whining about is a waste of everyone's time.

Actually, at my undergraduate institution, we had a message board for comments on classes. While it was off limits to faculty and staff, the board was not anonymous. It was student moderated to keep the discussion above the belt. The whole thing worked pretty well because enough people read and commented to keep the system mostly safe from gaming. You could read a thread and get a good sense for the range of opinion. I wish my current school would adopt something similar. 

The simplest thing is to register on RMP and give yourself great ratings. I've never done it, but apparently it's easy to do.

If there's some way it stops you from doing so 10 times in one sitting, log off and on, use different computers, have friends do it.

Time is short. That's what I'd do. The whole RMP is bogus anyway. Game the system.

[poresp]

oldassocprof - Yes, that is where I also worked as a grad student instructor.  Would you agree that, beyond the slam tables, the experience at UT was a valuable and enjoyable one? (See, now I'm feeling a little nostalgic...) 

histgradstudent - I agree that the comments on RMP are not as important as, say, your peer and/or student evaluations.  You are being a little harsh, though, telling someone to "grow up" because they took a comment personally.  The issue that has come up in this thread of a chair or administrator (someone with power over your employment) taking the comments to heart makes even more complicated the situation.  I believe that, given the information available, we really can justify these and other concerns on the part of any one of us who may / will have suffered at all because of websites like RMP, among others.