Choosing classes can be an extremely tedious and frustrating experience. Trying to find the perfect class, professor or both can lead to hours of study-meetings with your academic adviser, getting recommendations from classmates and spending some quality time with the course catalog.
Students across the nation have used ratemyprofessor.com as a means to narrow down class choices, but this helpful site leaves something to be desired, since most reviews tend to be overly positive or overly negative. AU students have access to the Student Evaluations of Teaching completed at the end of every semester, but even this more AU-tailored resource is still difficult to use — the questions are more tailored to assist the professor than future students.
There are a few reasons why word-of-mouth is still widely used as a course/professor finding resource: it is easily accessible, you can ask questions and it is generally reliable.
All of these qualities are reflected in CourseRank, a new course-finding application brought to AU by Student Government President Andy MacCracken with the help of Andrew Smolik. The SG has been helping to publicize the application through a Facebook group. CourseRank matches student rankings with AU’s course catalogue to help students literally build their schedules. Reviews, class demographics, questions and answers are all easily accessible from this free and easy-to-use site.
Since students compile all information, SG has created an added incentive for the AU community to participate: for every class that you review before March 1, you will be entered into a raffle for two $50 Amazon gift cards.
Is this too good to be true? Perhaps. Although CourseRank is a valuable resource now, SG is working hard to make it even better. While the system itself is easy to use, it is currently lacking a few basic essentials.
First, the ratings are based on a five-star system, similar to ratemyprofessor.com’s five-point system, except the rating is a general one instead of separated into clarity, easiness, helpfulness and overall quality. The point system is probably a better resource for students, since it is difficult to show a graphic of a quartered star but simple to write it out in numerals. Additionally, the instructions never specify what exactly a star really stands for. Obviously, one student’s conception of a three-star class is going to be drastically different than another’s, making the resource more subjective than it could, and perhaps should be.
CourseRank also emphasizes the class over the professor, focusing on a general opinion of the course and grade received instead of material learned and quality of the professor. SG is currently working to enable students to rate professors as well as classes, to better serve the expressed needs of the AU community. Since classes at AU vary greatly by professor, size, section and honors/non-honors, more detail is needed in the program to help students pinpoint the right course, professor and section for them. Regardless, these reviews are helpful. If the reviewer has ranked the course, you can see his or her grade next to the response.
As with all course-ranking tools, CourseRank reviews must be taken with a grain of salt. Although the site is not perfect, SG is working hard to tailor it more to the needs of AU students. CourseRank will only be successful if everyone shares his or her class experiences, so get out there and start ranking.
Erin Cady is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and an AU affairs columnist for the The Eagle. You can reach her at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
