‘Rate Your Lecturer’ website sparks controversy

A website called Rate Your Lecturer has sparked controversy with the claim that it could inspire ‘too much’ competition between academics.

Rate Your Lecturer gives students the chance to vote on the teaching ability of lecturers and seminar tutors, as well as to rate their feedback, intranet support and approachability during office hours.

It is believed that increased tuition fees brought about an increased pressure on universities to maintain their standards. The increased responsibility placed on universities has put more pressure on lecturers, and now a website has been set up where they are rated on their performance.

Although some academics may fear that unregulated rating could lead to some lecturers suffering from online bullying, Harry Haslam, a first-year History undergraduate, believed that students’ paying more money meant that they had a right to give feedback on the quality of their education.

He commented: “We pay nine thousand a year, anyway [so] to provide feedback to improve that is a good thing”.

Peter Dunn, a spokesperson for the University of Warwick, agreed that student opinion should be expressed. However, he pointed to a more “highly valued national mechanism” such as the National Student Survey as a way for students to express their views.

With students feeling justified to rate, praise or criticise tutors and lecturers, a possible outcome is that universities could use this sort of online rating to determine whether a lecturer is worth hiring or worth continuing to employ.

Lecturers are employed with regards to other aspects of work outside teaching, such as research. However, increased tuition fees could lead to some students calling for such websites to allow them to have more say into the suitability of lecturers.

First-year English Literature undergraduate Jake Sittampalam, however, disagreed with students having too much say: “I don’t really think it’s up to the students whether or not the lecturer should be in a department”.

Instead, he suggested: “it’s a better idea to have a ‘suggestions for improvement’ page; that’s probably the correct limit of the students’ influence”.