What should I do about my bad ratemyprof profile

[joeroberts]

My ratemyprof profile has only five entries but they are *extremely* negative. Four of the comments come from one class that really did go off the rails for me and one is a bit surprising I thought that class went really well.

I have been teaching at my university for 12 years, and I am tenured so I am extremely secure. But I am wondering if I should do anything about this. A few profs at my institution have profiles with more and better ratings so I am wondering if people encourage students to leave entries? Or are they such stellar teachers that students are moved to rate them.

I think I am bothered by this distorted record sitting on the internet when there is a fuller picture

There are sort of three things I thought I could do;

1) start encouraging students to leave entries
2) write to past students with whom I've had good connections, explain the situation and ask them to leave a rating.
3) start a professor profile to reply, possibly leaving anonymous but real quotes from students who have written to me about my strengths.

Thanks for any advice.

JR

[Hegemony]

One forumite has reported posting his own reviews as if he were a student, complaining about how much reading there is and how the prof makes the students think too much. I like that approach. You could make several accounts and post similar reviews of yourself over time. Be sure to spell the occasional word wrong and punctuate oddly, for authenticity.

[ergative]

Gosh, it's been years since I've thought about RMP. Why do you want to do anything about it? If it's not going to affect your job stability, it seems kind of beneath you to take notice.

Of course, that being said, I also like the idea of creating lots of fake student profiles and spamming your profile too. Now's a good time to do it, since the semester is ending, so it will look like a new crop of comments that sprouted from the spring semester, rather than sudden spam.

[mamselle]

Nothing.

M.

[Katrina Gulliver]

Nothing.

Pretty much this.

Starting your own account to "respond" just looks desperate, and really won't improve your image in the eyes of anyone visiting the site.

You only got 5 reviews over 12 years because hardly any students use it nowadays anyway.

[Zeus Bird]

YMMV, but for me harsh RMP ratings serve to keep students who simply want the easiest A, and who are most likely to complain when they don't earn an easy A, out of my classes.

[traductio]

You only got 5 reviews over 12 years because hardly any students use it nowadays anyway.

The shocking thing for me when I came to Current U from Prior U in 2015 was how RMP is the first place students go to decide whether to take a certain class. At Prior U, my students had never heard of RMP (seriously, I mentioned it once and they looked puzzled, and I quickly skirted the subject).

But even here, I don't look at my RMP profile, nor would I do anything to change it. I was tempted a while ago to put up something about "Prof Traductio is awful he will fail you for plagerism" in hopes of stemming a plagiarism problem, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

My 11-year-old daughter and one of her friends (whose dad is also a prof at my school) just discovered my RMP profile, which sent them into peals of laughter, so there is that.

[marshwiggle]

You only got 5 reviews over 12 years because hardly any students use it nowadays anyway.

The shocking thing for me when I came to Current U from Prior U in 2015 was how RMP is the first place students go to decide whether to take a certain class.

The irony is that, except possibly for introductory courses and/or at huge institutions, most courses have only one section and, except for sabbaticals, is always (or almost always) taught by the same prof. It may help for electives, but it will be completely irrelevant for most of most students' courses.

[Parasaurolophus]

I don't see anything wrong with plumping your RMP ratings a tad.

But I'd just put them out of sight and out of mind. I'm pretty sure the site is dying anyway.

[Ruralguy]

Haven't looked in years, and actually went about a decade with no one saying anything. maybe three profiles over all before that. Mostly sort of myeh. I wouldn't bother doing anything in response.

[little bongo]

Apparently I'm "chill," and students suspect I do some weed before class. It's all good. I would definitely echo the advice in order of preference:

1) do nothing
2) do some creative additions to your ratings

And best of luck!

[Puget]

Do nothing. Students seem to barely use it anymore anyway.

I just looked at mine out of curiosity-- only 7 comments, 5 of which are slight variations of the same comment undoubtably from the same student, posted every few weeks at the end of last semester-- I'm almost certain this is Extremely Dependent and Anxious Stu with Poor Social Skills who I've posted about before. Stu thinks I'm the absolute best except I'm sometimes "moody" and "testy" (aka, would not let Stu monopolize ALL of my time), 5 out of 5 stars, 5 times. Two other positive comments, that's it. But it wouldn't really bother me if there were negative ones as it has no material impact on my career.

[the_geneticist]

I'm going to say "don't worry about it".  If negative comments keep students out of your class, then you probably didn't want them in it anyway.
Don't spend more time worrying about it than they spent writing their comments.  It's not like your chair will bother to look at RMP.

[Wahoo Redux]

I agree that the best path is to ignore it.  Not very many students use it anymore (I think it launched on the concept of student empowerment which never developed) and no academics I know take it seriously.  My nieces looked me up on RMP, otherwise I have never had a reference to it from anyone.

I have heard of some professors "flagging" the rating.  To the best of my knowledge, RMP automatically removes flagged posts, probably because they do not want to be sued.

Sounds to me like you have a single disgruntled student who thinks hu will deliver a little payback from RMP.  If they only knew how insignificant RMP is...

[mamselle]

The wish to be loved, even liked, is powerful under pressure or stress.

Do things to please yourself in other ways that alleviate the pressure/stress.

M.