Pick-A-Prof has arrived. GSB Executives Angela Groh and Christopher Deal have delivered on their campaign promise to bring the online professor-rating service to Iowa State.

The free service provides a user-friendly interface for students to give ratings, post reviews and provide information about professors’ lecture styles and testing formats. The Web site even allows professors to upload their pictures, post course syllabi, request feedback from students and make their lectures available for download. In addition, the site offers a forum for students to sell and buy textbooks, a schedule planner and discussion boards for specific ISU classes.

These features, plus its simple aesthetic page design, already give Pickaprof.com a leg up over its competitor Ratemyprofessors.com – a Web site whose smiley faces and chili peppers (which connote “hot” professors) are more suitable for middle-schoolers.

What really makes Pick-A-Prof unique, however, is its postings of grade histories for ISU classes. Provided directly from the ISU registrar, the break down of As, Bs, Cs, Ds and Fs, as well as the percentage of students who dropped each class can be accessed easily by Pick-A-Prof users.

The potential for Pick-A-Prof to be a useful tool for students is high, but the site is far from reaching it. Currently, only fall semester grades are available, and plus and minus grades are lumped in the same category. Also, grade breakdowns for courses taught in multiple sections by different professors are only available in the aggregate, so students who plan to use Pick-A-Prof to grade shop for a Math 165 professor will find their objective frustrated.

As time goes by and Pick-A-Prof attracts more users, posts more grade histories and expands its content with student reviews, the utility of the Web site will only increase.

The concern that not enough students are using it is valid, but no large-scale publicity project is needed. We’re confident that if Pick-A-Prof really provides a service students desire; it will catch on the same way Facebook, MySpace and Gmail did – by electronic word of mouth.

That Pick-A-Prof provides its services for free to ISU students is a great benefit, considering that the Internet company has charged up to $10,000 per year for similar services at other universities. Why Iowa State is getting red-carpet treatment while users at other universities have had to shell out money is a mystery that our student government leaders should investigate. We urge them to be on guard against the bait-and-switch tactics Pick-A-Prof has employed at other universities.

All the more reason students should take advantage of Pick-A-Prof now, before the carpet gets pulled out from under our feet.