ISU students are going public with their gripes and praise for professors, just like other students around the country.

Web sites such as www.ratemyprofessors.com are springing up to meet an increasing demand for feedback on professors.

The site http://xyst.dhs.org/ is geared specifically toward ISU faculty; it has received more than 9,150 hits.

That site evolved from collaborative efforts between the Government of the Student Body and a basic structure that students had already created.

T.J. Schneider, GSB president, said cooperative efforts on the site began last spring.

“This has been successful because students have the opportunity to evaluate teaching and give insight into the effectiveness of the questions we asked [on the survey],” he said.

Other methods for evaluating professor performance are also under way at Iowa State.

Gary Koppenhaver, associate professor of finance, devised an alternative for generating student feedback.

The College of Business has begun a project in which students sit in on classes and provide professors with feedback. The project, funded by the Miller Fellowship, will go on throughout the academic year, Koppenhaver said.

“We have the largest section sizes on campus,” he said. “Because of that situation, we’re concerned about whether we’re being effective in the classroom.”

Koppenhaver said student feedback is important to ISU faculty members.

“We believe students are pretty smart about what works and what doesn’t work in a classroom setting,” he said. “Ultimately, we believe that how you teach is just as important as what you teach.”

The project allows student observers to sit in on classes and comment on good or bad instructional behaviors as well as provide specific elements for feedback or discussion, Koppenhaver said.

Fifteen faculty members in the business college are engaging in the optional project. Fifteen students have submitted applications which are being screened, Koppenhaver said.

“We want students who are engaged and interested in working toward improving instruction,” he said.

Howard Shapiro, vice provost for undergraduate programs, said ongoing feedback is essential to improving instruction at Iowa State.

“It seems like we always think about students getting feedback on their learning, but teachers receiving feedback on their teaching also results in learning,” he said.

Frank Montabon, assistant professor of logistics operations and management information systems, said the national sites are open to the general public and people can post comments whether they have taken the class or not.

“These sites would be more useful if there was some way of ensuring the person leaving the rating was actually in a class,” he said.

Though these Web sites attempt to monitor comments, inappropriate remarks do get posted, Montabon said.

“The major issue I have with these sites is the potential to post blatantly false information, sometimes false to the point of libel,” he said.

Montabon said a similar site existed at Michigan State University when he was a graduate student. Founded by a former student, the site was only for rating professors at that institution.

“We found obscene comments about professors [on that site],” he said. “That’s not helpful. It’s potentially slanderous or libelous and it’s frustrating if you’re the person on the wrong end of that comment; it doesn’t do you any good.”