Student government leaders have made a new tool available for students when choosing courses. The development comes just in time for the Fall 2003 enrollment period.
UOSA President Alex Yaffe said he has worked with other student government leaders since September to bring students online professor evaluations and course grade distributions.
After putting out a request for bids from similar online companies, the Web site they selected to manage this information is PickAProf.com.
"What Pick-A-Prof offers is far superior to any of the other companies," Yaffe said.
Chris Kannady, Graduate Student Senate chairman, said he has been working for online grade distributions ever since they were taken away from students while he was UOSA vice president in 1999.
According to Kannady, prior to that time, the university published and released grade distributions for students to view in the UOSA office to aid them as they formulated which courses to take.
"We haven't had a lot of cooperation from the administration with this," Kannady said. He said student government had been given several different reasons as to why they were taken away.
Pick-A-Prof allows students to log on and view the grades given by different professors, as well as ratings from students. Students also have the opportunity to make comments about professors' teaching styles.
"I hope that students will use Pick-A-Prof to better enhance the quality of the education," Kannady said. "Students will be able to look at the offered classes and look for professors that best suit them."
How professors will respond to the Web site is still unknown.
Yaffe said they haven't kept anything a secret. Pick-A-Prof has to go through the administration to obtain grade distributions or file for open records.
"We haven't heard any complaints yet," Kannady said. "So I guess that's a good thing."
Though most professors had not yet heard of the site, some said they thought it could be beneficial as long as the information was presented in a proper manner.
"On general principle, students being informed is a good thing," said Dan Ransom, English professor. "It's just important that the information is presented objectively."
The funding for students to use Pick-A-Prof will come from the UOSA student government budget, Yaffe said.
"It's not going to cost anything extra to OU students," he said. "Student government is just using some of its money for this rather than spending it on something else."
Yaffe said the most important thing was that students use the site.
"This is a great tool, but we have to use it," Yaffe said. He said if the site was not used, then student government would no longer be able to provide it.
The site is currently up and available to OU students, though it does not yet contain all of the grade information.
Yaffe said students can expect the information to be fully available in the coming weeks.
HOW PICK-A-PROF WORKS FOR YOU
*Grade Distributions: Pick-A-Prof breaks down the
percentage of A-Fs professors give out in each course.
*Student Comments: Students can make others
aware of different teaching styles, test types and any
other information.
*Professor Ratings: Students can assign an overall
rating from "poor" to "excellent" to a professor.
Students can also enter a course number and compare
ratings and grades of different professors.
*Schedule Planner: Pick-a-Prof allows students to set
up a schedule as they browse through professor profiles.
*Log On: Get started at www.pickaprof.com
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