Final Project Idea

02 Nov 2021

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Rate My Professor: UH Version

Authors: Aaron Thomas, Brennan Lincoln, Cathy Kim, Hyunjun Song

Overview

The Problem:

Students are often locked into four-year plans by the universities resulting in not much options in choosing different classes. If a student must take a certain class the only choice left to the student would be what professor to take their classes with. Even with the same class material, different professors can have different personal pedagogies which can result in different learning experiences and classroom experiences. If possible the student, should try to pick a professor whose teaching style would best allow them to succeed. Currently, Rate My Professor allows students to look up professors from their school and see peer written reviews. This is helpful but can be time consuming to navigate if the student is looking for a specific class’s review.

The solution:

A website that combines the strengths of Rate My Professor but expands upon its capabilities. Students should still be able to look up professors by name and see peer written reviews; however, students should also be able to search up classes and see a ranked list of professors for the said class. This will be helpful for two reasons: often times students only know what class they need to take and they won’t know what professors will teach that class. By allowing students to search for the class, they will have already completed the exhaustive search of what professors will be teaching that specific course and will allow students to investigate which highly ranked professors are the right match for them.

Mockup page ideas

• Landing page with lookup of prof/class
• Prof profile pages
  • Classes taught
  • Ratings
  • General comments
• Class pages
  • General info
  • Ranked list of professors
  • Reviews for class

Use case ideas

Students search for professor/class on landing page:

• Once on prof site student can see reviews of prof and classes offered
  • From here they can navigate to said classes pages
• Once on class site students can see difficulty and ranking of prof teaching class
  • From here they can navigate to said professors pages

Students go to the landing page and logs in with the intent of leaving a review:

• After logging in, a “review” tab is available where the student can leave a review of a class/professor.
  • The student then leaves a review of said professor/class.
  • The review is then published to the site.

Beyond the basics

Schedule Planner

Similar to the implementation of RadGrad’s schedule planner, students can make a personal 4 year plan of classes they will take. Using this website they will also be able to fill it in with their preferred teacher. There can also be an option to leave a second option for preferred professor in the event that in a particular semester the professor will not be teaching that class. This will allow students to have a useful tool when registering for classes and simplify to exhaustive process that accompanies choosing the correct class and professor combination. This planner would not be a completely detailed planner since it would not list class times and could result in class conflicts; however, it will be a helpful springboard for students to make educated choices.

Community forum

Not all students take advantage of the resources student affairs provides. While some will meet with counselors regularly to make an updated class plan for themselves, others will feel uncomfortable with that prospect and would rather turn to their peers for their questions. This is where a community forum would be helpful. Students could post questions regarding certain classes or professors. They could also ask if all the classes they have chosen make sense together. This could strengthen the student community here at UH Manoa and allow students on the more shy end to still recieve the help they need.