Rate Your Professor: A New Platform for Academic Appreciation

AcademicJobs.com has launched "Rate Your Professor", a platform allowing students to thank and rate their professors. This initiative, spearheaded by CEO Jarrod Kanizay, aims to recognise professors' contributions, improve their career prospects, and create a university ranking system focused on student engagement, learning, and outcomes, rather than solely research output. Student feedback helps build comprehensive professor profiles and informs a more student-centric ranking system.

Acknowledgement of Professor's Work: The platform is founded on the principle that professors work diligently for their students and that acknowledging their efforts is vital. As Jarrod Kanizay, CEO of AcademicJobs.com, states: "Professors work tirelessly for their students. Any acknowledgement and praise is greatly received by them. Any time is a good time to say a simple thanks".

Student Gratitude: "Rate Your Professor" offers students a structured way to express their appreciation to their educators, moving beyond simple, verbal thanks and providing tangible feedback.

Impact on Professor's Career: Positive ratings and comments from students contribute to a professor’s academic ranking, potentially enhancing their career prospects. "Your positive rating and comments contribute greatly to their growth and future success, and you will feel great in giving such positive feedback and gratitude."

Platform Features and Functionality

• Multiple Avenues for Gratitude: Beyond simply rating professors, students can send thank-you emails or letters, highlighting specific instances of positive impact.

• Emphasis on Specific Examples: The platform encourages students to highlight “specific instances where their guidance or teaching impacted you positively, using sincere language and addressing them with the proper academic title."

Jarrod Kanizay’s Stated Objectives

Kanizay outlines three main reasons for creating the "Rate Your Professor" platform:

• Accolades for Effective Educators: The first objective is “to give accolades to those professors who help us learn and shine.” This reinforces the initial point about acknowledging hard work and positive impact on students.
• Student Reflection: The platform encourages students to actively consider the professors who have had a positive influence: “Secondly, for students to reflect on who it is who impact on their lives.”
• Development of a New Academic Ranking System: This is a key objective and perhaps the most innovative aspect of the platform. Kanizay critiques traditional academic rankings which focus primarily on research output and institutional reputation, stating, "You see all university and academic rankings out there focus largely on research output and citations, as well as global impact and institutional reputation rated by stuffy old academics. This ranking serves very few students." He seeks to create a ranking system that is more relevant to students.
• Data-Driven Insights: This new ranking system is meant to utilise the data gathered from student feedback in order to provide useful insights for prospective students and their families.

Empowering Student Voice: The platform aims to give students a voice in assessing the quality of teaching and the impact of educators.

• Reimagining Academic Rankings: By collecting student feedback, the "Rate Your Professor" platform aims to fundamentally challenge traditional methods of ranking universities and academics, moving the focus to the student experience.
• Win-Win Scenario: Students feel good about expressing gratitude and providing positive feedback while their input directly enhances the career prospects of professors and also has potential to change the way higher education is understood and assessed: “So when you rate your professors, you and helping you, them and the future of higher education and learning.”

Call to Action: Go to academicJobs.com now to Rate Your Professor