NIU recently signed up with PickAProf.com, a Web site that allows students to “grade” their professors at any time throughout the semester.

Students can now submit written reviews about any teacher on campus. PickAProf.com’s professor reviews are the main site feature and are similar to end-of-semester teacher evaluations.

Campuses can register with PickAProf.com through the student government or students contacting the site. Bragg said NIU joined the program based on student request.

The reviews are intended to be constructive criticism for teachers, said Karen Bragg, director of University Relations for PickAProf.com.

Student reviews will inform teachers on how to adjust their teaching style as the semester continues, Bragg said. Teachers usually give out end-of-semester evaluations but do not see the results until weeks later. This does not allow students from that semester to benefit from any changes.

Student reviews submitted to the Web site may produce a more genuine response from students than end-of-semester evaluations.

“They’re fricking annoying,” said Matthew Cummins, a sophomore music education major.

The evaluations take too much time, and students are less likely to put effort into filling out the evaluations, Cummins said.

Perrine Delcour, a foreign language and literature instructor, also approved of PickAProf.com.

“It’s a good thing for teachers to see what students think. Students would probably be more comfortable behind a computer screen to tell teachers what they think,” Delcour said.

Professors may also post information on the site, such as course descriptions, course expectations, a personal biography and office hours.

Students may also have access to grade percentages for the courses in bar graphs, Bragg said. The grading information is obtained from university records and put together by the Web site designers.

“I think it’s a really good idea, since I want to know more about the professor before I take the class,” Cummins said.

PickAProf.com started about four and a half years ago at the University of Texas at Austin, Bragg said. The program currently serves about 82 colleges and Bragg expects to have more than 100 by the end of the semester.

“At the University of Texas, we had about 80 percent of the campus using our site within the first couple years,” Bragg said. “We then expanded to schools nationally to see what the response would be like.”

The only disadvantage to the site could be students submitting defamatory reviews, Delcour said. However, teachers need not worry about the issue. Every review a student admits is read by a person working with the program.

“No profanity is accepted,” Bragg said. “We make sure to read them and make sure they are clean. If for some reason it’s not accepted, we’ll e-mail the student and tell them why and give them the opportunity to re-submit it.”