/whack2017

Wellesley-specific rate-my-professor site called WellesleyRates. Built with a team of students for WHACK 2017 at Wellesley College.

Primary LanguageHTML

WellesleyRates

Inspiration

When deciding what courses to take, the professor matters. As of now, Wellesley students must choose their professors without comprehensive information, often turning to Facebook groups to ask, or the outdated "Rate My Professors" site. We think there's a better way to crowdsource information about professors from our fellow students. That's why we built a Wellesley specific version, which has more relevant information (respect for students, quality of teaching, and difficulty). Students need to know if a professor's going to respect their identity and be supportive of any learning difficulties or extenuating circumstances.

What it does

This website consolidates information found across Facebook groups by asking for user input in a intuitive, easy-to-use way. Instead of a broad "overall quality" category, Wellesley Rates understands that there are different factors that make a professor good. For some students, the priority is finding a less demanding professor if perhaps they are already taking three challenging classes. Others may care the most about the quality of teaching they will receive regardless of difficulty. And to students who had historically been slighted or underserved by Wellesley professors, knowing whether or not a professor will support them is crucial. Students can give feedback and also browse to select the best professor for them in semesters ahead.

What's next for WellesleyRates

Our next step is adding a method for students to rate individual courses, as Wellesley students often wish to know which classes in a certain department are most valuable, or what easy class to take to fill a distribution requirement in an area they find challenging. We are also looking to improve our current design by adding a feature to produce average scores for each professor.

Built with

express.js, node.js, javascript, mongoose, mongodb, handlebars.js