Course and Professor Rankings about coursereviews HOT 5 OPEN

Not sure if it's a good idea. I think we should just give students the tools to analyze reviews and maybe even compare them but I'm nervous about implying that some class is the easiest or hardest. That kind of stuff will really get the faculty going.

from coursereviews.

Yeah but that's also the coolest and most gripping stuff. One of the reasons buzzfeed has done so well is because of its list formats. I can imagine the campus buzzing about this kind of thing. Maybe we could avoid the really controversial lists, or name them accurately and not claim that some lists indicate a class's easiness directly

from coursereviews.

I get the idea, but Buzzfeed is pretty much the furthest thing from what MiddCourses should be. We had enough trouble getting the faculty on board for a non-controversial site. I think we should build features that let students explore classes they might like, not find something at the top of a list.

from coursereviews.

The furthest? Buzzfeed could be talking about the "10 Most Influential Middlebury Graduates" with a summary of their achievements and that would be awesome. I don't think the success of the format of their stories should be confused with the stupidity of the content of their stories.

The lists wouldn't interfere with normal course browsing either. The whole point of the NYTimes article on student built utilities is that the students build what's most useful to them, and sometime that would be stuff that the administration was previously trying to discourage. What incentive do we have to tow the proverbial line?

from coursereviews.

If we started controversy we would gain even greater adoption.

from coursereviews.