Suppose you're an assistant professor, striving for tenure at your university. You're diligently conducting your research, scrambling to put together your publications and tending to your teaching duties. Then one day your dean phones you up with an ominous request: "I'd like to talk to you about the negative ratings you've received on RateMyProfessors.com." In the United States, websites such as RateMyProfessors.com, which allow students to post anonymous reviews of their university professors, are growing in popularity. The comments range from the positive ("The definition of a perfect professor"), to the disparaging ("He is horrible"), to the slightly tawdry ("Quite possibly the hottest prof you'll ever find"). Perhaps unsurprisingly, these sites are proving less of a hit with US professors, many of whom are uneasy about the unvetted comments that are allowed.
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