Advice Online gaining popularity on campus

Many students get advice from their parents. Others religiously follow the words of Dear Abby and Miss Manners. But some students find advice where you'd least expect it - at a computer terminal.

Nearly a year ago, the Michigan Student Assembly launched Advice Online, a computer service that attempts to measure the degree of enjoyment - or suffering - students experienced in their courses. The Website, www.umich.edu/~msa/advice/, has received more than 16,000 hits since its inception.

"It gives students a better sense of the course they're getting into," said MSA Vice President Sarah Chopp, an LSA first-year student. "I always use Advice Online to choose which professors I'm taking and to balance my courseload."

Last fall, LSA Rep. Barry Rosenberg succeeded in obtaining course evaluations from all University departments under the Freedom of Information Act. Previously, only about half of the departments willingly released the data.

"We approached the provost's office and asked if they would release all the data from all the classes," said Rosenberg, an LSA senior. "They said U of M is a very decentralized place and that we should approach each department individually. We felt it was not an appropriate way of doing this."

Rosenberg said that since he filed the FOIA request, most of the University departments have been extremely accommodating about releasing course evaluations. But he said the School of Business Administration has yet to provide Advice Online with its own information, despite repeated inquiries.

"The Business School has a responsibility to release the data in a timely manner," Rosenberg said.

Ed Adams, director of computing services at the Business School, said the dean's office has not released course evaluations for fall '97 because revisions need to be made to the data, which contribute significantly to the decision of whether to grant tenure to professors.

"The issue for the B-school, and the reason why it's taking a long time to release, is that course evaluations are important in tenure decisions," Adams said.

Students who use the service can find out how their peers rated individual professors, how much work is required for a class and how others enjoyed the course overall.

A search engine for professors and the requirement of a valid University account to use Advice Online were added to the service this year.

Some students said they would exercise caution when looking at the grades received by specific professors and courses. Engineering first-year student Lia Santoro said students might mark down a professor for giving them too much work or grading them harshly, rather than for the actual teaching quality.

"I think it's a good idea, but you have to be careful about the students," Santoro said. "I think that students will mark down a lower opinion of the class if they have a lot of work. I'd be wary of student evaluations."

04-17-98