Before registering for a class with a professor you don't know, it's only natural to be curious about the professor's qualities. Are they nice? Mean? Boring? Too easy? You can always ask a friend, but you know that anecdotal stories and information aren't terribly accurate. As a result you may turn to online professor rating sites like RateMyProfessors.

What type of sampling is used for RateMYProfessor? What is being measured on this website? Is this measurement reliable and valid? If not, how could you improve the reliability and validity of these measures? Overall, do you feel that RateMYProfessor is a good way to judge a professor? Do you feel that it more or less valid than the official college teaching evaluations that are completed online?