(Be)Rate me!

I teach classes online, too.  Like other institutions of higher education, my university also uses a learning management software to house and deliver the learning materials.

Now, imagine that there are problems with this software and users--especially students--running into problems working with the materials and, therefore, doing the work.  Or, students having an expectation of how sophisticated the software will be and then realizing that it falls way short of their expectations.

Those kind of problems with the software has nothing to do with me as the instructor, right?  But, what if students get pissed off because of the software and end up rating me as a horrible instructor?

Yep, it happens.  More than we would like to.

But, at least I don't get penalized with a pay cut or worse.  In the academic environment, we fully recognize that student evaluations of instructors and classes can be misleading in many different ways.  And, of course, I am tenured!

However, the profit-is-the-only-bottomline private sector couldn't be bothered with the nuances related to evaluations.  The first time I took my car in for a service task, and after it was all done, the agent there said that I will get an email with a link--for customer satisfaction.  She added, "anything less than the highest means that my boss will call me in to talk."

She was not exaggerating.  It is getting awful.  We are now in a highly amped up version of Frederick Taylor and his "scientific management" techniques to improve industrial efficiency.

While Taylorism was in the context of manufacturing, in the post-industrial economy, evaluating the efficiency of service workers is happening in some horribly twisted ways.  Even in the restaurant business.

Ziosks are designed to increase restaurant efficiency by allowing customers to order drinks, appetizers, and desserts, and pay their bill from the table without talking to a server. But, as Bishop soon discovered, they also prompt customers to take a satisfaction survey at the end of every meal, the results of which are turned into a score that’s used to evaluate the server’s performance.

Taylor meets digital data.  And Taylor loves it.  Screw the workers!

Ziosk tablets sit atop dining tables at more than 4,500 restaurants across the United States — including most Chili’s and Olive Gardens, and many TGI Friday’s and Red Robins. Competitor E La Carte’s PrestoPrime tablets are in more than 1,800 restaurants, including most Applebee’s. Tens of thousands of servers are being evaluated based on a tech-driven, data-oriented customer feedback system many say is both inaccurate and unfair.

Heartless bastards!

Ziosk and Presto sit at the nexus of two major consumer trends: the idea that every product, service, piece of content, and interaction, whether encountered online or in real life, should be rated on a scale of one to five, and that these ratings in aggregate become an invaluable dataset, helping managers achieve growth and make money.

Customers have no idea how their ratings are (mis)used.  Here's an example of what happens with when the customer-is-always-right mentality intersects with evaluations, and without any meaningful human understanding of the workers nor the evaluation systems:

“A guest could order a medium-rare burger, and if it's cooked medium, they could rate me a four,” said Mathew. “That's literally not my job. I'm not a cook. I'm a server.” Brittany, who serves at a Chili’s in the Midwest, meanwhile, said customers have given her low Ziosk ratings because of problems with the plumbing in her restaurant.

This.Is.Insane!

Rajat Suri, CEO of the California-based Ziosk competitor Presto, is even more bullish than Baum about the technology: He imagines a future in which tabletop devices deliver customer feedback data to management constantly and instantaneously.
“We think there could be a server leaderboard in the back of house that ranks the servers in real time, based on guest surveys,” he said. “I agree it's going to increase stress. But it will put the emphasis more on performance.”

Whose performance? And is it worth the loss of humanity?

Though the temptation was real, Anna said she could never bring herself to ask for a rating. “You're already serving them,” she said. “You don't want to beg them, 'Please help me keep my job.'”

For the record: I have not been to any restaurant with any of these tabletop tablets. Now that I have read this piece, if ever I find myself in one of these establishments, I will walk away.

Two student emails reassure me that I am doing ok

Ed Koch, when he was the mayor of New York City, famously walked around asking people, "how am I doing?"  Almost every class, I pretty much ask myself the same question.  Sometimes, I venture to ask students, too.

The formal institution-level evaluation and feedback process is notoriously meaningless at practically every university.  Ours is no exception, which is why I pay only the barely needed bureaucratic attention to it.  Instead, I truly watch out for, and value, the spontaneous feedback I get from students.

Two emails from students this term are even more meaningful because I am on sabbatical and not even on campus.  The following email is from "W," who was in one of my classes a year ago, where one of the readings I had for them was about the Applie iPhone and Foxconn, which has been in the news a lot recently.  "W" writes:

I was in your global trade class last spring and that Foxconn article reminded me of our many discussions -- thought you might be interested. ... It has been fascinating to see all the articles in the news recently -- and empowering to actually have an informed opinion.

Pretty neat, to get such a feedback.  Education is about knowing more about the world around us and then to develop informed opinions.  Mission accomplished with this student, at least.

In a lengthy email from "T" were the following sentences:

if you wanted to teach ****** again in the next four terms you should let me know so I can take your class! You are a favorite in our nerdy community and I know others would surely want to join as well and I think you get a lot of liberty with the curriculum so if you wanted to teach a class that let you'd have some freedom it'd be great.

"T" and "W" have provided answers to the question I always have in mind: "how am I doing?"  I am all set for another year, at least.  Thanks to them.

Students evaluating faculty

First, the quote for the day:

"Students are the inventory," Mr. Crumbley says. "The real stakeholders in higher education are employers, society, the people who hire our graduates. But what we do is ask the inventory if a professor is good or bad. At General Motors," he says, "you don't ask the cars which factory workers are good at their jobs. You check the cars for defects, you ask the drivers, and that's how you know how the workers are doing."

To some extent, this metaphor is rather crude.  But, there is a great deal of merit in the argument that Professor Crumbley offers.

I pay a lot of attention to student feedback.  It is not only from those evaluation forms, but throughout the year from their explicit comments, and from their behaviors. 
But, at the same time, I don't view what I do as some kind of a factory job with students being the output.  Neither do I see students as customers.  In fact, I often point out to students that in a public university like ours, taxpayers pay for about 40% of the operational expenses, and almost all the capital expenses ... which then all the more reinforces Crumbley's point that society is our customer ... but then I hate this customer metaphor ....