LSU CS Professor Designs Reliable App for Public Professor and Course Evaluations
October 8, 2024
BATON ROUGE, LA – With so much information on the Internet these days, it’s hard to know what is accurate. Pretty much anyone can post a review on a product, service, or even a college professor, but who’s to say this is reliable information? Wanting to improve the process of rating a college professor online, LSU Computer Science Professor Nash Mahmoud created an app called Professor Index, which is set to transform how college students evaluate and select professors and courses.
“It all started during the pandemic in 2021,” Mahmoud said. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions nationwide shifted toward online and hybrid learning. Due to social distancing and remote learning, traditional means of communication through Word of Mouth (WoM) or on-campus interactions became limited. Consequently, students turned to public professor rating sites like RateMyProfessors for information about their professors. That came as a shock to me because that site was initially intended to rate professors based on their physical appearance.”
Mahmoud launched Professor Index LLC on Pi Day, March 14, 2024, to coincide with the app’s initials. Professor Index lists multiple universities and their departments, classes, and professors.
“PI started in my lab as a research project with one main goal—clean up the current mess in existing public professor evaluation systems,” Mahmoud said. “The evidence shows that existing systems are riddled with bugs, bias, and misinformation. Our students deserve better.”
Professor Index empowers thousands of college students to provide feedback on various aspects of their educational experience, from teaching effectiveness to course material applicability. The app is authenticated—only students rate and review professors—thus, eliminating a major data manipulation problem that existing systems suffer from. Professor Index is designed to optimize students’ experience, allowing them to compare professors, departments, and courses with only a few clicks. It also uses AI to generate comprehensive summaries of professor and department reviews.
“The students no longer have to read through 100 reviews or open multiple tabs to make up their mind,” Mahmoud said.
Professor Index is also equipped with gamification and nudging features to encourage students to actively review their professors. The objective is to get most professors and courses reviewed.
“If students make reviewing a habit, they’ll get current information on professors, and professors won’t have to worry about one bad review from 10 years ago sticking around,” Mahmoud said.
Since its launch in March 2024 with help from the LSU Office of Innovation & Technology Commercialization, Professor Index has been downloaded more than 13,000 times, has onboarded 17 major universities, and has accumulated more than 2,300 reviews.
“The objective is to establish Professor Index as the industry standard for public professor evaluation systems,” Mahmoud said. “This leadership will not only place LSU at the forefront of national efforts to address systemic challenges in higher education, but also underscore the university’s commitment to academic innovation and technology commercialization.”
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