The Source Guide, which has been released too late for registration in previous years, will fully launch on the Internet today in an effort to become a resource for students registering for Fall 2002 classes.
However, the Guide will only be useful for students taking classes in the College of Arts and Sciences or the College of Engineering. While CAS gives all information from class evaluations to the Guide, ENG chooses to submit only school statistics and no student comments, according to Tomiwa Aladekomo, project manager of the Source Guide.
A normal Source Guide entry for CAS will include the years of the students in the class, reasons for taking the course, ratings for professors and student comments.
“It’s a great resource and it lets you choose professors according to the styles you’re most interested in. It’s a matter of checking it and saying, ‘This is a great professor,'” Aladekomo said. “If you like a professor who’s conversational or values class feedback, you can find professors who do that.”
The ENG entries are similar, but without student comments.
Aladekomo said he was frustrated when trying to get other schools to work with the Source Guide.
“Most of the departments refuse to work with us for some reason or another,” he said. “Some reasons have been unreliability in the past or complaints with the Source Guide. Right now, it’s impossible to convince departments to work with us.
“It really is a big deal since I had to spend all my time trying to get each department to work with us. [The College of Communication] wanted us to work with each professor individually, and that doesn’t really work.”
Aladekomo said student support could possibly help in creating a stronger and more thorough Guide.
“We really need student support,” Aladekomo said. “Everyone who is interested in having the Source Guide work for COM or [the School of Management] needs to talk up and send us or their department letters.”
Shari Vo-Ta, editor in chief of the Source Guide, said it was a great resource for students who wist to learn more about the specifics of classes.
“I think it’s important that students know how other students evaluated the courses and professors, and I think they would like to know how other student’s rated it and what they’re getting themselves into,” Vo-Ta said. “I think it would be a good basis of comparison.”
Although CAS is the primary school featured in the guide, Aladekomo said it would benefit most students because many need to take some type of liberal arts classes.
“I’m in SMG, but everyone has to take CAS classes,” Aladekomo said. “I go to the website and it lets me know that everyone likes a certain class.”
Aladekomo said the Guide staff plans to work on colleges one at a time.
“Our plans are to get CAS working perfectly, and once they are working perfectly, then we want to concentrate on COM,” Aladekomo said. “We want to take each college one by one, and we know it sucks for a lot of students. We do feel bad, but we’re trying to do it on a one-on-one basis.”
The Source Guide is available on the Internet at http://www.bu.edu/sourceguide.
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