A potential partnership with myEdu.com has brought about concerns from faculty members resulting in halted negotiations between the new company and Delta College.
MyEdu.com is similar to the RateMyProfessor.com website, that allows students to recommend professors deemed helpful as well as suggest professors to avoid.
The myEdu.com website is a virtual tool that provides web applications to assist students seeking college degrees. MyEdu.com pulls information from Delta’s website to assist with degree planning and class schedules.
It also provides professor ratings and grade distributions, a grading calculator and a course booklist.
“I don’t think it’s been investigated long enough,” Academic Senate President Diane Oren said. “[And] the grade distribution is based on dubious amounts of information with many different variables.”
Faculty members of the Academic Senate are concerned with myEdu.com offering professor ratings and grading comparisons.
“I am rather disturbed by Delta cooperating with myEdu.com simply because this essentially means that the college endorses the myEdu.com approach to education,” said Wesley Swanson, history professor. “The myEdu.com approach is to remove challenges and convert the planning of a college education into a Google map with an emphasis on the shortest path of least resistance without considering the value of the journey.”
Faculty also worry the site is attempting to replace professional counselors.
“Counselors have an important role and the latest information that myEdu.com does not have,” Oren said.
In addition to these worries is the fact the site is not easy to navigate and can be confusing to students, according to Catherine Mooney, director of admissions and records.
Also, the degree planning tools available do not provide prerequisite information. If a student is attempting to follow a particular degree plan, they will not be notified of any prerequsites required for a particular class.
“The issue has been complicated because of the change in leadership,” said Mooney.
An agreement between myEdu.com and Delta was signed by former President Dr. Jeff Marsee last fall, but hasn’t been approved by the Board of Trustees.
“When [MyEdu.com] was brought to the board it was pulled off of the agenda because of Academic Senate concerns,” Mooney said.
When Mooney presented information about myEdu.com to the Academic Senate hoping for their endorsement of the partnership, the Senate voted no.
“I understand faculty concerns,” Mooney said. “[But] I am not interested in instructor grades. I am not interested in instructor ratings. I am interested in building tools students can use to build a schedule.”
MyEdu.com has yet to be returned to the Board of Trustees agenda.
“I want to be extremely respectful of concerns of members of the Academic Senate,” said Michael Kerns, vice president of student services.
Kerns is planning information sessions to address all faculty and student questions and concerns regarding myEdu.com.
“MyEdu.com is not taking the place of an official educational plan that is developed with professional counselors,” Kerns said. “[MyEdu.com] is a tool. I want to give students a toolbox that has all kinds of things in it. [Students can] open up that toolbox and take out whatever is helpful to [them].”
