LIS 745 Summer 2013

Assignment #2

Laurel Schilling

Introduction The purpose of this assignment was to find out what Dominican University students really think about DU by using social media tools that were presented in class. We were also asked to use links that were not affiliated with Dominican in order to find unbiased opinions. However, many of these websites yielded no student comments, so I used other links that are described in this paper. My first online tool was the Content Idea Generator V2 spread sheet that was presented in class. A search query of Dominican University yielded results that included four locations: Dominican University in River Forest, the Dominican Republic, Dominican University in San Rafael CA, and Dominican University in Ohio. I refined my search query by adding River Forest, which eliminated the wrong locations. However, the results (from Google News, Topsy Latest Tweets, and Yahoo Answers) did not include comments that reflected student opinions or reviews. I was equally unsuccessful using websites such as Twitter Search, Bing Social Search, WolframAlpha or Google Search. I therefore decided to use several college review websites for unfiltered student opinions and commentary, which are: RateMyProfessors.com CollegeProwler.com StudentsReview.com Yelp.com.

RateMyProfessors.com RateMyProfessors.com is an excellent site for non-censored student viewpoints on both professors and schools. Dominican University campus received an overall 3.9 rating (out of a scale of 5) based on 28 student reviews, with professors receiving an overall 3.91 rating. The date range for comments on the campus is 04/17/2010 to 03/11/2013. Professor reviews, on the other hand, are more comprehensive with a date range extending back ten years in some cases. For example, commentary on Peter Alonzi goes back to 10/01/2003. Professor ratings can be sorted by department, overall quality, and easiness. Some professors received no rating at all. The list does not include adjunct professors and may be incomplete, since Professor Yijun Gao is not listed! Students submit both professor and campus reviews by completing an anonymous online survey. A traffic analysis of RateMyProfessors on Alexa.com reveals that searches have dropped within the past month, that the audience is primarily 18-24 years old, and that the site is more popular than two of its competitors, CollegeProwler.com and StudentsReview.com. A screenshot of DUs campus ratings on RateMyProfessors follows, showing that Dominican University was assessed by students in the following categories: Reputation Location Opportunity Library Campus Internet Food Clubs Social Happiness.
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LIS 745 Summer 2013

Assignment #2

Laurel Schilling

CollegeProwler.com Although less popular than RateMyProfessors, CollegeProwler.com is another comprehensive review site for the following reasons: the large number of reviews (approximately 325 in all 15 pages or 15 each); the process by which student reviews were collected (student interviews); the ability to filter comments by category such as housing, social life, dining, etc.; statistics tabs summarizing data and assigning overall grades in several categories; rankings compared to other universities and colleges in categories such as academics, athletics, diversity, facilities, night life, and computers.

CollegeProwler is a wonderful example of a database with the ability to use detailed queries to obtain specific results. This gives it an edge over RateMyProfessors because you can filter results by categories, which are further broken down into subgroups. For example, the five broad categories are: School Home About the Campus About the School About the Location. About the Students

LIS 745 Summer 2013

Assignment #2

Laurel Schilling

Each category is subdivided into 5 or more subsections. For example, School Home has 5 subcategories which are Statistics, Rankings, Student Reviews, The Best and Worst, and Discussion. If you select Student Reviews, you will see all 325 student comments in all categories. However, if you only want to see comments about computers, you will select About the Campus Computers Student Reviews. If you want to see student polls about the facilities, you will select About the Campus Facilities Student Polls. The same respondent often comments under several categories. For example, fhscholar commented under academics, health and safety, diversity and weather. Another interesting feature is that if you click on the commenters name, you will learn some basic information about the students background. For example, fhscholar is engineering major who will graduate in 2014. Of the 8 students commenting between 5/7/2013 and 6/8/2013, three gave Dominican an A+ rating ; one gave DU an A-; one gave DU a B-; one rated Dominican as a C+ school; and one student gave no rating at all.

StudentsReview.com This is a very limited college review site with only 6 individuals choosing to rate the school. Dominican received an overall grade of B-, with the lowest grades being in the social life category. Students reviewed Dominican in the areas of educational quality, individual value, friendliness, social life, professor accessibility and campus aesthetics, among others. The site also compared Dominican to comparable schools such as Loyola University and Columbia University. Of the 6 students surveyed, 3 said they would return and 3 said they would not.

LIS 745 Summer 2013

Assignment #2

Laurel Schilling

Yelp.com This was a surprisingly useful site for uncensored comments on Dominican. Of the 15 respondents, 13 are (or were) students, 1 is a parent, and the other individual is a River Forest resident. Most of the comments were negative and much longer and more detailed than those on other sites. For example, the parent wrote several paragraphs of commentary, primarily on the loose security and lack of discipline. Several graduate students complained about being treated like children and that they felt as if they were in a degree mill. Undergraduate students often disliked the quality of the professors, the lack of diversity, and the unhelpfulness of the staff. There were some students who raved about their experiences abroad and the charm of the campus. Most students felt that the educational quality was mediocre and somewhat easy, or as one student commented, Glorified community college pretty much sums up Dominican University for me. Many students remarked that Dominican is primarily a commuter school with not much to do without a car. The general overall rating was 3 stars out of 5, which is similar to the rankings given by RateMyProfessosr, StudentsReview, and CollegeProwler.

LIS 745 Summer 2013

Assignment #2

Laurel Schilling

LIS 745 Summer 2013

Assignment #2

Laurel Schilling

Conclusion I used four social media sites not connected with Dominican University to find uncensored student opinions. Three of the sites were college review sites and one was a general review site (Yelp). The general consensus on all the sites is that DU is a B to B+ quality school with limited social opportunities, providing a decent (but not exceptional) educational experience on a small, charming campus. Students are about evenly split on whether they would choose DU a second time and are generally satisfied, but not enthusiastic about their experience here. Dominican is perceived as lacking in diversity (although this is improving) and as not being especially Catholic. In sum, DU is a college that offers a reasonable, but not earth-shaking experience that may be overpriced for the quality it provides. Websites http://collegeprowler.com/dominican-university/reviews/student-reviews/ http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/campusRatings.jsp?sid=819&totalCount=28 http://www.studentsreview.com/IL/DU0.html http://www.yelp.com/biz/dominican-university-river-forest?sort_by=date_desc