Site Stimulates Students at School
October 8, 2008 • By Ansa Edim, Contributing Writer
Print This Post
Email This Post
More information about classes and professors is available to students online in all in one place.
A competitor of a similar site, ratemyprofessor.com, a new Web site which combines that site, and a similar option to Blackboard, koofers.com offers a more detailed analysis of classes and professors.
“Koofers are any historical information or data that can help you with your classes,” said Michael Rihani one of the founders of koofers.com. This data may include exams, study guides, ratings and grade distributions.
The term “koofer” derives from the word “coffer” which originated in the 1940s and ’50s at Virginia Tech. Fraternities, sororities and other student organizations would store old tests and coursework in coffer filing cabinets. Over time, the tests in the coffer cabinets became known as “coofers,” and eventually coofers became koofers.
Rihani, along with fellow Virginia Tech alumni Glynn LoPresti and Patrick Gartlan, founded the site koofers.com to “ensure that all students have access to the same study materials” according to their mission statement.
One would think that the site Koofers.com is as good as it sounds, but surprisingly, the majority of students surveyed shared a different initial reaction.
“Isn’t that cheating?” freshman Ricky Williams said when he first heard of the site. To him, the site sounded a bit too lucky.
The site is currently launched at 23 universities across the country and creators plan to increase that number to 30 in the coming weeks. Schools utilizing koofers.com include Florida State University, Texas A&M, University of Kansas and University of Maryland, as well as major Virginia schools like William & Mary, UVA, Virginia Tech and Radford. In the next year, the site creators plan to expand nationwide.
Registration is free and simple, just use your college e-mail address, create a password and you’re in. The site isn’t just a study source either, it’s also a community. Beginning this semester, JMU students and professors will be able to build their own personal koofers homepage. The page is personalized with your class schedule and grades, along with any documents students save for a class. To add a class, simply search for the class or professor.
Getting help with a project is as simple as navigating to a discussion board for your class. When students sign up, they gain access to discussion boards that may have topics on the subject of your project. Students can help each other with any subject by offering their ideas or by relaying their experiences. Professors and students can even connect with alumni who have uploaded old project koofers, like PowerPoint presentations and research papers.
With an account on the site students can also rate their professors. A professor’s profile is an in-depth analysis that contains average grade distributions-meaning students can see how people faired in the class in previous semesters. In addition, you can see how many times a textbook is used in each professor’s class and if extra credit is ever given, allowing you to make a more informed decision of whether to take that professor or not.
If you are having trouble deciding on a class or professor, Koofers offers the views of students who have taken that class or professor in the past. At the end of each term, students are prompted to throw in their own two cents and rate their professors, perpetually continuing the chain of user comments.
Freshman Scott Nickley was excited about the coming of the new site at first, exclaiming, “That sounds awesome! The comments [on professors’ pages] provide different views and help us get to know professors.” But as the conversation went on, he changed his tune.
Regarding violating the Honor Code, Nickley says it “sounds like a trap for students.” Students who go on the site may not know they are breaking school rules.
Rihani replied to the skepticism saying, “We believe it is critical to develop and maintain an open working relationship with university administration. Since we have done so, we have not received any complaints from schools regarding violations of the Honor Code.”
Williams, still unconvinced, noted that in his opinion, “If anything, instead of learning for the long term, students would be memorizing for the short term [with Koofers available to them].”
The goal of Koofers is not to help students cheat, but to “eliminate the unfairness associated with the imbalance of access to Koofers…that would otherwise only be available to select groups,” according to the Koofers mission statement.
Comments
Got something to say?
Best of the 'Burg Supplement
April 29, 2010 Issue in Print
