Penn State students see little benefit in ranking professors on either an unauthenticated Internet site or in the classroom.

Some Penn State students have received e-mails offering the opportunity to evaluate and rank their university professors, courses, campus life and program of study on www.virtualratings.com.

But some students say they would not bother to rate professors online at a Web site or in the classroom due to the slow speed of action taken from student input.

"I don't think that any of the ratings of professors are taken seriously, even the ones in class," said Amy Hubicki (junior-biology).

Any action that is taken as a result of classroom evaluations is slow and will not affect the students who make the recommendation, Hubicki said.

Some university faculty members disagree with Hubicki's idea that professor evaluations are ineffective.

The current evaluations from students are read by deans and professors and are used to help determine a faculty member's status and tenure at a university, said John Sanchez, assistant professor of communication.

Sanchez said students should be wary of sources of information found on some sites on the World Wide Web.

"You really don't know what kind of information they put on those (Internet sites)," Sanchez said.

"Authenticity is the hard thing about these sites."

While most university faculty are aware of the classroom evaluations by students, they are unaware of the Web address with the rankings.

John Cahir, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Education, said he was not familiar with the www.virtualratings.com evaluation of professors but knew that a number of student organizations independently rate professors.

At least 14 faculty from Penn State are rated on www.virtualratings.com.

Frank Clemente, professor of sociolgy; John Desjarlais, assistant professor of chemistry; Samar Farage, Timothy Glass, assistant professor of chemistry; E. Calvin Golumbic, Nestor Handzy, graduate lecturer; Matt Jackson, assistant professor of communication and Janel Pettes, graduate lecturer all received an A++ rating, according to the Web site.

Piotr Berman, associate professor of computer science and engineering; Alfred Carlson, associate professor of chemical engineering; Leisha Jones, graduate student; Gladius Lewis, David Schoenthal and Richard Twark, liaison to commonwealth campus were also rated by the Web site.

SPCOM 100A, Information Science and Technology and Penn State's party atmosphere are rated by the site for course, programs of study and campus living.