As students decide between Brown’s nearly 1,400 course offerings this shopping period, one obstacle remains constant — a dearth of Critical Reviews.
The Critical Review, a student-run course evaluation website, provides an essential service to the Brown community by helping students make informed choices about their course schedules. Its reviews provide a written description of course content, teaching style, assignments and class difficulty, among other data. In navigating the Open Curriculum, the abundance of choice can feel overwhelming. The Critical Review is an important resource that allows students to discern which courses are the best fit for their interests and learning styles.
Despite their clear utility, these reviews are in jeopardy due to poor survey response rates. Between fall 2021 and fall 2024, the number of reviews has declined by 27%, and only 17% of courses offered last fall currently have reviews. This scarcity means that outside of large lecture courses, it is quite difficult to find course evaluations — particularly for smaller humanities classes. Given these challenges, it is not enough to merely encourage participation. Brown must step in to make these reviews mandatory by integrating them into the existing required course evaluations.
The troubles we speak of are not new. Efforts such as modernizing the website, improving outreach and changing survey methods, though valuable, have thus far failed to raise participation rates. One potential reason for this failure is that the Critical Review suffers from what economists call the free rider problem, a type of market failure occurring when individuals can benefit from a public good or service without contributing to its upkeep. When it comes to course surveys, one has little incentive to fill out the forms in the midst of a busy finals season. In economics, the solution to the free rider problem is intervention by the government. In our case, it is by the University.
Brown already requires students to complete course evaluations before allowing them to access grades as soon as they are released. This requirement undermines the Critical Review by making students feel like their independent survey is redundant. What we propose is simple: integrate the Critical Review survey into the existing Canvas course evaluation. For both professors and students, this would transform the survey from an optional exercise into a unified, required and essential part of the University’s social contract.
We recognize that some professors may have concerns about receiving lower reviews due to bias. Yet, broader participation dilutes these effects as larger sample sizes better reflect reality. Other professors may worry that prospective students will avoid shopping courses that are described as exceptionally difficult or time-consuming. But students have a right to know what they are signing up for. Furthermore, unlike Rate My Professors, the Critical Review is curated, which means whatever negative reviews may exist are contextualized by a thoughtful student reviewer to provide a bigger picture.
The Critical Review is an important complement to the freedoms afforded by the Open Curriculum. The University must act to preserve the Critical Review before it disappears altogether.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board, and its views are separate from those of The Herald’s newsroom and the 135th Editorial Board, which leads the paper. A majority of the editorial page board voted in favor of this piece. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
