Some of Ireland's most distinguished academics and lecturing staff face the prospect of having their teaching performance anonymously rated by their students on a new website to be operated by a sister company of the hugely successful ratemyteachers.ie.
The new site, ratemyprofessors.ie, is expected to be established in time for the start of the next academic year in September.
It will be broadly similar to its US counterpart, ratemyprofessors.com, which invites students to assign ratings to their lecturers on areas such as their helpfulness, "easiness", and the clarity of their teaching methods.
It also includes a section allowing students to post their own comments on individual lecturers and professors, and claims to have attracted over 3.6 million ratings since it was first set up in 1999.
The US site declares that "students have turned the tables on their professors" and offers a "public review (and sometimes a public flogging) of university professors". It also claims that thousands of students use the site every semester to help plan their class schedules and improve the quality of their education.
"When word of the website gets out at a university, the ratings grow like wildfire and students really begin to benefit from the information," the website states.
A spokesman for the founder of the US site, John Swapceinski, told The Irish Times that at one stage it was receiving daily requests from Irish users of ratemyteachers.ie for a similar site for third level. Mr Swapceinski owns a minority share in the ratemyteachers website.
The spokesman also confirmed the site will post ratings on lecturers and teaching staff at any third level institute here.
The site seems certain to provoke controversy within the sector. However, economist and prominent TCD academic, Dr Seán Barrett, said he welcomed the development.
"If students want to do it, I certainly wouldn't stand in their way," he said. "Their views on the quality they get is of interest.
"What worries me is that most senior figures in Irish universities have long since opted out of lecturing."
Earlier this year, the ratemyteachers.ie website was criticised by teacher representatives over the anonymous nature of its content as well as the ideology behind the site.