Why can't I find my professor listed under "Browse by Course" or the jump menu?
Only professors with evaluations are listed there. To see all the professors, use "Browse by Department" or search by last name.
Why can't I find my course listed under "Browse by Course"?
Only courses that have been associated with a professor via an evaluation are listed - most courses have not yet been linked to any professor. As more evaluations are added this number will increase.
I know my professor teaches a class in Department X, why don't I see this professor when I "Browse by Department"?
Your professor may belong to another department. The departments under "Browse by Course" refer to the department the course is taught in (i.e. course prefix). The departments under "Browse by Department" refer to the faculty's department of residence, which may not correspond to prefix of the courses they teach. For example, it is not uncommon for faculty in Veterinary Medicine to teach courses in Food Science, or Mathematics professors to teach courses in Computer Science. Try searching by last name in the upper right corner.
Why do some professors have an asterisk after their name on the course page?
That signifies the professor is teaching outside the department he or she belongs to. In some cases this is merely a matter of classification. For example, all the foreign language classes have department prefixes specific to the that language (FLF for French, FLS for Spanish), although all the foreign language professors are grouped under one department (FL).
What if I still can't find my professor?
It's quite possible this individual is missing from the database. Please email me with the name and department and I'll get right on it.
Why do some of the professors have a comment called "Fab Forum blurbs"?
I had to manually transfer the Fab Forum archives into my database. About halfway through Chemistry, I got tired of entering in a separate entry for every 5 word comment about a professor. If I spotted a group of those I just lumped them all together.
What does "FFE" mean?
Fab Forum Era. Evaluations imported from the Fab Forum are not dated. These evaluations are probably all from 1996-2000.
Your interface sucks. Who do I complain to?
I tried hard to provide a logical means of navigating the 142 departments, 2239 faculty, and 5569 courses in The Wolftrap. If you have some ideas about making this easier, I'm all ears.
Which browser should I use with The Wolftrap?
IE, and Mozilla are the best choices. Opera tends to flake out when adding evaluations. Netscape has always had major problems rendering tables accurately. I wish someone would take it off the NCSU application servers already.
How can there be more ratings than evaluations?
Fab Forum, the predecessor to this site, did not identify who cast what rating, and many professors have more votes than evaluations. I have decided to keep the old Fab Forum scores as they were probably legitimate, having been screened by Fabrice, but now everyone will have to submit an acceptable evaluation for their rating to count.
Why don't I see my course listed in the evaluation submission menu?
The courses were pulled from the Registration and Records website. You may choose the closest course to what you actually took and explain that in your evaluation, or email me with the course info.
Why did you say my English professor teaches Farm Economics?
Oops, there was a slight bug on an early version of the profile page that passed some screwy data with the submissions. Please let me know if you spot any bizarre professor-course combinations.
I'm a professor and I know I haven't taught that particular course. Why is it listed there?
There are two possibilities. In most of the Fab Forum era cases, the only course information I had to rely on was the course number. In their infinite wisdom, some departments have unbelievably reassigned old course numbers from as recently as a couple years ago! If this is the case and your old course no longer exists, the evaluation will be removed. Another possibility is that a student or myself simply selected the wrong course. If the correct course can be reasonably inferred from the context of the evaluation, it will be changed. Otherwise the evaluation will be removed. In either case, the approval score will stand.
I'm a professor who does not elect to participate in the Wolftrap. How do I withdraw?
Send me an email with your name and department. Faculty who elect not to participate will still be listed in Wolftrap searches, but all evaluations and ratings will be hidden from users. Instead, viewers will see a statement reading "This professor has elected not to participate in The Wolftrap"
I'm a professor who would like a specific evaluation removed from my profile. How do I request this?
Send me an email at admin@thewolftrap.com with your name, department, and the evaluation in question. I cannot ethically remove only negative comments, but if an evaluation is found to contain unacceptable material it will be removed.
I'm a professor. How can I respond to the criticisms waged against me?
The Wolftrap does not feature an automated means of doing this, but you may email me your responses for posting on your profile.
What is unacceptable material?
Anything derogatory that doesn't bear on the professor's ability to teach, unless it's really funny. In addition, any comments that are less than 5 words long or completely idiotic will not be accepted. If you want your rating to count than you had better offer an explanation. This is to discourage people from stuffing the ballots.
Are there similar sites at other Universities?
My understanding is that there are many such sites, albeit with varying degrees of exposure. Duke has a similar system like the Wolftrap, in which professors may opt to be delisted. My understanding is that very few faculty actually withdraw. There are also some private national faculty evaluation databases like Pick-a-Prof, but few of these have generated many evaluations.
Where is the evaluation I just posted?
Evaluations are screened content before being posted. This can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours.
My evaluation was not accepted. Does the rating I provided count towards that professor's average?
No, the rating provided does not affect the professors average until the evaluation is accepted.
No, The Wolftrap has no relationship with NCSU. North Carolina State University in Raleigh, its faculty and staff do not endorse or promote The Wolftrap.
Do you have advertising rates?
Banner prices are based on cost per thousand impressions, or CPM. "Above the fold" means your banner is placed in the marquee position, in the portion of the page that is viewable to the user when the page is first loaded. CPM (cost per thousand impressions) for 468x60 above the fold banners: $22 CPM 468x60 below the fold banners: $7 CPM.
Who chooses the posters?
Those are the 200 most popular units sold at Art.com. Please buy one soon.
What is the short history of The Wolftrap?
The Wolftrap is based on the Fab Forum, a faculty evaluation database by NCSU alumni Fabrice Daguet and Melih Gunay. I thought the idea was so cool that I decided to totally remake the Fab Forum using a MySQL database with a PHP front end. Fabrice was kind enough to provide me with the entire data set. For posterity's sake, I've archived the Fab Forum site here.
Who are you?
My name is Jeremy Leipzig. I am a masters student in computer science here at NCSU. I also do freelance web development work (Zigster.com).
Acknowledgements?
Fabrice Daguet for the idea and the first version. The Maven for the PHP skeleton, Font Diner, BBEdit, Grep... Mary Ellen for letting me stay up past 4AM every night to finish this. Jennifer Van Horn and Mariela Montero of ComTech for the faculty listing. My host, Netherweb.
