Evaluation makes many people tremble. No one is very happy to be evaluated, whether at school, at work, or in society.
Among them, qualitative evaluation is the most painful. Quantitative evaluation is based on measured values, so damage is small.
If your sales are less than your competitors, you can accept them, and your test scores are lower than others.
However, qualitative evaluation is always controversial because it evaluates things that cannot be quantified.
And, ironically, because it evaluates what cannot be quantified, the evaluation model has authority and power.
A representative place is US News & World Report (hereinafter referred to as US News).
In Korea, the rankings of universities published by this US News are sometimes a news item and are used a lot as an evaluation index for American universities. And by localizing this, the JoongAng Ilbo also announces the university rankings every year.
Right now, the rankings of universities published here are recognized as having authority, and many universities are struggling to reach the top of this list.
It was not from the beginning that it had the authority to evaluate some of the leading universities in the United States.
US News was an intermediate current affairs magazine with about 2 million copies released in the 1970s.
The university rankings began in 1983 as a project to increase the number of units sold.
Both students and parents who are looking for college have a lot of interest in which college is the better option.
The quality of education is qualitative that cannot be quantified, but ranking universities requires quantifying the quality of education provided by universities.
So, US News ranked them using numbers that could replace the quality of education.
All factors such as SAT score, competition rate, student-to-faculty ratio, and alumni donations were evaluated numerically. I didn’t agree with the rankings in the position of the listed universities, but as expected by US News, people’s reaction to the list was so enthusiastic that I couldn’t help but care.
This is because the number of applicants changed according to the ranking change.
In other words, US News, which was not very influential as a magazine, created a kind of platform by commercializing university evaluations and rankings.
Thanks to that, the influence of US News has become comparable to that of large current events such as Time and Newsweek.
The Michelin Guide, which entered and settled in Korea in 2016, is also a case of commercializing evaluation and making it into a platform.
As is well known, the Michelin Guide began with a free travel guidebook distributed by the French tire company Michelin to sell tires. As a travel guidebook, the Michelin Guide started with recommending and evaluating hotels and restaurants that travelers can go to.
The Michelin Guide, as opposed to US News, is completely private.
Evaluators who visit the restaurant are kept secret and do not explain why they gave them several Michelin stars or why they were promoted or demoted.
It just announces the number of stars that are the result of the evaluation. As a result of a long history of evaluation, Michelin has gained authority in itself, becoming the goal and aspiration of all chefs, reaching the degree to which it can control the fate of restaurants and chefs.
It’s as if the US News rankings of colleges decided the fate of colleges.
As a result, the Michelin Guide was able to exert the authority and influence to unite and influence the restaurant industry.
To put it right now, it has served as a platform business for the restaurant industry.
Assessment is such a very powerful business model that can create a platform that brings existing industries together.
Side Effects of Assessment The problem here lies in the assessment itself.
This is because there are many side effects to quantify qualitative elements that cannot be quantified into visible rankings, ratings, and ratings.
In the case of US News, a vicious cycle occurs in which the proxy factor to measure the quality of education is quantified and ranked, but the ranking harms the agency factor.
For example, a university with a lower ranking will result in fewer students applying than before, a lower SAT score for applicants, and adversely affecting the university’s finances.
Because of these factors, it is easy to find yourself in a situation where the rankings are forced to decline further the following year. The so-called “Matthew effect” occurs.
A term that describes the phenomenon of the rich and the poor by quoting the passage from the Bible’s Matthew Gospel that says, “Whoever has anything will receive it, and whoever does not have it will be taken away” is.
However, US News only evaluated factors that they regarded as a quality, not actual education.
Also, even if the US News side slightly changes the weight of the evaluation factor, the ranking may fluctuate regardless of realistic changes.
Consultants for university evaluation of US News appeared, and some manipulations took place to increase the rankings.
On the contrary, the Michelin Guide did not disclose the evaluation elements, so the controversial part was also the opposite.
There was a lot of resentment about what the rating was based on, and restaurants, tired of the unacceptable change of the star rating, asked for a star to be returned or removed from the rating.
There was also a case of a chef’s suicide that was related to rumors that the star rating was going to drop. In 2004, controversy arose over the accusation of former Michelin Guide Evaluator Pascal Remy.
Remy, who worked as a Michelin evaluator for 16 years, said the actual evaluation was very poor, contrary to Michelin’s claim. Of course, the Michelin side vaguely denied this.
The Michelin Guide’s global advance was made to overcome this crisis and find a new path.
Michelin did not disclose the evaluation process abroad, but in Asia, where the Michelin Guide was intended to be used as a tourism product, a controversy with consultants was arising. The evaluation itself becomes authority and power.
That authority also leads to a business model called platform business.
However, as we’ve seen so far, evaluation comes with responsibilities and has several side effects.
Even more when quantifying qualitative things like rankings or stars. There seems to have never been a time when evaluations were overflowing like these days.
In the era of the internet and mobile, everyone has become the subject of evaluation and evaluation at the same time.
As such, I think it is important to think more about the evaluation.
I think it is time to evaluate evaluation now.
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