Student ratings are valuable and irreplaceable contributions to a much larger understanding of the quality of teaching and the learning experience.  However, teaching effectiveness can only be understood in its context, which means that interpretations are subjective and comparisons of numerical ratings across instructors, classes, or schools are not necessarily valid.  Ratings are affected by multiple factors outside of instructor control, are subject to implicit and explicit bias, and may reveal more “customer satisfaction” than informed evaluation of teaching performance or quality of student learning.  We must view student ratings of how they experienced learning in a particular class in the context of all available information about that course and instructor.  Users of the data provided here are encouraged to consider multiple indicators of teaching contributions and effectiveness.