Rating policy

This page explains how course and instructor ratings work on CareerSwerve — who can submit them, how they’re weighted, and how older ratings are retired from the headline average.

Who can rate

• Courses: any learner who has completed the course (CourseProgress status = “completed”) can submit one rating per course version.
• Instructors: any learner who has completed at least one course taught by that instructor can submit a rating. One rating per instructor per learner.
• You can update your rating at any time. Submitting again overwrites your previous rating; the headline reflects your latest view.

How the headline average is weighted

Every rating contributes a time-weighted vote to the headline average. We use a 24-month half-life:

• A rating submitted today contributes weight 1.0.
• A rating submitted 24 months ago contributes weight 0.5 — half as much as a fresh rating.
• The weight keeps decaying smoothly over time — there’s no sudden cliff. Older ratings still count, just less.

Course versions

When an admin marks a course as a new version (e.g. a major content refresh), ratings tagged with the previous version move to the “Historical ratings” surface. They keep contributing to the headline for 6 months after submission, then drop out of the headline entirely.

Same-version ratings always count toward the headline (subject to time-decay). The hover/expand surface shows a per-version breakdown so you can see how the course has evolved.

What we show

• The headline number (e.g. “4.6 ★ from 87 ratings”) is the time-weighted average across the headline cohort.
• The histogram shows raw, unweighted star counts so the distribution reflects what people actually said.
• Comments display alongside their star count, the version of the course they applied to, and the rater’s public handle (when their privacy setting allows).

Privacy

Your rating is associated with your account but the rater name on a published rating only appears for learners with privacy set to “Public”. Discoverable and Hidden raters appear as anonymous learners on the comment feed.

You can change your privacy setting any time under Settings → Privacy & visibility.

Abuse

Abusive or off-topic comments are removed on review. We keep an internal audit log of every rating submission and edit so we can investigate suspected coordinated rating activity.