Students thinking about attending Dalhousie University in Halifax will soon have another tool to help them decide their future — evaluations of all courses and professors.

After years of debate, Dalhousie has decided to share the results of course evaluations in all faculties with students this September.

Data collected in the school year will be made available to them in time for the 2010-11 school year.

The university uses the information collected from students when considering promotions and tenure for professors, but in the past had kept the results confidential.

Student leaders demanded the results be shared with students.

"It's fantastic," Shannon Zimmerman, president of the Dalhousie student union, said Tuesday.

"I think it's really important for students to know, and for professors to know how students are perceiving the way that they teach, and what they can improve on, what they do really well, what they don't do as well, so that we can have a better quality of education," she said.

But, it's not as easy as it sounds. At Saint Mary's University, an online student-run rating system was pulled this year — a victim of uneven participation and unfiltered comments.

"We don't want students to badmouth teachers, we're not there so teachers can get a bad name on there," said Cait Dix, vice-president of the students' association at SMU.

"But, at the same time, we do want students to be able to talk about the profs."

Dix said the student union is still trying to decide if it will restart a revamped rating system.

Like most of Dalhousie's 16,000 students, Bjorn Wielens, a chemistry major, has filled out a course evaluation. The questionnaire asked about "the workload, whether it was appropriate, if you enjoyed the class?" he said. This is the kind of information students, who see themselves as consumers, expect to see.

"It's kind of like a review of the product you're purchasing, in that sense," Wielens said. "If you can see that there's a lot of good profs or a lot of good classes, then you really feel you're getting your money's worth out of it."

Dalhousie is still working out its rules, but professors can opt to keep their results secret, and there will be no commentary.

Allan Shaver, vice-president of academics at Dalhousie, said there shouldn't be any problem with making comments public. "I get to see all the course evaluations, and the professors of this university have nothing to fear," he said.