pick me up

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spickmich GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding February 2007
resolution August 2014
Seat Berlin , Germany
management
  • Tino Keller
  • Manuel Weisbrod
Branch Social networks
Website spickmich.de

spickmich was a German social community platform for schoolchildren in the form of an interactive youth magazine. It was one of the largest platforms for this target group in German-speaking countries.

history

spickmich was founded in spring 2007 by the three Cologne students Tino Keller, Manuel Weisbrod and Philipp Weidenhiller. In addition to the functions of a social network , students could rate their teachers and schools on the site. 17 months after it was founded, 800,000 students had already registered on spickmich. The high media presence increased the interest of teachers and parents in the site. Together with the increasing number of users, this led to the start of schulradar.de in April 2008 . SchulRadar was a portal that gave parents and teachers the opportunity to view spickmich's school ratings and vote on their children's schools themselves.

On August 12, 2014 the website was shut down together with its sister site SchulRadar. No official reason was given.

Teacher evaluation

On the portal, pupils could anonymously rate various characteristics of a teacher such as technical competence, motivation, popularity, clothing, fair exams or appearance with grades from one to six. Neither fun and revenge ratings, which according to the operator should have been filtered out, nor ratings by uninvolved third parties could be prevented. In order for a teacher's grades to be published on the portal, at least five people had to have graded the same teacher, as of spring 2008 there were ten.

In addition to the teacher grading, there was also the possibility of evaluating entire schools in ten different categories. This includes criteria such as technical equipment, the condition of the building, the mood among the students, subjects offered, school management, eating and sports facilities.

criticism

Since the portal was founded, there have been repeated protests by teachers and teachers' associations as to whether educators should be publicly pilloried. Some privacy advocates saw the publication of personal data without express permission as a violation of data protection and the "personal rights of teachers not adequately protected."

Criticism is also directed against the way in which the evaluation came about. Anyone could make a grade anonymously and without knowing the teacher in question by falsely registering himself as a student. The names of the teachers were set by the students, which is why a teacher usually appeared in several spellings, under which they were each “graded” differently. Teachers could register as supposed students and rate themselves. The meaningfulness of the evaluations was therefore not comparable with an evaluation .

Jurisprudence

On June 27, 2007 there was a first hearing before the 28th civil chamber of the Cologne district court . A teacher from the Lower Rhine had sued against spickmich because she saw violations of her personal rights and data protection. The Cologne regional court dismissed the lawsuit and ruled in favor of spickmich on July 11, 2007, as “the grading of teachers is covered by the fundamental right to express one's opinion”. In the further justification of the regional court it is said that the grades are "not assertions of fact, but value judgments". These are admissible "as long as the limit to vicious criticism is not exceeded." Pupils can, without "violating data protection or personal rights", grade teachers on spickmich. Another similar lawsuit was also rejected in a decision dated August 22, 2007. In the oral appeal hearing before the Cologne Higher Regional Court , the judges essentially followed the argumentation of the existing judgments. However, the court stated that a fundamental decision by the Federal Court of Justice or the Federal Constitutional Court would be helpful.

On January 30, 2008, the second lawsuit against spickmich was dismissed. The reasoning of the court to leave the portal online despite the massive concerns of the data protectionists, indicates that

a) the evaluation at spickmich does not allow any general abusive criticism, but only the evaluation in given categories, which in themselves are not dishonorable;
b) I am not a “public” portal because you have to register for inspection and the teachers' assessments are only accessible via the individual schools.

Nevertheless, the court advises the highest court to clarify the issue.

On June 23, 2009 the lawsuit against spickmich was finally dismissed by the highest court. The constitutional complaint sought by the plaintiffs was not accepted by the Federal Constitutional Court on August 16, 2010.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pupils are allowed to grade teachers , Focus of November 27, 2007.
  2. ↑ Criticism has to be endured ( memento of the original from June 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 18, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sueddeutsche.de
  3. ↑ spickmich für Mama und Papa , Spiegel from April 8, 2008.
  4. ↑ Thomas Hellwege: Spickmich.de - The online certificate for teachers ( Memento of the original from September 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , media law information blog of November 27, 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.blog.medienrecht-informationen.de
  5. ↑ Spickmich in an interview - Bernd Dicks, communications manager of the Spickmich project, in: Der Lehrerfreund on December 6, 2007.
  6. ↑ bullying or fair feedback? ( Memento from June 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), WDR Radio from June 20, 2007.
  7. ↑ "Spickmich" - 100,000 drummers have already been graded , Stern-Online from July 5, 2007.
  8. ^ LG Cologne, judgment of July 11, 2007, Az. 28 O 263/07.
  9. ↑ Teachers can be sexy and cool , Spiegel Online from July 11, 2007.
  10. ↑ Court allows teacher grading (update) golem IT-News from July 11, 2007.
  11. ^ Judgment spickmich - "Teachers must be able to deal with criticism" , Focus Online of July 11, 2007.
  12. ^ Court: Teachers may be graded ( Memento from August 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), WDR.de from July 11, 2007.
  13. ↑ Court?, Judgment of August 22, 2007, Az. 28 O 333/07.
  14. ↑ OLG Cologne, judgment of November 27, 2007 , Az. 15 U 142/07, full text.
  15. ↑ Press release of the OLG Cologne  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated November 6, 2007.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.olg-koeln.nrw.de  
  16. ↑ Higher Regional Court: Teachers must tolerate public grading on the Internet , heise online from November 6, 2007.
  17. ↑ Right, but controversial on Stern online from January 31, 2008.
  18. ↑ a b Spick-me-process: Pupils are allowed to grade teachers , DIE ZEIT of January 30, 2008.
  19. ↑ dts news agency: Spick-me-trial: Federal Court of Justice dismisses action , dated June 23, 2009, accessed on June 23, 2009.
    BGH: press release no. 137/2009 . ( Federal Court of Justice decides on the admissibility of a teacher evaluation on the Internet (www.spickmich.de) [accessed on June 24, 2009]).
  20. ↑ Thorsten Feldmann: decision not to accept. In: feldblog. September 22, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2010 .