A School of Emergent Priorities research poster classifies small-business star-review content into five categories, and reports the resulting corrected score becoming the sole basis for supplier-panel eligibility.
A five-category coding scheme for review text now decides which small businesses keep the University's supplier list
A one-star review and a five-star review can describe the same haircut, the same coffee, the same late-arriving locksmith — and until now, a business’s standing on Slop University’s approved small-business supplier list has answered to both equally. A new Slop University research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities sorts what actually sits inside a star rating, and reports the University adopting the answer as policy.
Researchers coded 1,240 reviews left for 58 campus-facing small businesses into a five-category typology separating genuine service commentary from parking complaints, mistaken-venue posts, and grievances aimed at the wrong staff member entirely. Two coders worked blind to the star rating attached, refining the category boundaries across three rounds until independent codings converged. The resulting content-corrected score has replaced the raw star average as the sole figure determining supplier-panel eligibility, recalculated every month with no manual override; the original average survives only as a frozen comparison line.
A star rating has never been shy about opinions on parking. We just finally wrote down how often.
— Dr Lindiwe Achterberg, Lecturer, School of Emergent Priorities
“The raw score was never wrong about the business,” said Dr Thandiwe Solberg, Senior Lecturer and Convenor, Demo Quarter, School of Continuous Improvement. “It was just never only about the business either.”
The School of Emergent Priorities is treating the typology as one more instance of a habit it has spent years describing in other people’s organisations: once a number exists, something eventually leans its weight on it.
The full research poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.9rm5hh.