Student Frequently Asked Questions
Help on using the CATME system and common technical difficulties CATME students face. To receive additional video help, visit our “CATME Student Videos” page.
If the CATME terms make you confused, please check the definition on the CATME Terms Student Dictionary page.
Account Access/Info
Login Troubleshooting
You can click on the “Forgot your Password?” link, and enter the email used for your CATME account to reset your password. Also, make sure the email address entered was the one you used to create your account. Note that email addresses in the system are not case-sensitive (“bailey.edu” is the same as “BAILEY.EDU”) but passwords are case-sensitive (“password” and “PASSWORD” are different).
If you still can’t log in after resetting your password, please email support@catme.org and include the email address for your CATME account in the email.
For more information, watch our video on Logging in as a Student User.
You can use the “Forgot your Password?” link to get to a form where you’ll enter the email address used for your CATME account. After filling out the form, you will receive an email from CATME containing a special link that will allow you to reset your password.
If you aren’t receiving any emails after filling out the form, these are the most common reasons:
- The CATME messages are in the junk or spam folder of your email account.
- Your software or email server is blocking the CATME IP addresses. Your ISP has to permit catme.org. This is relevant if you are working from a home computer or an off-campus server. Try moving to a campus computer and logging in from there.
- The email you are using is different from the one your instructor used to create your CATME account
All CATME account passwords must:
- Contain 1 letter
- Contain either 1 number or 1 punctuation mark
- Contain at least 4 unique characters
- Be at least 8 characters
- Be changed every year
If your password is not changed by the deadline, you will be directed to the My Profile page when you log in to your account. You will be unable to go to any other pages until you enter your new password.
Passwords MAY NOT:
- Contain your first name
- Contain your last name
- Contain the word “CATME”
- Be any of your previous 3 passwords
For more information, watch our video on Account Password Guidelines.
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Student Account
No. Your account will be created automatically as soon as your instructor begins using the CATME system for your class. You will receive an email message with instructions on how to set your initial password. If you did not receive this email, you can use the “Forgot your password?” link to set up a new password.
No. Student data in the CATME system is protected by U.S. federal law. The instructors own student data and control it under their CATME license. If you would like your account deleted, please contact your instructor(s) who entered you into a CATME survey and ask to have your name deleted from their associated surveys.
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Time Zone Setup
Log onto your account and click My Profile button on your home screen. You then can select your time zone in the Timezone slot on your screen.
For more information, watch our video on Student Account Basics.
Your time zone will automatically default to your instructor’s time zone.
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Dual-Access Account
You will need to request for your account to be converted into a Dual Account, allowing you to have both student and instructor functionality. To do so, you must email support@catme.org with your email address, instructor name, class, institution name, and with your instructor CC’d.
For more information, watch our video on Dual Access Account.
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CATME Activities
Team-Maker: A survey that gathers demographic information, such as gender, race, times you are available to meet, and more. Your instructor will use these results to divide your class into teams that meet the instructor’s requirements.
Peer Evaluation: A survey that allows you to give feedback on your own performance and the performance of your teammates on various class projects. After your instructor has reviewed the results, you will receive feedback on how your ratings compare to the average ratings for the rest of your team.
Rater Practice: A game-based rating simulation that provides students the opportunity to practice rating their peers by rating hypothetical teammates using the 5 CATME teamwork dimensions. It will also provide feedback through a scoring system of up to 30 points to show how well you’ve done.
Here are the most common reasons this occurs.
- You may have closed your browser or quit the survey before you clicked the “Finish” button to complete it.
- You may have accidentally completed Rater Practice instead of the activity your instructor assigned to you.
You will be able to re-enter a Team-Maker survey and complete it as long as it’s still open. For a peer evaluation survey or a closed Team-Maker survey, you’ll need to email your instructor and ask them to re-open the survey for you to complete.
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Team-Maker Surveys
Completing the Survey
You will need to answer all the questions given to you as accurately as possible. Afterward, you may be given a grid to fill out when you are busy and unable to meet with your other team members by checking the boxes at specific dates and times. Note that you can use the buttons along the top (labeled with the days of the week) and along the left side (labeled with the hours of the day) to turn an entire column or row of checkboxes on and off. Finally, you will be given the option to leave a confidential comment to your instructor.
For more information on completing a team-maker survey, watch our video on How to Take a Team Maker Survey.
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Survey Results
When your instructor releases the results, you can click the “View Results” link next to the activity on your Summary page to see them.
The list of names and email addresses show you the other members of your team and their email to contact each of them. The chart below is your scheduling table, which shows the times you and your team members are available to meet.
A scheduling table is a table that shows what percentage of the team is available to meet during every given hour, based on the table you filled out in a Team-Maker survey. In other words, the “100%” hours are the times when your whole team should be available. For the hours where not everyone can meet, you can hover your mouse over that hour to see the names of team members that are available to meet then.
For more information about scheduling tables, watch our video on Timezone Scheduling for Students.
You’re able to re-enter the Team-Maker survey and revise your scheduling table as long as the survey’s still open. If the Team-Maker survey is closed, you’ll need to email your instructor and ask them to re-open it for you to change your schedule.
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Peer Evaluation Surveys
Completing the Survey
For the first several screens, you will see different behavioral descriptions of the CATME dimensions and should select the descriptions that best fit yourself and each member of your team in the leftmost column. Note the “Demonstrates behaviors described immediately above and below” choice should be given to a person who matches behaviors from the two categories the choice is in between. To move on to the next page, you must rate every person in your team.
After these peer evaluation screens, you may need to further rate your team based on extra questions that your instructor has enabled. Finally, you will be given the option to leave confidential comments to your instructor.
For more information, watch our video on How to Take a Peer Evaluation Survey for Students.
The criteria used are the CATME Five Teamwork Dimensions: Contributing to the Team’s Work, Interacting with Teammates, Keeping the Team on Track, Expecting Quality, and Having Relevant KSAs, which are shown on the CATME Rating Scale. The CATME Teamwork Dimension Modules videos also go into detail about each of the behavior dimensions and what it means to be a good teammate in each of them.
If the students in the Peer evaluation survey don’t appear to be your teammates, it may be because you selected the Rater Practice activity instead.
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Survey Results
When your instructor releases the results, you can click the “View Results” link next to the activity to see them.
For each behavioral category, you will see arrows next to the behavioral descriptions from the survey that will show you how you rate yourself, how your teammates rated you, and the average rating for you and your teammates. Below each category, you’ll see tips for how to improve as a teammate in said category.
In some cases, the system may have noticed an “exceptional condition” in the activity data about you provided by your teammates. When this happens, you will see an additional informational message at the top of your results. If you have questions about your results, please contact your instructor(s).
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Rater Practice
After starting the activity, you will see a screen displaying descriptions of three hypothetical team members. These descriptions will be used to rate the team members. After this screen, you can hover over each team member's name to view the description again at any time. The next screens describe the five different CATME teamwork dimensions. Select the descriptions that best fit each team member in the leftmost column. Note the “Demonstrates behaviors described immediately above and below” choice should be given to a person who matches behaviors from the two categories the choice is in between.
After rating every team member on each page, you can click the “Reveal Answers” button to see how well you did. Green arrows indicate that your choice was correct, red arrows show wrong answers, and blue arrows show what the choice should have been. Roll your mouse over the green or red arrows for further information.
For more information, watch our Rater Practice Demonstration video.
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Troubleshooting
If you are not receiving emails from CATME, there may be several reasons.
- CATME messages are being sent to the junk or spam folder of your email account.
- Your software or email server is blocking the CATME IP addresses. Your ISP has to permit receiving messages from catme.org. This is relevant if you are working from a home computer or an off-campus server. One solution is to move to a campus computer and log in from there.
- The email you are using is different from the one your instructor used to create your CATME account
To test if you can receive emails, click the “Forgot your Password?” link and fill out the form to receive an email.
If you still can’t receive CATME messages, please email support@catme.org and include the email address for your CATME account in the email.
There are a few reasons you might not be able to see the assigned survey.
- You are not logged in with the email address that your instructor used in their CATME survey
- Your instructor hasn’t started the survey yet
- Your instructor entered your email incorrectly
If you believe that your instructor entered your email incorrectly, contact your instructor to confirm the email they used to create your student account.
“Invalid Credentials” means that you are not using the email address your instructor used to create your CATME student account. To fix this, contact your instructor to confirm the email they used to create your student account in the CATME database, and then log in using that email?
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Data Protection and Accessibility
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) guidelines require the protection of confidential student data. If instructors release their data for research purposes, all of the identifying information about students (their names, e-mail addresses, and ID numbers) are stripped from the data and replaced with codes that cannot be traced to specific students. Read more about our data protection policies.