PsychMate Frequently Asked Questions (Support)

Set Up of Passwords and Activation Codes

  Receiving a Password
  Incorrect e-mail address
  Incorrect/Forgotten Password
  Not a Registered User
  Not Registered for Any Classes
  Expiration of Student Activation Codes
  Incorrect Class Key
  Invalid Student Activation Code
  Too Many Characters/Invalid Characters
 

Experiments and Data Submission

  Ending an Experiment Early
  Failure During Data Submission

Multiple Machines and Students

  Using Multiple Machines
  Multiple students using one machine

General

  Naming Classes

  Updates

  No Internet Connection/Student Organizer

  Anonymity of Data Files
  Tracking Participation

Error Messages

  This program has known compatibility issues

  Category does not exist error

  Not enough space error
  Subject Overflow error

To receive a password, you must first create an online PsychMate account. Upon successful completion of the registration process, you will be sent a password via e-mail.
IMPORTANT: A valid e-mail address is necessary in order to receive a password.

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Verify that you are typing in your correct e-mail address. If you do not have a password you must first create an online PsychMate account.

Click here to create an account http://www.psychmate.com/account.

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Passwords are case sensitive. Check the caps-lock on your keyboard before retyping the password exactly as it appears in your “PsychMate Student Registration” email.

If you have forgotten your password, you can request that it be sent to you via email at http://www.psychmate.com/account

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After registering and receiving a password, you must join a class before you can use the PsychMate Student software. Joining a class requires a Student Activation Code (provided with the purchase of the PsychMate Student Guide) and a Class Key (provided by your instructor). Go to the PsychMate website (http://www.psychmate.com/account) and log in using your email address and password. Click on the Classes link to join a class. This process is documented in the Getting Started section of the PsychMate Student Guide.

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This error typically occurs for one of two reasons:

1. You are not currently registered (through the PsychMate website) for any classes.
This is likely the cause of the error if you are a first-time user of PsychMate (i.e., have never used PsychMate in any other classes). You must join a class before you can use the PsychMate Student software. Joining a class requires a Student Activation Code (provided with the purchase of the PsychMate Student Guide) and a Class Key (provided by your instructor). Go to the PsychMate website (http://www.psychmate.com/account) and log in using your email address and password. Click on the Classes link to join a class. This process is documented in the Getting Started section of the PsychMate Student Guide.

2. Any classes for which you were previously registered have expired, or your Student Activation Code has expired.
This is likely the cause of the error if you have used PsychMate before in one or more classes. When the class in which you are registered expires, you must join another class in order to continue using PsychMate.  A PsychMate Student Activation Code allows you to use PsychMate for 1 year from the date of activation, or in up to 5 classes (whichever occurs first).  To join another class during the 1 year activation period, you must obtain the Class Key from your instructor.  If you have exceeded 5 classes, or if the 1 year activation period has expired, you must obtain another Student Activation Code. 

To order additional Student Activation Codes, please contact PST at sales@pstnet.com or 412-271-5040.

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Student Activation Codes may be purchased directly from Psychology Software Tools using a check, money order, or credit card.

To order additional Student Activation Codes, please contact PST at sales@pstnet.com or 412-271-5040.

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The ClassKey specified is invalid. Please verify the ClassKey provider by your instructor
The Class Key is a 9-character string of letters only, and is provided by your instructor. Contact your instructor to verify the Class Key you are using is correct.

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The ActivationCode specified cannot be found. Please verify your ActivationCode on your Student book
The Student Activation Code is provided with the purchase of a student manual. The Student Activation Code is a 20-character string of letters.

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Please verify that you are entering the Class Key value accurately. The Class Key is a 9-character string of letters only.

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Occasionally, you may not be able to connect to the Internet for reasons outside of the control of the PsychMate software (e.g., the server is down, you don’t have access to a computer with an Internet connection, etc.). The Student Organizer was designed for these occasions. In order to use the Student Organizer, you must first successfully log in to the PsychMate Student software while running online. On the welcome screen in the Student software, click the Organizer button and follow the directions for creating a Student Organizer. The creation of the Organizer requires a removable medium (e.g., floppy, memory stick, etc.). To submit data from the Organizer, you must again run the PsychMate Student software online. This process is documented in the Getting Started section of the PsychMate Student Guide.

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Time estimates for each experiment are provided so that you are aware of the time required to complete a specific experiment before you begin. If you want to simply preview an experiment, you should use the Demo mode provided. However, if you are running in Normal mode and find that you do not have time to finish an experiment, you can use the abort sequence to terminate the run. To end an experiment, press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT; that is, hold all three keys at once. At the prompt asking whether or not you want to quit, answer “Yes”. This will terminate the experiment. No data will be recorded, and you will have to rerun the experiment from the beginning. You will also receive an error message indicating that the experiment was terminated by the user. Click “OK” to return to the experiment launcher.

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PsychMate is a web-based application, storing data at a web server created and monitored by Psychology Software Tools, Inc. You may run experiments and/or access your own student data from any machine running the PsychMate Student software. For example, you (or your instructor) may install PsychMate in a department computer lab, or you may install PsychMate on your home computer or laptop using the CD supplied in the PsychMate Student Guide. You may run experiments on any of these machines to submit data automatically when running online, or run offline using the Student Organizer and manually submit when you are able to connect to the Internet. Likewise, you may access your student data files from any of these machines as long as an Internet connection is available.

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If submission of your data file fails (e.g., your Internet connection is lost, the server is unavailable, etc.), your data file will be saved locally to the machine on which you are running PsychMate. The next time you log into PsychMate, the unsubmitted data files are detected, and you will automatically be prompted to submit them. You will continue to receive prompts to submit unsubmitted data files until the data submission is successful.

Because the data file is saved to the local drive, you must log in to PsychMate from the same machine on which you ran the experiment in order to receive the data submission prompts (i.e., if you log in on a different machine, the data file is not present, so PsychMate will not detect it). If the possibility exists that the machine may be wiped clean before you are able to submit your data (e.g., your computer lab runs a virus detection program to delete files every day/week), you should copy your data file to a removable medium (e.g., floppy, memory stick) to preserve it.

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Multiple students may use the same installation of PsychMate (i.e., the same machine). Because students must log in using an email address and password, they have access to only their own data, and do not have access to any other students’ data.

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When creating a class in the PsychMate Class Configuration Manager (Instructor software), the following restrictions apply: 

Class Title :  Cannot exceed 50 characters.  Allowable entries include alphanumeric characters, spaces, dashes, underscores, parentheses, periods, commas.

Class Name :  Cannot exceed 12 characters.  Allowable entries include alphanumeric characters, spaces, dashes, underscores, parentheses, periods.

Section :  Cannot exceed 5 digits.  Must be an integer value (no strings permitted).

Term :  Cannot exceed 12 characters

Duration :  Must be at least 1 month.  Maximum class duration is 6 months.

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PsychMate is continuously being updated, and updates are made available to students as downloads from the PsychMate website.  This permits all students to use the most current version of PsychMate regardless of when they purchased the product.  The current version is always posted on the PsychMate website on the Download page, accessible by logging into the PsychMate software and clicking the Account button, or by logging into your online account via www.psychmate.com.  Complete the following steps to ensure you are using the most up-to-date version of the PsychMate Student software:

Step 1.  Remove any current installation of PsychMate Student

1. Open the Add or Remove Programs dialog from the Windows Control Panel.

2. Locate PsychMate Student and click Remove.

3. Follow the prompts to uninstall. 

Step 2.  Download the PsychMate Student software

1. Enter your e-mail address and password in the login area at http://www.psychmate.com/account/login.asp and click the Login button.

2. Click the Download button on the left of the page to access the PsychMate Student download.

3. Note that the latest version of the PsychMate software is always available via your online PsychMate account.  In addition, the Resources link provides useful course resources.

4. On the Download page, click the link to the PsychMate Student Full Installation to download the latest version.

5. In the File Download dialog, click the Save button to save the EXE file to your local machine. 

Step 3.  Install PsychMate

1. Run the EXE file (i.e., navigate to the EXE file where it is saved on your machine and double click to run).

2. In the DemoShield window, click the “Install PsychMate” button to install the application.

3. Follow the steps in the InstallShield Wizard to install PsychMate.

4. After completing the installation, close the DemoShield window by clicking the Exit button. 

Step 4.  Log in to PsychMate

1. From the Start menu, launch PsychMate Student.

2. Log in using your e-mail address and password

3. Click About to confirm that you are now using the latest version.

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Occasionally, you may not be able to connect to the Internet for reasons outside of the control of the PsychMate software (e.g., the server is down, you don’t have access to a computer with an Internet connection, etc.). The Student Organizer was designed for these occasions. In order to use the Student Organizer, you must first successfully log in to the PsychMate Student software while running online. On the welcome screen in the Student software, click the Organizer button and follow the directions for creating a Student Organizer. The creation of the Organizer requires a removable medium (e.g., floppy, memory stick, etc.). To submit data from the Organizer, you must again run the PsychMate Student software online. This process is documented in the Getting Started section of the PsychMate Student Guide.

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When a student registers, the PsychMate software generates a random subject number and ID number for each student. The subject number is provided to the student and may be viewed by logging in to the students’ online PsychMate accounts and viewing the User Info page. However, the subject number is never provided to the instructor, and a Student’s name and ID number do not appear in any data file. Therefore, a subject number and data file cannot be linked to any individual unless the student chooses to disclose that information to the instructor. In addition, an instructor is not permitted to generate a summary of participation until at least 20% of the class has completed the experiment.

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In order to track student participation, PsychMate allows the instructor to generate summaries by student and experiment. These summaries allow the instructor to determine all of the students who have completed a specific experiment, or determine all of the experiments that have been completed by a specific student. Instructors are not able to link an individual data file to a specific student (see Anonymity of Data Files).

Within the Student software, a student’s participation is reported for each experiment for both Normal and Demo modes. If an experiment has been completed in a particular mode, the value in the corresponding column (Demo or Normal) will change to “Yes” for that experiment.

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The following notification occurs during installation of PsychMate on systems running Windows Vista:

This notification occurs because the version of the .NET Framework installed as part of PsychMate is not compatible with the Windows Vista IIS service. Since PsychMate does not require the IIS service, this notification can be safely disregarded.  Simply click the Run program button to continue.  The installation should continue successfully and you should not notice any problems with PsychMate.

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This error (occurring in the PsychMate Instructor software) may occur either because you do not have enough space in the My Documents folder on your local machine, or perhaps you’re My Documents folder is mapped to a location other than your local drive. 

All files associated with instructor accounts (i.e., sample data files, analysis files, etc) are stored in My Documents\PsychMate Instructor. Each instructor account used on the machine has a separate folder that contains files for each experimental category. When logging into PsychMate Instructor, the software will check My Documents\PsychMate Instructor to determine if a folder for your account exists. If it does not (e.g., you are logging in on a machine you have never used PsychMate Instructor on before), all of the necessary files are then copied from the installation folder in Program Files to your My Documents folder. 

Some institutions map the My Documents folder to a network or server (i.e. instead of to the local machine’s hard drive). In this case, all data saved to the My Documents directory is actually being saved externally (even though the folder path in Windows Explorer still says My Documents), and does not take up hard drive space on the machine. If there is not enough space on the network or server, an error will occur when PsychMate attempts to copy the necessary files to the directory for your instructor account. If you encounter this error, please contact your network administrator or IT department to determine if this policy (of mapping My Documents to a network or server) is in effect at your institution, and to take the necessary actions to resolve it if so (i.e., ensure enough memory exists at that location, etc).

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The “not enough space on drive C\ to extract this package” error (occurring in the PsychMate Instructor software) most likely occurs when attempting to run the PEAK installer from the ZIP file without saving first.  For example, if you clicked Run rather than Save on the dialog that popped up when you clicked the download link, you would have received this error.  Make sure to click Save and save the installer to a local disk (like your hard drive) before trying to install.  Also make sure to unzip all files from the ZIP archive before attempting to run the installer.

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This error occurs when using an old version of the PsychMate Student software.  To identify the version you are currently using, log in to PsychMate Student and click the About button.  If you are running a version prior to the latest version of PsychMate, uninstall the current version before downloading and installing the latest version.  Click here for instructions.

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