Marka vs CATME for peer evaluation
CATME is the research-validated standard for measuring team-member effectiveness, licensed to universities and colleges. Marka is a self-serve tool an individual teacher can pick up the same day. They overlap on peer scoring, but they are built for different buyers.
| What matters | Marka | CATME |
|---|---|---|
| Getting access | Create your own account and run a real evaluation period the same day. No request form, no waiting. | Access is normally arranged through your institution’s license and administrator rather than signed up for directly. |
| Cost to an individual teacher | Free plan (up to 3 classes, 50 students per class, 6 evaluation periods). Insights is an optional paid add-on. | Licensed to institutions, with pricing based on the number of unique students. Individual instructors typically use an institutional license. |
| Research validation | Built by teachers from classroom practice. No published validation studies. | Developed at Purdue University and validated in peer-reviewed research; widely cited in the teamwork-assessment literature. |
| Assessment model | Your own rubric — analytic (one shared scale) or holistic (per-criterion point ranges), reused across classes. | A standardized five-factor model of team-member effectiveness (contributing, interacting, keeping on track, expecting quality, relevant knowledge and skills). |
| Team formation | Not included. You import groups in the roster CSV or let students self-select. | Includes CATME Team-Maker for algorithmically assigning students to balanced teams. |
| Rater training / calibration | Not included. A confirmation screen recaps each evaluation before submit. | Includes rater-practice and calibration exercises for students. |
| Small-sample protection | Hard rule: no score or public note reaches a student until at least 3 evaluators have submitted for them. | No built-in minimum-evaluator withholding rule; the instructor interprets low-response results. |
| Comment moderation before release | Public notes are reviewed before release, with auto-flagging of likely profanity and very short answers. | Open-ended comments are surfaced to the instructor to review manually. |
| Integrity checks | Peer Integrity Engine flags free-riders, straight-lining, collusion cliques, and rater bias for the teacher only. | Flags rating discrepancies and anomalies such as over- and under-raters and self-rating inflation. |
| Consolidated report | One button: per-student dashboard table plus CSV, generated together, with a cross-period trend view. | Instructor-facing results and exportable reports per administration. |
| Interface | Modern and mobile-first; students score on their phones with no app required, or use the lightweight Android app for quicker access. | Functional and widely described by users as dated. |
| LMS integration | None required — Marka runs on its own. | A Canvas integration is available, often at additional cost; native support across other LMSs is limited. |
When CATME is the better choice
If your goal is a validated instrument for research or program-level assessment, or you want algorithmic team formation, and your institution already licenses CATME, use it — that is exactly what it was designed and studied for. Marka is the better fit when a single teacher wants rubric-based peer evaluation running this week, with modern safeguards and reporting, and without an institutional license.
Common questions
For an individual teacher who wants to run rubric-based peer evaluation this term without going through their institution, yes. If you specifically need a research-validated instrument for program assessment or a study, or algorithmic team formation, CATME is built for that and Marka is not.
You can build a rubric with similar criteria, but Marka does not ship the validated CATME instrument and is not a substitute for it where the validation itself matters.
No. Marka students log in with a personal 7-character access code the teacher hands out. There is no student signup and Marka never emails a student.
Sign up with your email, verify it, import a roster CSV, build a rubric, and open an evaluation period — all in one sitting, on the free plan, with no demo or administrator approval.
Comparison based on CATME’s publicly available documentation as of 2026. CATME is a product of its respective owners and is not affiliated with Marka. Features and licensing may have changed since — corrections welcome at [email protected].