TM Basics and Policies
Introduction to TranscribeMe!
Congratulations on passing our entrance exam, and welcome to TranscribeMe! We've compiled the following document to outline the most important things to know before you begin working on our platform to avoid falling into common pitfalls.
Please also make sure that you read over all pertinent documents, such as the Style Guide and Transcriber Handbook before taking on your first assignment, and browse our Help Desk TM Library for further information. Of course, if you ever need help, feel free to ask on the Watercooler or send in a Help Desk ticket.
Advancement Opportunities
Upon passing the English Entrance Exam, you will be activated as a Transcriber and given access to short chunks of audio, a.k.a. jobs, in the General Transcription Pool. For further opportunities and avenues to open up more work, often at a higher pay, please check out our TranscribeMe Opportunities article for the most current information.
Work As An Independent Contractor
As a crowd member of the TranscribeMe platform, you will be working as an independent contractor/freelancer, NOT an employee. This means that you are free to work whenever it is convenient for you, on your own time and at your own pace! For more information about working with TranscribeMe as well as who's who with this company, check out Who's Who at TM?.
Taxes
As a self-employed independent contractor, you are responsible for your own taxes. Any income that you earn from TM is considered self-employment income. Please be sure to consult a tax professional in your country/state for any tax information or advice.
For US contractors, you will receive an email from our Payments department in January for those we are required to send tax documentation. Please visit this link from the IRS for more information. If you qualify and do not receive an email by mid-to-late January of the following year, please send a Help Desk ticket to our Payments department. Don't forget to check all of your email folders, including Spam.
Account Security
Remember that your TranscribeMe account is your professional account. You are therefore required to keep your account secure. DO NOT share your account or any information relating to your account (log-in details, exam answers, etc.) with anyone else at any time. The security of your account information is entirely your responsibility, and failure to safeguard it, even if unintentional, may result in your account being closed.
Exam Policies
Again, please be sure to read the documents associated with each exam for details, but note that our exams are divided into sections. For best results, be sure to complete a full section before leaving the exam to come back to it later, otherwise you risk losing any work completed on that section. You CANNOT backtrack to a previous section.
Once you have completed each section of the exam, you will be directed to the Results page. Please note that there is no correlation between the order in which you answered the questions from a section and the order in which your results will be displayed. We do this to avoid our applicants taking a trial-and-error approach to our exams.
Authenticity of Exam Answers
Please note that we require all answers you submit to our exams to be your own. We use these exams to determine the most appropriate candidates for our platform and its various teams, and we therefore take their integrity very seriously. We DO NOT allow users to share or copy answers across accounts. If we find any of your submitted answers are not entirely your own, your account and any associated accounts will be blocked.
- Referring to the relevant Style Guide while completing an exam
- Referring to this Instructions document while completing an exam
- Researching any terms you are unfamiliar with that may come up during the exam
- Using spell-checks to catch errors
- Copying someone else's answers and submitting them as your own
- Getting someone else to help you complete your exam
- Creating more than one account in order to get more attempts at an exam
- Submitting answers that are not entirely your own
- Sharing your answers with anyone else
- Asking specific exam questions on the Watercooler
Consequences of Cheating
Violating any of the above-mentioned exam rules can result in your account being blocked, even if the violation was unintentional. Please make sure you have read and understood these rules before attempting each exam.
Activity Requirements
TranscribeMe prides itself on the flexibility and variety of work we offer our crowd workers. However, we do require regular activity on your account for you to remain active. Activity is defined as submitting a file that you can see in your work history during a given time frame. In other words, if you can't see any activity in your Work History, then neither can we. Logging in to the hub, taking or studying for exams, or actively participating in the Watercooler DOES NOT count as activity.
We understand that there may be times when you do not have the time for transcription or when there is simply no work available when you log in, so we have an extended time frame of four weeks during which you may have no activity on your account, with no consequences. However, if you are not active on the WorkHub after any given four-week period, your account may be deactivated without notice. Remember that activity is defined as submitting a file that you can see in your Work History during that time frame. Again, logging in or taking exams DOES NOT count as activity.
Inactivity Notification Form
If you know that you will not be able to complete a job within a four-week period or longer for ANY reason (including no work available), please fill out the Inactivity Notification Form to notify the Ops Team of your inability to work. For General Transcription, if your absence will be short (say, a week or two), then there is no need to contact anyone. If you think, however, you will be unable to work for ANY reason for at least four weeks, please fill out the Inactivity Notification form to prevent your account from being deactivated during your inactivity time frame.
Extended Absences
Note that the inactivity form does not serve as an indefinite leave of absence, nor does it negate the fact that you have been inactive on our platform for a long period of time. When you return from an extended absence, you may therefore be asked to verify that you meet our accuracy and style guide needs by taking a refresher exam to confirm that you are still up to date on the style guide.
Special Teams Inactivity
If you are part of any special teams, you may need to fill out the Inactivity Notification form for shorter leaves of absence. However, as long as you are on a special team, you are subject to that team's activity requirements, and your account will not be deactivated as long as you are on that team. Please see specific team requirements for further information.
Deactivated Accounts (Inactive)
If you are inactive - i.e., you have not submitted any work - for four or more weeks without notifying the Ops Team via the Inactivity Form, then your account may be deactivated without notice. When this happens, you will no longer have a Transcription tab available on your account. To avoid your account being deactivated, always be sure to fill out the Inactivity Notification Form if you feel you will not be able to submit work, for ANY reason, within any given four-week time frame.
To reactivate your account, please send us a Help Desk ticket and we will reset the English Entrance Exam for you to retake.
Rejoining Special Teams
If you were previously a member of any special teams, please send a Help Desk ticket (select "Team Query" as the dropdown reason) or email training@transcribeme.com for instructions on rejoining your previous teams.