Starfish Information for Faculty

When you set up your profile in Starfish, you can

• include a profile picture ( which really helps personalize you to students!)
• provide a biography and overview of what you do (especially helpful for staff)
• set up office hours (times available for students to schedule appointments, or to indicate you are available on a drop-in basis)
• set appointment preferences (length of time students can schedule, locations, etc.)
• sync your Starfish scheduling to your Outlook calendar
• set up notifications regarding flags and appointments (from no notification to a daily or weekly digest, and reminders ahead of appointments)

Relevant Starfish videos

• Updating your Profile
• Appointment Preferences
• Updating Notifications 
• Updating your Office Hours

Raising Flags

Flags allow instructors to raise an academic concern about a student, and everyone to raise non-academic concerns.

If you are teaching a course, please raise flags as needed throughout the semester, whether or not you have spoken with Academic Advising, the student’s academic advisor, or anyone else. One of the valuable aspects of Starfish is that those connected to a student can see the appropriate information for their role, so raising a flag is often providing useful information to multiple people with connections to the student.

When you raise a flag, you can see the roles that will be allowed to see it–keep in mind that only a person with that particular relationship with the student will be able to see the flag (e.g., if Athletic Coach is listed, the flag will only be visible if the student is an athlete, and it will only be visible to their coach).

The only flags that result in an e-mail message sent to the student are the following: 

• Attendance Concern
• Late and/or Missing Assignments
• Low Grades on Assignments
• Progress Survey (Early) – Attendance
• Progress Survey (Early) – Grades
• In Danger of Failing 

The student receives a message from Academic Support tailored to the specific situation. If you have included comments on the specific situation, the student does not receive those comments, which are only for Academic Advising and the students’ advisors and mentors. 

All faculty and staff also have access to the following two flags, which they may raise for any student: 

• General Concern
• Retention Concern 

No e-mail will be sent to the student, but your concerns will be visible to Academic Advising, advisors, coaches, and other mentors (General Concern flag) or just to the co-chairs of the Retention Committee (Retention Concern). 

Kudos Messages

Don’t forget to give students Kudos! There are specifically academic Kudos messages and also a non-academic Kudos message. Kudos messages are the only case in which your comments are sent to the student, since that is the whole point! 

Example of Early Semester Progress Survey Template Message to Students (PDF)

Attendance

It is extremely helpful if instructors use the Attendance feature in Starfish. Whether or not you evaluate attendance for a grade, knowing the pattern of a student's attendance helps contextualize concern flags and midterm warning grades and gives Academic Advising, A-Team, and others working with a student crucial information about a student's academic engagement. Note: the Starfish Attendance feature is not currently linked to attendance in Canvas, though this integration may come soon.

Relevant Starfish videos

• Raising a flag for a student
• Sending kudos to a student
• Use Flags and Kudos information page (no video)
• Taking Attendance (EAB video)

We use a “differentiated care” approach, meaning that for lower-level/incipient concerns, we pursue less intense and more generalized interventions, while higher-level concerns receive more intense and individualized attention. 

Lower-level 

• Attendance Concern 
• Late and/or Missing Assignments 
• Low Grades on Assignments 
• Progress Survey (Early) – Attendance  
• Progress Survey (Early) – Grades 

The student receives an e-mail message from Academic Support about the relevant issue, with advice and support options, as well as an invitation to connect with us individually. 

• Visible to academic advisors, coaches, and other members of a student’s support network 
• Flags may be cleared by the flag raiser, academic advisor, or other mentor 
• If the student does not respond and no one else comments on or clears the flag, Academic Advising will clear the flag after 7-10 days. Faculty should raise a new flag if the concerns persist. 

Mid-level 

• Progress Survey – Midterm Grade Submitted AND Concerns 
• Progress Survey – NO Midterm Grade Submitted BUT Concerns are Present 
• Retention Concern 
• [Flags in 2 or more classes] 

No e-mail message is sent to the student. Academic Advising or an advisor or other mentor, in consultation with A-Team, devises an individualized response. 

• Flags may be cleared by the flag raiser, academic advisor, or other mentor 
• When a flag is cleared, the flag clearer will provide relevant details on the outreach attempted and its results. 

High-level 

• In Danger of Failing 
• [Flags in 3 or more classes, or combination of academic and non-academic flags] 

The student receives an e-mail message from Academic Support when an “In Danger of Failing” flag is raised. High-level concerns will be prioritized at A-Team, with an emphasis on connecting with the student immediately to address the concern raised. This may involve us contacting the academic advisor, coach, or other mentor directly to find the most effective person/people to intervene. 

• Flags may be cleared by the flag raiser, academic advisor, or other mentor 
• When a flag is cleared, the flag clearer will provide relevant details on the outreach attempted and its results. 

Variable/individualized 

• General Concern  
• Progress Survey (Early) – Other Concerns 
• I Need Help [student-raised flag] 
  • May lead to automatic referral to a particular office based on the issue the student needs help with 
  • May lead to individual reply from Academic Advising staff or others, as needed 

Flags in these categories can vary in level of seriousness and who the appropriate person to respond is, so they are treated on an individualized basis. 

Sample Starfish Flag Workflows [link to PPT slideshow coming] 

Checking Flags for Your Students 

If you are an academic advisor, coach, or other student mentor, you should make a habit of logging into Starfish regularly (ideally daily) to see any new flags raised on your students. You can see these in the Starfish dashboard, or select “Tracking” to see all flags (and kudos messages) for your students. 

If you see a student of yours has a flag, you can decide whether or not to respond, and how to respond if you do, depending on the nature of the flag and your relationship with the student. Even if you do not respond, it is helpful for you to know what is going on, for whenever you next interact with the student. If you do contact the student, you can add a comment to the flag and/or clear the flag (ideally providing comments as part of the flag-clearing process). 

Commenting On and Clearing Flags 

It is very helpful if everyone in a student’s Success Network participates in updating Starfish flags. 

• If you write to or meet with a student, you can add a comment to a flag with the relevant information from your contact (or attempted contact), while still leaving it open. 

• If you have addressed the issue with the student (which doesn’t mean you have fixed it), you can also clear the flag with a comment about why you are clearing it. The flag raiser will get the information that the flag was cleared, and if you include a note for them, they will see that as well. 

• If you are the flag raiser, you can also clear the flag as appropriate. 

• If a student of yours receives a Kudos message, you may want to write to them or tell them in person that you are proud of them. 

Keep in mind that clearing a flag does not mean that the student’s troubles have been resolved, but that someone has connected with the student to address the concern, or that someone has failed to connect with the student after trying. Flag raisers should raise a flag again if the problem persists, so that we can know the concern is ongoing and again try to intervene. 

Relevant Starfish Videos

• Commenting on and clearing flags

Twice during the semester, course instructors will receive an invitation to fill out a progress survey for each class. Progress surveys are a quick way to provide information on all the students in a course.  

• The Early Progress Survey is administered between the third and fifth weeks of the semester. There will be four options to choose from: three flags (Attendance, Grades, and Other Concerns); and one kudos message (Great start). 

• The Midterm Progress Survey is administered right after Midterm Warning Grades are collected by the Registrar’s Office. There will be three options: two flags (Midterm Grade submitted AND concerns are present and NO Midterm Grade submitted BUT concerns are present) and one kudos message (Showing improvement). 

You only need to select any of those options for students who are struggling or who are succeeding. You do not need to provide an assessment for every single student! Even if there are no students of concern or kudos to share, we would appreciate the progress survey to be submitted—just click the button to submit. This helps us in Advising know that you truly have no concerns about your students and didn’t just forget to fill it out. 

• If there are multiple instructors for a course, only one progress survey must be filled out. The other surveys for the class should still be submitted but there is no need to check boxes or provide comments if they are already captured in the other progress survey. 

Relevant Starfish Videos

• Completing Progress Surveys

Services

Many of the key campus offices and resources that students are likely to utilize are listed under the “Service Catalog” in Starfish. The Service Catalog gives students easy access to identify these resources, with links to the offices’ websites and contact details. Some of these offices (e.g., Academic Support, the WORD Studio, and Language Resource Center) allow for students to schedule appointments within Starfish scheduling. 

Referrals

Students may be referred to visit some of these offices (e.g., Academic Support, the WORD Studio, the Center for Career Excellence). Faculty and staff can use the “Referral” option, which works similarly to a flag or kudos message; it will send an e-mail to the student providing the service's contact information and encouraging them to schedule an appointment. In addition, a message will be sent to the respective office, informing them that a student has been referred to the office. The referrer can be kept in the loop and be notified if an appointment is made.

Currently available Referrals:

• Academic Support
• ESOL Academic Support
• PQRC
• Peer tutoring
• WORD Studio

Relevant Starfish Videos

• Making a referral for a student

There are many advantages to you and to others of having students schedule meetings with you in Starfish: 

• Using the same platform for student scheduling will help foster student familiarity with Starfish and provide a consistency to their experience, helping them become more adept at scheduling their own appointments with faculty and staff. 

• Letting others who are connected to the student in an advisory role see when a meeting is scheduled with you and whether or not the meeting took place. 

• Recording meeting notes or outcomes info that you have access to for subsequent meetings and can be shared with the student’s advisor, coaches, or other mentors.

• Sharing meeting notes with the student, which is particularly useful in cases where you have assigned specific tasks or to-dos for the student to accomplish. Note that this is optional, with a box to click if you wish to share the notes with the student. 

A common fear: If I use Starfish scheduling, won’t my students see everything on my calendar and/or try to schedule for any time I’m free? 

• Starfish will integrate with your Outlook calendar. You can choose to get an appointment notification each time a student makes an appointment or cancels an appointment, and you can set a time by which appointments must be scheduled (such as by 8:00 a.m. for a same-day appointment, or four hours ahead of the appointment). 

• Starfish will only show to students the times you make available through “Office Hours” – thus, you can decide what times your students can sign up for appointments and they only see your available times, not what existing appointments or obligations you have on your calendar.  

  • Think of Starfish as your outward-facing calendar to students - it will show to students only want you want them to see (e.g., your availability that you set through "office hours").

  • Outlook is your internal calendar - it will only show to you everything you put in there yourself (e.g., campus meetings and appointments) and the appointments students made through Starfish. Only you can see what's on your Outlook calendar.

• Starfish also looks to see what exists on your Outlook calendar and blocks those times from student scheduling. No double (or triple) bookings! 

Relevant Starfish Videos

• Setting up your office hours
• Recording meeting notes and keeping track of appointments (skip to 1:50)