Starfish

What is Starfish?

Starfish is a retention solution program that helps to create an online student success environment, facilitating programs such as counseling and advising, tutoring, mentoring, and others–with the aim of improving student success and retention.

Starfish is a one-stop shop that allows students to schedule meetings with their instructors, advisors, or other services on campus; allows instructors, advisors, or employees to "flag" students when there is a concern or give students a "crown" when they do something positive. Using flags and crowns allows �鶹��Ƶ to see areas of concern for students so we can help them stay on path to graduating from �鶹��Ƶ.

Starfish Benefits

• Improve feedback and communications between faculty & Staff and Students.
• Access to more data, course activity, courses, grades, demographic data and more.
• Easily monitor student activity through tracking items.
• Raise a flag or crown at anytime during the semester
• Attendance Tracking (optional)
• Campus Wide Coordination of Student Support
• Online Appointment Scheduling (optional)
• Offer Special Recognition for Improvement or Good Work
• Alerts to Actionable Triggers for Warnings, Referrals, or "See Me"
• Simplifies the advising taking the process digital.
• All in one, extremely easy to use interface.

Get Started

Every user automatically has access to Starfish by navigating to starfish.gustavus.edu and logging in with your GAC Credentials.

Features of Starfish

Viewing support networks for your courses

• Receiving early alerts for academic concerns and crowns for a job well done
• Getting electronic referrals and other messages
• Viewing and following academic plans
• Signing up online for appointments with course instructors, counselors, advisors, financial aid, and faculty.
• Automatic progress reports in real time to connect students to appropriate campus offices

Important Definitions

• APPOINTMENT: A documented set of details shared between a student and an advisor, instructor, or counselor about a planned meeting. Students may only schedule appointments in the future at times the advisor, instructor, or counselor designates as available.
• COURSES: this displays the courses that the student is currently taken r has taken in the past.
• CROWNS: a Crown is a way to recognize student accomplishments and to congratulate them on their academic performance, getting off to a great start to the semester.
• DASHBOARD: this is the home page for students displaying all the different areas and features of Starfish.
• FLAG: Raise a flag to let students know of a concern, usually for their academic performance. However, Faculty can raise academic flags (excessive absences, low test/quiz scores, and unsatisfactory coursework) and behavioral flags (academic integrity concerns, disruptive behavior, and personal concerns).
• GROUP SESSION: Similar to Office Hours, but more than one student can sign up for this particular block of time. When the group session is created, the creator decides how many students can sign up for each Group Session.
• MEETING: A documented occurrence of a meeting between a student and an advisor, instructor, or counselor that includes details about the outcomes of the meeting.
• MESSAGES: This will display messages and notifications within Starfish.
• MY SUCCESS NETWORK: this is for students only. It displays the different areas/departments on campus that are part of making their time at Gustaus successful.
• NOTE: Activity codes that provide an easy way for staff to document common outcomes of an appointment. Specific SpeedNotes are set up by the institution per Appointment Type.
• OFFICE HOURS: Calendar owners can add blocks of time called “Office Hours” to their calendars to indicate when they are available to meet with students. Calendar owners can add appointments outside the blocks, but students can only self-schedule within the block. Office Hours allow students to sign up for individual one-on-one slots within the time parameters.
• Outcomes: Results of a meeting documented on the Outcomes tab of an Appointment in Starfish.
• RAISE YOUR HAND: this is for students only. This allows students to ask for help, whether it is general help, financial help, or help with a class.
• REFERRAL: certain roles in Starfish can give students referrals to other departments on campus. I.E. Advisor can set up a referral for a student to meet with CARE.
• SERVICES: this displays all the departments on campus and how to get in touch with them.
• TO-DO'S: certain roles in Starfish can set To-Do's for students.

Profile Information

• Click your name to open your Starfish Profile. (Top right corner)
• INSTITUTIONAL PROFILE: This is the information that students or advisors/instructors see, so please fill out as much as possible: Contact information, General Overview and Your Biography.
• APPOINTMENT PREFERENCES (Faculty and Staff only): Default Settings for appointment /office hours. You can set minimum appointment length, create your locations and set scheduling deadlines, configuring how far in advance students have to make their appointments.
• EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS: Notification and Summary settings. Set Appointment reminders and alerts, configure your summary email settings and check when you would like to be notified of tracking items changes.

Sync your Google Calendar to Starfish

1. Click your name to open the Starfish Profile. (Top right corner)
2. Click the Email Notification Tab
3. Check the option 'Read busy times from my external Google calendar'.
4. In a separate window, navigate to calendar.google.com and login with your GAC credentials.
5. Click the drop-down arrow to the right of you calendar name.
6. Click Calendar Settings
7. Click the iCal button next to 'Private Address'
8. Select and Copy (Control+C) the calendar URL.
9. Return to Starfish and paste (Control+V)in the box below 'Read busy times from my external Google calendar'.
10. Click Submit in the upper right.
11. Refresh the browser window to the calendar to update.

Set up Office Hours

Students can only schedule an appointment at times you indicate are available by adding office hours or group sessions. There are three ways you can add office hours: use the Office Hours Setup Wizard for quick initial setup, use the Add Office Hours button to add additional blocks at any time, or use the Scheduling Wizard to setup multiple office hour blocks that don’t follow a consistent recurrence.

Create an office hour block with the Office Hours Setup Wizard

The first time you log in to Starfish the Office Hours Setup Wizard will display if you have a role that can be a calendar owner. Use the wizard to quickly create appointment availability. 1. Complete the fields presented to specify:

• What day(s) do you have office hours? - check the boxes for each day.
• What time are your office hours? Enter a start and end time.
• Where are they? Select the Type of setting and enter the Details in the field provided (e.g. the building and room number of your office).
• If relevant, provide Instructions for students who make appointments with you.
• Click the Set up Office Hours button to save your office hours.

Raise a Flag

Faculty/Advisors and Employers have the ability to raise flags on students at any point in the semester.

1. Click Students on the top banner
2. There are many ways to search for your student (Course, Semester, Type in their name). Find the student or students you want to flag.
3. Check the box to the left of the student or students you want to flag.
4. Click Flag.
5. Select the flag type from the drop-down menu.
6. Select the Course that this flag is associated with (optional).
7. Type in your comments.
8. Click Save.

Clear a Flag

Faculty/Advisors and Employers have the ability to clear flags on students that they set.

1. Click Students on the top banner
2. Click Tracking on the top banner
3. Hover your mouse over the flag you wish to clear. A window will appear.
4. Click Clear.
5. Select reason for clearing the flag and add a comment.
6. Click Submit.

Raise a Crown

Faculty/Advisors and Employers have the ability to raise a crown on students at any point in the semester.

1. Click Students on the top banner
2. There are many ways to search for your student (Course, Semester, Type in their name). Find the student or students you want to crown.
3. Check the box to the left of the student or students you want to crown.
4. Click Crowns.
5. Select the crown type from the drop-down menu.
6. Select the Course that this crown is associated with (optional).
7. Type in your comments.
8. Click Save.