Starfish

Starfish for SSC Tutorial Services

What Is Starfish?

Starfish is BSU’s Early Alert, student-success technology that will help you maintain good communication with your instructors, academic advisor, and other faculty and staff to support your academic success. The Student Success Center, uses Starfish in two different ways:

Resources for Students
Resources for Faculty

- Create an Appointment (pdf)
- How to Create an Appointment (video)
1) Starfish EARLY ALERT-Your course instructors use Starfish to give you feedback about your academic performance by raising flags, kudos, and referrals. If you have a Starfish flag, kudos or referral raised you will receive an email alerting you of appropriate next steps to take. The SSC Tutoring Coordinator will monitor these items to provide outreach to you:
- Flags will let you know that you may need additional support in the class (your advisor and/or retention coordinator may reach out to follow up on flags raised).
- Kudos are raised to congratulate you on your academic success. SSC Tutorial Services uses kudos to mark improved progress in a course and as a recommendation by your professor to become a SSC Tutor/Supplemental Instruction Leader.
- Referrals are intended to help you connect to a helpful campus resource, such as SSC Tutorial Services, Math Lab, Writing Center, or Smarthinking.
Starfish flags, kudos, and referrals are simply notifications that may be sent at any time throughout the semester but are strategically issued by the Tutoring Center in Week 4 and Week 11 of the semester. They do not indicate grades and are not permanent records. If you receive a flag or a referral, you are strongly encouraged to take action early and speak with the people in your success network (e.g. your course instructor, advisor) and to connect with campus resources that can support you.
2) Starfish CONNECT- Many faculty and staff at the University use Starfish for appointment scheduling. This is often an easy way for you to schedule a meeting with those in your Starfish success network. SSC Tutorial Services uses Starfish to schedule appointments for tutoring and SI Sessions.

The resources below will assist you in navigating through the Starfish platform. Click on the relative topic to learn more about different Starfish components and for helpful how-to guides.

The resources below will assist you as a faculty member in navigating through the Starfish platform. Click on the relative topic to learn more about different Starfish components and to access helpful how-to guides.

Starfish is a tool that provides an efficient way to quickly offer coordinated feedback and support to all undergraduate students. Ultimately, this technology platform aims to do the following:
1. Ensure students receive timely feedback regarding their academic performance in their courses
2. Alert academic advisors and other BSU support staff of students who may need additional support or intervention to be academically successful
3. Build a robust data warehouse for assessing BSU collective student success and retention efforts
There is one component of Starfish that the Student Success Center Tutorial Services specifically uses here at BSU:
Starfish Early Alert enables faculty to alert students of their individual progress in their respective courses. While feedback is valuable throughout the semester, The Student Success Center coordinates institution-wide feedback efforts via the completion of Student Success Reports (SSR) at the following times each semester:
- Starfish Early Alert: 4^th -week Student Success Report – Early feedback, even a few weeks into the semester, helps students adapt their study strategies and develop their academic skills to maximize opportunities for improvement over the duration of the term.
- Starfish End of Term: 11th-week Academic Status Report – While student academic performance is unlikely to change in the last few weeks of the semester, continued feedback helps students plan for their final grades, work with academic advisors to prepare necessary appeals, and make course schedule adjustments for the upcoming term.
NOTE: ONLY Faculty who teach historically difficult courses will be prompted to complete Student Success Report by the Coordinator of Tutorial Service, Student Success Center.

Through the Starfish Early Alert platform, there are three main tracking items that can be raised by faculty for students.
- Flags – raised to make students aware of concerns their instructors have based on their current performance. Flags are monitored and tracked by academic advisors and retention coordinators.
- Kudos – used to send congratulatory messages to students for accomplishments in a course and/or offering a recommendation for students to become tutors/SI Leaders.
- Referrals – intended to connect students to an academic support service or campus resource, such as the SSC tutorial services, the Writing Center or the Math Lab.
Starfish EARLY ALERT: Workflow

Faculty often have questions about what occurs after they have raised flags, kudos, or referrals for their students. The information below shows the communication and outreach that is triggered once specific Starfish tracking items have been raised.
- Faculty Feedback is provided in the form of a flag, kudos, or referral for a student. Faculty are able to raise flags, kudos, and referrals manually for a student or through completing a Student Success Report.
- Student Notifications are sent for all academic flags, kudos, and referrals via email to a student’s BSU email.
- Advisor, Retention Coordinator(s) and Tutoring Coordinator(s) “Close the Loop” is the process academic advisors and support staff members use when they contact students in their caseloads who have Starfish flags or referrals. Academic support staff are able to “close the loop” within the Starfish platform by clearing a flag and/or adding a comment when they have valuable information to share with the original flag raiser.

Visit our Academic Computing and Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning for Online Sessions on Blackboard and Starfish Training for additional resources>link

Starfish for SSC Tutorial Services

What Is Starfish?

Starfish EARLY ALERT: Workflow