Starfish

What is Starfish?

Please refer to the Starfish Resources Page for more information.

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 Gustavus to see areas of concern for students so we can help them stay on path to graduating from Gustavus.

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 (concern) or crown (positive comment) 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 gustavus.edu/starfish and logging in with your GAC Credentials.

Set up your Profile

- Watch this process: https://youtu.be/F0QnhwG8nXY -

• 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.

Raise a Flag (alert or concern)

- Watch this process here: https://youtu.be/kkG4miiXnOE -

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 (positive comment)

- Watch this process here: https://youtu.be/kkG4miiXnOE -

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.

Document Outcomes from a Meeting

1. Hover over the Appointment icon associated with an appointment.
2. Select Outcomes from the Appointment pop up card to bring up the Outcomes tab of the Edit Appointment form.
3. Capture the meeting’s actual start and end time next to the Date.
4. If the student is a no-show for a meeting, check the Attendance box labeled “Student missed appointment”.
5. Add your notes into the Comments box.
   1. Note: Click the Email check box labeled “Send a copy of note to student” if your comments should be shared with the student via email.
6. Click the Submit button to save your updates. Your updates will be available in the student folder on the Meetings tab for this appointment

Sync your Google Calendar to Starfish

- Watch this process: https://youtu.be/GKTsoNjOz4Y -

Note: Only do this if you are a GUSMAIL (google mail) user. If you use Thunderbird, Outlook or MacMail, the calendar doesn't sync back to your Gustavus Google Calendar.

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.

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.

Add Office Hours

The Add Office Hours option is meant for setting up a recurring block of time on a regular pattern such as weekly or daily at a certain time. If you want to set up a group of Office Hours that are less structured, use the Scheduling Wizard.

1. Click the Add Office Hours button on your Starfish Home page orAppointments page. This opens the Add Office Hour form.
2. Enter a Title (name) for this block of time. Students will see this name when they view your calendar. The title will also help your or others managing your calendar identify different types of office hours.
3. Select What day(s)? and indicate any recurrence (e.g. Repeats every 1 week).
4. Use the What time? fields to enter the start and end time for the office hours.
5. Select Where? meetings will be held using the checkbox(es) next to your location(s). If you choose more than one location, the student will be able to choose his/her preferred location for the meeting. To add additional locations options, go to the Appointments Preference page ofyour profile.
6. Important Note:Once this office hour block is saved, you will not be able to edit the days on which the office hours occur or the type of frequency (e.g. weekly) but you will be able to edit how often the block recurs(e.g. 1 week vs. 2 weeks) and the specific times available.
7. Select the Office Hour Type for meetings you will take during this block.
   1. Select Scheduled And Walk-ins if you will be using the kiosk/waiting room features, and you plan to take walk-ins between appointments.
   2. Select Scheduled Appointments Only if you will not take any walk-ins.
   3. Select Walk-ins Only to show the time as available to students, but disallow anyone from making advance appointments
8. Select How long? meetings can be by selecting a minimum and maximum duration. If the minimum and maximum are identical, the student will not be given a choice of duration. Note that institution settings for specific appointment reasons, may override your settings.
9. If your role has permissions to add more than one Appointment Type, you will see checkboxes that allow you to select which types apply to this block of time. Appointment Types dictate:
   1. which students can schedule during this time (based on the role that connects you),
   2. the appointment reasons shown to students,
   3. which SpeedNotes will display, and
   4. which roles can view the appointment and its notes.
10. Use the Instructions box to enter instructions to students scheduling with you during this block of time. Instructions are required for blocks that allow Walk-ins.
11. Optionally, click the Start/End Date tab to set a time frame for a repeating office hour block. For the End Date, you may choose: Never, End of Term, on a specified date, or after a specified number of occurrences.
12. Click the Submit button at the top or bottom of the Add Office Hours form to save your Office Hour block

Edit Office Hours

1. Hover over the office hours menu icon next to an office hour title to open the Office Hours pop up card.
2. Select Edit Office Hours to modify: the frequency of the office hour block’s recurrence, the time of day, locations, office hour types, minimum and maximum duration of appointments, appointment types, instructions, or a start/end date of the series.
3. Click the Submit button on the Edit Appointment form to save your changes.

Notes: You cannot edit the days of the week or the nature of the recurrence (e.g. weekly).You cannot modify the time range for a single occurrence of an office hour. Selecting Edit Office Hours will modify all occurrences of this set of office hours. To reduce availability within an office hour block on a specific day, add reserved time to cover the part of the office hours you want to remove from availability.

Cancel a Series of Office Hours

1. Hover over the office hours icon next to an office hour title to open the Office Hours pop up card.
2. Click Cancel, then click “The entire series” to cancel all occurrences of the office hour block. You will be prompted to confirm the date from which to cancel the series, and to add a message that will be sent to anyone who had time scheduled with you during the office hours you are canceling.
3. Click the Submit button on the Cancel Series Confirmation form to cancel the office hour block.
   1. Best Practice: include an explanation and provide guidance on how to reschedule or connect to other available resources.

Cancel a Single Occurrence of an Office Hour Block

Cancel an individual occurrence of an office hour series from the Day tab of your Appointments section of Starfish. Use the mini calendar on the left to select the desired day.

1. Hover over the icon associated with the block of hours for the selected day.
2. Click Cancel, from the pop up card that is displayed then select “Just this one” to cancel office hours for the selected day. You will be prompted to confirm the cancellation and can add a note that will be included in an email to those whose appointments are canceled.
   1. Best Practice: include an explanation and provide guidance on how to reschedule or connect to other available resources.
3. Click the Submit button to cancel the Office Hour occurrence.

Add a Group Session

Group sessions allow you to create blocks of time in which a specified number of students can meet with you as a group. The steps are similar to adding office hours but include selections that are specific to group sessions.

1. Click the Add Group Session button from the Home page or Appointments page. This opens the Add Group Session form
2. Enter a Title (name) for this group session. Students will see this name when they view your calendar.
3. Select When? the group session will occur and select the recurrence (e.g. Repeats every 1 week).
4. Use the What time? fields to enter the start and end time for the group session.
5. Select Where? meetings will be held. To add additional locations options, go to the Appointments Preference page of your profile. Only one location can be selected for a group session.
   1. Important Note:Once the group session is saved, you will not be able to edit the days on which the session occurs or the type of frequency (e.g. weekly) but you will be able to edit how often the block recurs (e.g. 1 week vs. 2 weeks) and the specific times.
6. Select the reason associated with this group session. Reasons listed are those associated with the Appointment Types your role has permission to add. If you don’t find the reason you expected, contact your Starfish administrator.
7. Enter how many students (maximum) can sign up for the session.
8. If students should be able to see the names of other students who have signed up for the session, check the box labeled “Allow students to see other students who have signed up”.
9. If this group session should be limited to students in the same course/ course section, check the box labeled “Support supplemental instruction”. When this option is checked, participants will be limited to the course/course
10. Use the Instructions box for information that should be shared with students who sign up.
11. Click the Start/End Date tab to designate a time frame for the group session if it recurs (as set in step 3 above). For the End Date, you may choose: Never, End of Term, on a specified date, or after a specified number of occurrences.
12. Click the Submit button at the top or bottom of the form to save your Group Session.

Edit a Group Session

1. Hover over the group session icon to open the group session pop up card.
2. Click Edit on the pop up card You can edit the frequency of recurrence, time of day, location, reason, number of participants, visibility of students, instructions and the series start/end date.
   1. Note: You cannot edit the days or the nature of the recurrence (e.g. weekly). Some changes are prevented after students have signed up.
3. Click the Submit button to save your Edit Group Session form.

Cancel a Group Session

1. Hover over the group session menu icon to open the group session pop up card.
2. Select Cancel, “The entire series” to cancel all occurrences of the group session. You will be prompted to confirm the date from which to cancel the series, and can add a note that will be included in an email to those whose sessions are canceled.
3. Click the Submit button to cancel the group session series.

Cancel a Single Occurrence of a Group Session

You can cancel an individual occurrence of a group session series from the Day tab of the Appointments section of Starfish. Use the mini calendar on the left to select the desired day.

1. Hover over the edit icon associated with the group session for the selected day.
2. Select Cancel, “Just this one” from the Group Session pop up card to cancel session for the selected day.
3. You will be prompted to confirm the cancellation, and can add a note that will be included in an email to those whose session is canceled.
   1. Best Practice: include an explanation and provide guidance on how to reschedule a session or connect to other available resources.
4. Click the Submit button to delete the group session occurrence.