Starfish for Faculty and Staff

Check out the Introducing Starfish by Hobsons, a Solution for Student Success video new window for a few highlights! 

You can check out some examples new window, including many community colleges that are using it for early alert, collaboration and communication, and student tracking/intervention. As a result, these schools have seen greater growth in graduation rates and exceeded their retention goals.

Just like how we see different medical professionals for different reasons and need all of these to be as healthy as possible, Starfish is part of a team of systems that serve different but related purposes. Starfish draws information from Banner (which is our SIS) and it can also integrate information from Blackboard (our LMS) making it a one-stop-shop for information about a student. Systems like Maxient and Accommodate serve specific functions for student information that is of a particularly sensitive nature and/or has compliance-related requirements. One strength of Starfish is the ability to configure the user experience for different roles at the college and to devise actionable workflows e.g. referring students for tutoring or counseling. 

Advising is carried out differently depending on your role(s), level of training and relationship with your students. At MC, this work is most often carried out by faculty and staff with titles such as program advisors, instructional faculty, counseling faculty, department chairs, coordinators, coaches, mentors, and many others. The strategic plan envisions this work carried out in some form within a common advising technology.

In addition, to help support the work of those advising students, instructors have the ability to use an early alert system, make referrals, and otherwise raise concerns for students who need intervention. 

Advising is not the only purpose of Starfish and we hope in time that anyone who works directly with students will find ways to leverage the system in their work. 

Starfish is designed to help make things easier for everyone and so, after some initial time to review and acclimatize to the system, it should not add any time but rather will support efficiencies so we are all working smarter not harder.

Representatives from Student Affairs and Academic Affairs will serve on an Advising Task Force whose charge will be organizing next steps to implement previous cross-functional recommendations that will catalyze progress on a collaborative advising model. This group’s work will commence this month and end with a report at the end of February.  

An important piece of this work will include a visit from EAB on December 6. Representatives from Student Affairs and Academic Affairs will receive an invitation to attend division-specific and cross-divisional meetings to see Starfish in action and to contribute to planning next steps. A key purpose is to evaluate future uses of the platform to meet needs in and beyond advising at MC. If you are interested in attending one of these meetings to learn more, please contact your supervisor. This is the beginning of a process with many and varied connection points for faculty and staff to engage with redefining the advising journey and updating our support infrastructure for all students.

Faculty with active teaching assignments are given access to Starfish automatically.  If you are teaching this semester or seeking access in a different role (e.g., Program Advisor), you may need to request access. Starfish Login for Faculty & Staff new window (use your MyMC credentials).

Once you’ve logged into Starfish new window, go to the navigation menu to setup your profile. Follow the Getting Started Guide (PDF, ) for step-by-step instructions on how to update your contact and profile information in Starfish.

Faculty with active teaching assignments are given access to Starfish automatically.  If you are teaching this semester or seeking access in a different role (e.g., Program Advisor), you may need to request access. Starfish Login for Faculty & Staff new window (use your MyMC credentials).

During the semester, you may be asked to provide students with holistic early and mid-semester feedback. By completing Starfish progress surfoldveys sent to you, you can reinforce course expectations with students and alert their larger C.A.R.E. Network to concerns that may be impacting students in multiple courses. You will receive an email reminder when there is a new progress survey for you to complete.

After you complete the progress survey for a course, you will receive a thank you from Starfish to confirm the progress survey has been submitted. Any flags you have raised for students will automatically trigger email notification to the appropriate individual(s) on campus who will begin the outreach process with the student. Kudos for students will show up in the student notifications in Starfish and the student will also receive an email.

You can raise tracking items in Starfish at any time of the semester, not just during progress reporting periods. The earlier a concern is alerted, the better.

Starfish allows you to communicate to students and with others in their C.A.R.E networks at any time of the semester through the "Referral," “Flag” and "Kudos" buttons. Each Starfish role provides access to a different set of tracking items under each button.

When you raise a flag or kudo (manually), it will be saved under the Tracking area in the student’s folder in Starfish. Unless otherwise indicated, any comments you provide on the flag or kudo will be included in an email to the student. 

When you make a referral, the student does not receive notification indicating that you have referred them to a particular office. Rather, that office will receive an automated email with information and applicable details regarding the student that was referred to them. They will then reach out to the referred student as needed.

When you raise a referral, it will be saved under the Tracking area in the student’s folder in Starfish. The person who resolved the referral has the option of "closing the loop" which would provide you with a note via email stating that the issue has been resolved. Clearing referrals is not required, but considered a best practice at MC. Unless otherwise indicated, any comments you provide on the referral will not be emailed to the student.

• Starfish Resource Hub new window: The Starfish platform brings insight to student data and allows institutions to take action and serve students proactively. It removes complicated redundancies and barriers to modernize campuses and make student intervention easy and integrated.
• Student Success Best Practices Library: new window Supporting students in today’s changing environment with more than 360 best practices from across our research forums.

Find all Starfish guides, training materials, and resources in one place: Starfish Learning Hub new window (SharePoint). SharePoint is accessed through Office 365, and you’ll log in using your MyMC username and password.

If you need help accessing the hub, contact the Starfish team.

Complete the Starfish Assistance Request Form new window to request assistance with the Starfish system.