Review the pedagogical and technical information below to inform your progress in Week Five. Have questions about what you learned here or ideas for future tips? Join Coffee & Answers (open support Zoom sessions with the Academic Technology Team) or email the Office of Teaching and Learning.
Pedagogical
Starfish Alerts for Undergraduate Students
What is Starfish?
Starfish is an online platform that faculty can use to connect with students and to track the performance of their advisees and those students in their course(s) in a given semester. Additionally, faculty can send emails to students (either individually or in groups, e.g., class sections or advisees), set up office hours for online appointment scheduling, and provide feedback for students in their classes.
What types of concerns (flags) can I raise in Starfish?
The 5 main academic flags that can be raised on a student are:
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Attendance Concern
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Extremely Poor Course Performance
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Missing Academic Deadlines
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On Roster but Never Attended
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Participation Concern
There is also a General Concern option for issues that do not fall into one of those 5 categories, or that can be raised on any student a faculty is concerned about, even if they are not an advisee nor enrolled in a course being taught by that faculty member.
What happens after I raise a flag in Starfish?
When any of the 5 main academic flags are raised, the student receives an automated email from the Starfish system alerting them to the concern, encouraging them to follow up directly with their professor, and providing resources for support. Sample messages can be found on the Starfish Support website.
Additionally, flags raised for undergraduate students are assigned to specific support people for individual follow up. This includes members from Student Success, Undergraduate Advising Support, the Kinney Center, the Athlete Center for Enrichment, and others. Faculty can see the flag assignments and view notes that are added by these support people by going to the Student’s profile in Starfish and clicking into the Tracking section.
Can I provide positive feedback in Starfish as well?
Yes! Faculty can provide kudos to students in their classes that include the following options:
Similar to flags, when a faculty member raises a kudo on a student, that student receives an automated email sharing the positive feedback with them.
—Dan McDevitt, Office of Student Success
Technical
How do I prioritize the course tools in Canvas?
Starfish is one of many things in the course menu of all Canvas courses, alongside the native Canvas tools like Syllabus, Quizzes, Grades, and more. Streamlining the Canvas course menu can make a big difference for students by reducing confusion and helping them focus on what matters most. Canvas allows you to easily customize your course menu using the Navigation tab within the Settings area of your course.
To adjust your menu, open your course and click Settings at the bottom of the left-hand course menu then click the Navigation tab at the top of the page. From there, you can drag and drop items to reorder them or move unused tools to the lower section to hide them from students. Common items such as Assignments, Modules, Grades, and Syllabus are often the most helpful to keep visible, while tools you are not actively using can be disabled. Even disabled tools will still function in the course, so if you hide Quizzes but still have quizzes included in a module, students will still be able to access them.
After making changes to your course menu, be sure to click Save at the bottom of the page. You can go back to the home page and click Student View on the top right-hand side to preview how the updated menu appears from a student’s perspective. These simple updates can improve clarity, reduce student questions, and create a more intuitive learning environment.
To further inform your Starfish reports, you may also want to consider using Canvas Course Analytics. This tool in your course menu can provide a deeper look at student course access and behavior.
Please join any Coffee & Answers open support session for a live demonstration of any of these tools!
Are these tips helpful? Do you have a topic we should include in future weeks? Please let us know by emailing otl@sju.edu!
Additional Resources