Connect with Starfish
Starfish provides you with feedback about your academic performance and helps you connect with members of your Success Network – your instructors, counselors, and support staff.
What Can I Expect from Connect with Starfish?
- Instructors may use Connect with Starfish to give you feedback on your academic performance.
- Your instructors can raise flags when they are concerned about your academic performance or issue referrals if they think you'd benefit from a campus resource.
- You will receive kudos to acknowledge your great work!
- Your counselors and other support staff know about this feedback and are here to help you.
How Will I Use Connect with Starfish?
- Take action if you get a flag and/or to do items.
- Speak with your instructor, use a campus resource, and/or meet with a counselor to create an action plan.
- Celebrate if you get kudos – stay focused and keep up the good work!
Who Can Help Me with My Connect with Starfish Flags?
- Your instructor is a great place to start. Follow up with them for guidance on how to improve.
- Reach out to your Success Network for help identifying academic options and campus resources.
FAQ
Starfish is an early warning and student tracking system designed to increase student retention and success. This online platform allows faculty to provide students with direct feedback about their course performance in the form of kudos, flags, and messages. When an instructor flags a student who may be struggling or facing barriers that make it difficult for the student to succeed in class, appropriate programs and offices are notified so that they can reach out to the student to provide additional support.
Success Coaches are staff persons who are assigned as the first point-of-contact for categorical support programs, learning communities, or HomeBases (based on meta-majors). They provide support for case management and early alert referrals.
- Serve as the contact point for students
- Answer general questions and facilitate connections to appropriate support services
- Respond to and assign referrals
- Collaborate with respective success team
- Coordinate interventions for students
- Connect with instructional faculty regarding early alert referrals and student progress
- Participate in support of orientations as applicable
- Oversee Peer Mentors (for specific programs that offer this service)
A progress survey is a snapshot of how students are doing in a course at a particular time during the semester and is intended to notify the student (and/or other campus services) of their progress. The ARC Connect with Starfish Team will send out progress surveys a few weeks after the start of the course (the date of survey deployment will be different for full term, 8W1, and 8W2 courses) prompting faculty to identify students who may be in need of help in their courses. The surveys will remain open for a couple of weeks. Faculty will receive an email, to their Los Rios email account, notifying them the survey is open and providing a link to complete the survey. By clicking on the link and signing into the Starfish system, the instructor will be taken directly to the progress survey for their specific course. A follow up reminder email will also go out prior to the survey closing. Within the progress survey, instructors can also make referrals for students to receive services.
In addition, within Starfish, you can search the “Services” area and find tile links to almost all student services at ARC. These include:
- “ARC Remote Student Services” tile that provides a brief description and access to most of our ARC programs
- “ARC Basic Needs Resources” tile that provides college and community resources to support your personal needs
- “ARC Technology for Remote Classes” tile that provides information for how students can obtain access to Internet services, Canvas support, quick tip videos and other needed technologies to be successful in the remote environment
- “ARC Health & Wellness Center” tile that provides access to health-related services and information