Faculty and Staff Start Here in Starfish
- Jennifer Easthope
Starfish gives you a convenient way to keep track of your students – raising flags when you observe a pattern of behavior that concerns you, ensuring that the people on campus who can intervene are aware. It also allows your students to easily book an appointment with you or someone else who can help.
Getting started is easy! Starfish will automatically display all students that you have been assigned or are enrolled in your courses.
Access Starfish here: starfish.valpo.edu
From there, you can raise flags about students, review flags that have been raised about your students, and provide additional information.
Five simple steps for faculty and staff to get started in Starfish:
1. Set up Your Profile
Help students put a face to your name and learn a little more about you through your profile. This is also a place where you can share how students should schedule a time to meet with you, whether that be through Starfish or another method.
2. Set Your Office Hours
Check out How To: Set Up Your Office Hours in Starfish
If you don't use Starfish to schedule appointments, that's okay! Please note in your Starfish Profile how a student should schedule an appointment to meet with you. Example below:
3. Add Survey Dates to Your Calendar
In order to prepare yourself to provide the best information available, please add a note in your calendar of each semester's survey dates: Starfish Progress Survey Dates.
4. Familiarize Yourself with Tracking Items
It is important that a student's success network perform outreach when a flag is raised in order to provide support and resources to help the student succeed at Valpo.
Starfish Flags and Tracking Items includes charts of the various tracking items, describing when to use each, and recommendations on how to respond.
5. Set External Grades in Blackboard
Starfish pulls the student’s current grade from your Blackboard Grade Center. By default, the Final Grade Total column is set as your External Grade in Blackboard. If you want Starfish to display and pull a calculated grade column (e.g., Weighted Total), please follow the steps here: Setting External Grade in Blackboard.