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Identifies At-Risk Students in Real Time Based on
Data-Mining Course Management Systems and Interaction
with Students' Support Community
Arlington, VA – Feb. 3, 2009 –
Starfish Retention Solutions, Inc., a leading provider
of student success systems, today announced the general
availability of Starfish EARLY ALERT™. Offering the
latest in early warning and student tracking
capabilities, the system helps academic institutions
keep more students in school. The system enables real
time identification of students who are at-risk of
dropping out due to academic, financial or social
challenges. Starfish EARLY ALERT then notifies the
students’ support community, who can initiate the
appropriate interventions. In today’s economic climate,
student retention efforts are a critical means of
preserving important revenue for any institution.
Starfish EARLY ALERT has been designed based on industry
research revealing that today’s colleges and schools
need a system that reflects the full continuum of
student support, from identifying an at-risk student in
real time to facilitating the appropriate support
interventions to assessing which interventions are the
most effective. These institutions also desire a system
that is easy to access, is easy to use, and limits the
need for redundant data entry.
Accessible with a single log-in to an institution’s
course management system (e.g., Blackboard), Starfish
EARLY ALERT automatically detects students who are
at-risk by reviewing grades in the online grade book,
monitoring participation in online portions of a course
and recording when students do not complete their course
work by the assigned deadlines. The system also allows a
student’s support network (e.g., instructors, advisors,
counselors and resident hall staff) to manually flag
students that have poor attendance, academic trouble,
financial difficulty, social stresses or even more
serious concerns. When a student is identified to be
at-risk, Starfish EARLY ALERT, in compliance with FERPA
guidelines, immediately notifies the appropriate
individuals to directly intervene.
Through Starfish CONNECT™, an educational support
networking tool that integrates with Starfish EARLY
ALERT, members of a student’s support network can then
refer the student to the appropriate support services
(e.g., tutoring, financial aid counseling). Starfish
CONNECT helps students overcome the natural reluctance
to engage with new people and campus services, by
letting them learn more about the support services
available, read endorsements from other students who
have benefited from the services, and schedule
appointments with the recommended instructors, advisors
and counselors. Tying identification of at-risk students
to the appropriate intervention allows institutions to
more quickly respond to needs and automatically assess
the impact of their efforts.
“Kettering University is very pleased with the direction
that Starfish is taking its early warning system,” said
Carol Brooks, director of academic advising at Kettering
University. “Our previous red-flag system required a lot
of paperwork and manual look-ups. The current pilot
program with Starfish is aimed at getting at-risk
students in for help faster, increasing the number of
students who are receiving support, and closing the loop
with faculty that have alerted us to the issue. We are
very encouraged by the feedback from our faculty and
advisors that are participating in the pilot, and we
look forward to measuring its impact in the coming
months.”
Following a formal testing period in partnership with
more than 15 academic institutions, Starfish EARLY ALERT
is available through an annual license. The
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) system requires no
additional hardware or IT staffing investment to
install, operate or maintain.
“Given the current financial pressures facing higher
education, improving student success and retention is an
important priority for colleges and universities. A new
generation of software solutions offers institutions the
ability to identify in real time which students are
struggling – providing an incredible advantage for an
institution seeking to improve student retention,” said
Nicole Engelbert, lead analyst at Datamonitor. “By
connecting to course management systems, Starfish has
created a powerful and efficient way of providing timely
information that helps improve how at-risk students are
identified and then connected to the myriad of
institutional support resources that can help them
succeed.”
“Every week, we speak to institutions that recognize
that students are falling through the cracks due to
academic, personal or financial challenges. Often there
is at least one person on campus who knows of the
problem but is not in a position to help directly, or to
guide the student to the appropriate support,” said
David Yaskin, CEO and founder of Starfish Retention
Solutions, Inc. “The response to Starfish EARLY ALERT
has been tremendous. Our design and beta partners,
representing all types of institutions, see Starfish
EARLY ALERT as a system that can identify the at-risk
student and centralize information about that student so
that the campus community can help.”
About Starfish Retention Solutions
Starfish Retention Solutions is a leading provider of
student success systems. The company offers a collection
of software solutions that harness the power of the
campus community to engage, motivate and graduate more
students – securing valuable tuition revenue through
student retention. Specifically, the solutions help
institutions identify at-risk students in real time,
based on their daily coursework performance, and then
connect them to the resources designed to help (e.g.,
advising, tutoring) – all while assessing which services
and interventions are working. For more information,
please call 703.260.1186 or visit
www.starfishsolutions.com.
Contact:
John Plunkett
Vice President, Marketing & Operations
703.795.9805
jplunkett@starfishsolutions.com
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