Starfish Retention Solutions Begins Development of Starfish EARLY ALERT™

Company Forming Industry-wide Development Partnership to Design Community-Based Early Alert Solution

Arlington, VA – December 17, 2007 – Starfish Retention Solutions, an emerging provider of student success solutions, announced today that it is actively designing a community-based early alert solution, integrated with Starfish Office Hours™ and popular course management systems.

Starfish EARLY ALERT™ will use academic analytics coupled with the knowledge of the community to identify students at risk.  As a starting point, the solution will mine critical data from campus information systems which could indicate academic, social, or financial concerns.  At the same time, it will facilitate a student's human network proactively recording warning signs that a student is at risk.  This set of integrated risk factors for the student will then be shared with select members of the student's network to encourage interventions.  Research by ACT and others have found that academic and non-academic factors need to be considered when identifying at-risk students.  Many of these factors are best observed in day-to-day goings on.

Tailored to an institution’s policies, the system will facilitate sharing information and concerns about students across the key relationships a student has: instructors, residence hall staff, coaches, advisors, and parents.  The goal is to quickly notify the right team of people about a student at risk so that the appropriate interventions can be administered.

Starfish is seeking individuals and colleges to participate in:

• One-on-one phone interviews about the challenges of identifying at-risk students, Prior experience with successful technical or human systems is desirable. 
• Focus groups to discuss proposed features and to evaluate prototypes.
• A formal advisory board who will work virtually, in concert with the development team, designing the solution on a weekly basis.

Starfish anticipates the availability of Starfish Early Alert™ in summer 2008.  Those interested in helping us more clearly understand the challenges of identifying at-risk students are encouraged to contact us through our website.

“Starfish is committed to listening to the academic community about the challenges they are facing in supporting student success,” said David Yaskin, CEO and founder of Starfish Retention Solutions, Inc.  “We are excited about this opportunity to engage the community to develop a solution that helps to identify and provide interventions for at-risk students.”

About Starfish Retention Solutions
Starfish Retention Solutions, Inc. is an emerging provider of student success solutions.  Comprised of e-Learning pioneers, Starfish offers innovative solutions that enable academic institutions to engage, motivate, and graduate more students through improving student success programs.  Starfish Retention Solutions, Inc. headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia.  For more information, please call 866.STAR.035 or visit www.starfishsolutions.com.