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Discussions Focused On Best Practices for Promoting
Online Early Warning Processes ARLINGTON, Va. –
Feb. 23, 2010 – Starfish Retention Solutions, Inc.,
a leading provider of student success systems, held its
quarterly User Community Meeting today. Open to all
licensed Starfish institutions, the forum brought
together representatives from more than a dozen colleges
and universities to discuss best practices for
implementing and fostering campus adoption of online
student success systems.
Individuals attended from a diverse set of academic
institutions, including four-year universities, two-year
community colleges, and K-12 online schools, offering
varying perspectives on student success and retention.
The process of implementing Starfish at each institution
has formed a meaningful partnership between academic
affairs offices, student services departments, and
information technology services, and the meeting
welcomed all Starfish leaders and their colleagues to
connect with the broader community.
Registrars, distance learning directors, deans of
student success and academic advisors focused their
comments on instructor adoption and managing timely
student interventions, while members from instructional
and academic technology departments , who comprised more
than a quarter of the group, discussed the Starfish
implementation process. Many Starfish leaders have prior
experience in thoughtfully executing enterprise
technology from implementing course management systems
such as Blackboard® and ANGEL®, and student information
systems such as SunGard® Banner™ and Datatel®
Colleague™.
Representatives from South Arkansas Community College in
El Dorado, Ark., jumpstarted the meeting with a
presentation on increasing adoption among instructors of
developmental courses. Every three weeks, the college
uses a Starfish® Flag Survey™ to remind instructors of
Basic Studies courses to report on student absences,
behavior issues and lack of participation. Prior to
Starfish, instructors submitted early alerts by paper,
phone or email, overwhelming the advising staff with
paperwork that was hard to track. Cathy Harrell,
academic advisor at the college, spoke about the volume
of useful information Starfish has provided their
advisors and instructors since their mid-2009
implementation.
Veteran Starfish institutions shared best practices
around utilizing the system, and answered questions
posed by new Starfish clients based on their successes
and challenges. Topics discussed included increasing
awareness of a new online tool, prioritizing student
interventions after flags are raised, and general
management of the information collected by the system.
- Increasing awareness: At Estrella
Mountain Community College in Avondale, Ariz., the
Starfish implementation team, comprised of both
instructors and administrators, crafted a syllabus
statement for instructors to post to their course
syllabi. This announcement introduces Starfish and
its functionalities to students at the start of the
term so they understand to expect emails from the
system and feel comfortable using this new online
tool to schedule appointments with faculty and
support staff.
- Prioritizing student interventions:
At Paul Smith’s College in Paul Smiths, New
York, advisors manage the many flags raised by
faculty using trend data provided by Starfish.
Advisors automatically receive emails highlighting
students who have three or more active flags, and
again when a student has six active flags. This
helps advisors prioritize student interventions and
reach out to student most in-need first.
- Managing information collected: At
South Arkansas Community College in El Dorado, Ark.,
Starfish leaders invited Master’s degree candidates
from a local four-year institution to help manage
counseling referrals submitted by faculty. The
additional manpower allows the college to address
more counseling concerns than in previous terms, and
to contact students in need of counseling as quickly
as possible after an instructor raises a flag.
“Interacting with other campuses utilizing Starfish
is a valuable part of the process of implementing this
technology,” said Harrell. “Our configuration and
rollout of the system is a work in progress, as are our
retention strategies as a whole. Sharing what we are
doing to get faculty involved and getting ideas and
advice from similar schools– it’s opportunities like
these that are helping us approach new technology in the
best possible way, and really impact student success.”
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 course work 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
703.260.1185
jplunkett@starfishsolutions.com
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