Faculty & Staff Guide

Sending Alerts

Academic Alerts in Starfish, also called flags, allow you to send an update directly to the student about their performance in your course. The system will generate a standardized email with your concern and comments and deliver it directly to the student through email. Even though instructor feedback is requested twice a semester during the Academic Progress Report campaigns, a manual alert can be sent at any point in the term.   

Video Instructions - How to Manually Raise an Alert

Send a Manual Alert

  1. Access Starfish
  2. From the Starfish homepage, click the navigation Menu Blue square with three horizontal white lines. in the upper left corner of the screen
    1. Click the arrow next to the word students to display a drop-down menu
    2. Select My Students
  3. From My Students or the Student Folder you can manually raise a flag or kudos at any point during the term
  4. From My Students, select the student(s) to receive a Flag by checking the box next to their name
  5. On the navigation bar, select the +Flag button
    There is a blue banner with a hamburger button and “Starfish” towards the left and a search bar to search for students to the right. Under that, there are three tabs – “My Students”, “Tracking”, and “Instructor Reports (2)”. The “My Students” tab is selected. Under that, there are multiple buttons to perform various functionalities – add flag, add kudos, add success plan, message, and add note. The add flag button has a red box around it. Below that, there are various things to filter or search by – search by student name, username, or ID; filter by connection; and filter by term. Connection is set to “ALL My Students” and Term is set to “Active” both from their respective drop down menus. Under that there is a table of students for this faculty or staff member. The table has column headers: name, success score, email, phone, and cell phone
  6. Select the appropriate flag (area of greatest concern) from the dropdown menu. 
    1. Alerts for an undergraduate course include: Attendance/Participation, Low Assignment/Quiz/Test Scores, Multiple Academic Concerns
    2. Alert for a graduate course: Graduate Course Academic Concern
      This has a blue banner with Starfish logo on the left and x icon on the right. Below that, there is a heading “Raise Flag for Student Name” with cancel and save buttons to the right end of that region. In the main form region, the flag field has its dropdown menu set to “Graduate Course Academic Concerns”. The list shows Attendance/ Participation flag with description “Send this alert to a student when you are concerned about their attendance and/or participation. Use the comments to briefly describe your concern and outline the next steps for the student to take. These personalized comments are added to the email the student receives. You can see a sample email by visiting www.rit.edu/starfish.” The second thing in the list is the “Graduate Course Academic Concerns” which has the description “Send this alert to a student in a graduate level course when you have concerns about their performance. Comments are required and should explain to the student why you are concerned and the next steps they should take. . These personalized comments are added to the email the student receives. You can see a sample email by visiting www.rit.edu/starfish.” At the bottom of the page, there are two buttons – cancel and save – to the right corner.
  7. Add comments addressed to the student, as these comments will be sent to the student in an automated email (you can see sample emails on the Starfish Communications page). Comments should not include anything personal in nature. If you have behavioral or mental health concerns about a student you should submit a Tiger Concern Report to RIT's Student Behavior Consultation Team (SBCT).
  8. Select the related course from the Course Context dropdown menu
    This has a blue banner with Starfish logo on the left and x icon on the right. Below that, there is a heading “Raise Flag for Doe, John” with cancel and save buttons to the right end of that region. In the main form region, the first field is flag and its drop down menu is set to “Attendance/Participation Concern”. The next field is Course Context which is set to “Programming Language Concepts (CSCI.344.02.2181)” from the drop down menu. The next field is comment which has a text box with text “John – You have missed 2 classes recently. I am concerned about you and the impact missing classes can have on your grade. Please stop by my office to check in and we can work on a plan to get you caught up.” Below this, there is a Notification blue region. It has two reminders. The first is that the student can view the item and the notes entered above. The second is that people with the following roles may be able to see this tracking item if they have a relationship with the student: academic advisor – short term overage, primary academic advisor, UAO view all students, instructor and academic advisor Dubai. At the bottom of the page, there are two buttons – cancel and save – to the right corner.
  9. Click Save to submit and the appropriate communication will be sent to the student

Comment on an Alert

Instructors and advisors (faculty, academic, and support) can add comments to flags that have been raised. Information appropriate for a comment includes updates about the students performance in the course, a recap of a meeting with a student about the flag and/or any additional information related to the flag. When adding comments, address them directly to the student and send a copy to the student (see below for instructions).

IMPORTANT: Information entered in the Starfish system is disclosable under FERPA. If a student requests to view their educational record, information from Starfish may be requested.

  1. Access Starfish
  2. From the Starfish homepage, click the navigation Menu Blue square with three horizontal white lines.  in the upper left corner of the screen
    1. Click the arrow next to the word Students to display a drop-down menu
    2. Select Tracking
  3. Search by Student or your Connection to the student
    1. Hover your cursor over the flag icon by the alert you want to choose, the Flag Menu will appear
    2. Select Comment (Do not use the Edit Flag function)
    There is a blue banner with a hamburger button and “Starfish” towards the left and a search bar to search for students to the right. Under that, there are two tabs – “My Students” and “Tracking”. The tracking tab is selected. Under this, there are multiple buttons to do various functionalities – resolve, add comment, assign, add to-do, success plan, send message, and download. Below that row, there are various fields to search/ filter by: search by student name, username, or ID; filter by view; filter by connection; and filter by cohort. View is set to Inbox” from the dropdown and Connection is set to “All my students”. Below that, there is a table of students with column headers: student, success score, item name, status, created assigned and due. The first row has item name as “Keep Up the Good Work” with a green star before the name. The picture shows the popup from when you hover over the name. The popup has a blue bar with the student’s name “Jane Doe” and two tabs – summary and student info. The summary tab is selected and has “Keep Up the Good Work” on one line, “Added by Doe, Jane (10-23-2018) on the second line, and “Introduction to Psychology” on the third line. At the bottom of the popup, there are three buttons – details, comment, and clear.
  4. Enter appropriate subject and note
    1. Language should be clear, supportive, and specific to the alert
    2. Do not include any personal or medical information the student has shared with you. If you have behavioral or mental health concerns about a student you should submit a Tiger Concern Report to RIT's Student Behavior Consultation Team (SBCT).
    3. Avoid evaluative language
    This has a blue banner with starfish logo and the left end and an x icon on the right side. Under that, there is a heading “Create Note” and two buttons – cancel and submit – to the right of the region. In the main form region, there is t eh subject field which has its textbox left blank. The next field is note which also has its textbox left empty. There are three checkboxes under this – send copy of note to yourself, send copy of note to student, and send copy of comment to flag raiser. At the bottom of the page, there are two buttons to the right corner – cancel and submit.
  5. Check the appropriate box(es) to indicate who should be copied on the communication (communication will be emailed directly to those indicated) 
  6. Click Submit and the comment will be added to the flag and emails will be sent to those selected

Video Instructions - Clear Alerts & Close the Loop

Clear Alerts & Close the Loop

Alerts can be resolved in Starfish using the Clear Flag function. When an alert is cleared it indicates that the student has a plan to address the concern raised in the alert. It is recommended to add comments as to the plan the student has created to resolve the alert. When resolving the alert all added comments will be sent to the person who raised the flag indicating the reason(s) for clearing the flag.

  1. Access Starfish 
  2. From the Starfish homepage, click the navigation Menu  in the upper left corner of the screen
    1. Click the arrow next to the word Students to display a drop-down menu
    2. Select Tracking
  3. Search by Student or your Connection to the student
  4. Hover your cursor over the flag by the alert you want to close, the Flag Menu will appear
  5. Select Clear Flag (Do not use the Edit Flag function)
    There is a blue banner with a hamburger button and “Starfish” towards the left and a search bar to search for students to the right. Under that, there are two tabs – “My Students” and “Tracking”. The tracking tab is selected. Under this, there are multiple buttons to do various functionalities – resolve, add comment, assign, add to-do, success plan, send message, and download. Below that row, there are various fields to search/ filter by: search by student name, username, or ID; filter by view; filter by connection; and filter by cohort. View is set to Inbox” from the dropdown and Connection is set to “All my students”. Below that, there is a table of students with column headers: student, success score, item name, status, created assigned and due. The first row has item name as “Keep Up the Good Work” with a green star before the name. The picture shows the popup from when you hover over the name. The popup has a blue bar with the student’s name “Jane Doe” and two tabs – summary and student info. The summary tab is selected and has “Keep Up the Good Work” on one line, “Added by John Doe (09-11-2019) on the second line, and “ Intro Artificial Intelligence (CSCI.331.01.2191)” on the third line. At the bottom of the popup, there are three buttons – details, comment, and clear. There is a red box around the clear button.
  6. Leave the top comment section empty 
  7. In the Close the Loop text box enter appropriate comments
    1. This information will be emailed directly to the flag raiser/instructor when the comment is submitted
    2. Indicate reasons you are clearing the flag and document contact with student
    3. Comments should be clear, supportive, and specific to the alert
    4. Avoid evaluative language
  8. Click Submit to clear the flag and send an email notification to the flag raiser/instructor
    There is a blue banner with the starfish icon to he left corner and an x icon to the right corner. Under that, there is a heading “Clear flag for Joe Student (08-11-2016). In the main region, there is first a hyperlink “Show flag details”. Under that, there is a subheading “Add a comment:” with a textbox below that is blank. Blow that, there is a checkbox that is ticked with text “Send a message to instructor, Jane to close the loop”. Below there is a “To Instructor, Jane” subheading with a hyperlink “Copy my comment” to the right of it. In the textbox below the subheading, there is text “Dear Jane Instructor, when I spoke with Joe Student, he indicated that his recent quiz score was a B+ and he has been utilizing tutoring and your office hours. Thanks, Sally Advisor”. At the bottom of the page, there are two buttons – never mind, and submit – to the right corner.

Review Previously Sent Alerts

Starfish allows instructors and advisors to filter the tracking tab to see past alerts. 

  1. Access Starfish 
  2. From the Starfish homepage, click the navigation Menu in the upper left corner of the screen
    1. Click the arrow next to the word Students to display a drop-down menu
    2. Select Tracking
  3. Click on Add FiltersStarfish header and tracking tab
  4. Within the Tracking Items section,
    1. Next to Status, Select AllAdditional Filter - Tracking Items - All is selected

If you are looking for alerts from a previous term, follow these additional steps

  1. Within the Cohorts & Relationships Sections
    1. Click the Term drop down and select the semester or academic year you would like to viewCohorts & Relationships filter with a drop down of terms
  2. Click Submit