Dear Colleagues:
Thanks to you, our faculty, over the past nine years Early
Alert (EA) has become part of our campus culture, one way that we work
collectively to support student success. Thank you to the hundreds of you who have
been using the system, and we invite the rest of you to join this culture of
helping students finish the course successfully and finish their degrees.
EA will be better than ever in fall 2016, both easier to use
and with more capabilities that you will value. We are switching from our
previous EA system to a new, more intuitive and more robust system called
Starfish Early Alert. In the new system you will be able to:
· Access Starfish EA with a click of a button
directly in Canvas;
· Send encouraging “Kudos” to your students, as
well as performance “Flags,” by just clicking boxes and pressing Submit;
· Access EA not just once per semester but anytime
throughout the term, quickly sending performance concerns or kudos to
individual students whenever you think warranted;
· Collaborate more directly with student support
staff, make referrals, share information automatically (as you choose, or not),
see the follow-up from your communications;
· Participate, as you choose, in three scheduled
“performance surveys”:
- 1st-2nd weeks—No-Show Alert to notify non-attending students;
- 5th-6th weeks—Early Alert, just as we’ve always done;
- 9th-10th weeks—Post-Midterm Alert to encourage
students who show signs of failing the course to choose to work harder or to
withdraw before the deadline.
This is a powerful tool that can support your teaching and
serve our students. If you’d like to get a head start, view this video, “Five Minutes to Learn about
Faculty Features in Starfish.” Please be on the lookout for the
announcement of the Early Alert No-Show Alert, coming your way next week.
To learn more about Starfish, click here.
For technical support with Starfish, contact Starfish.Support@ucdenver.edu
Have a great semester (because when faculty have
a great semester, students have a great semester).
Jeff Franklin, Associate Vice Chancellor
Office of Undergraduate Experiences