Frequently Asked Questions

If you are in a requested or locally assigned role, please follow the appropriate steps for removal from your particular role.

Starfish shows a daily snapshot of some basic student information from LionPATH (updated nightly). Depending on your view permissions, you may also be able to see notes, meetings, and tracking items raised in Starfish. What you can see is customized to your Starfish role. Starfish does NOT include student transcripts or degree audits; these records are in LionPATH. Additional information on how Starfish interacts with LionPATH, Canvas, and other systems can be found in the Starfish Implementation FAQs.

Your basic profile information is imported each night from other University systems (e.g., LionPATH, WorkLion). As a result, changes to any of the default information in your Starfish profile will be overwritten nightly if changed in Starfish. If any information in your Starfish profile is incorrect, change your information in Penn State Account Management, or contact HR Services at 814-865-1473 or by opening an inquiry via the WorkLion portal. Changes made in this way should take effect in Starfish in 24–48 hours. If you would like to add a photo, job title, additional contact information, and biographical/overview information to your profile, you can make these changes by editing your profile in Starfish without them being overwritten.

If you need help with Starfish that has not been resolved by support resources or you want to reach out about Starfish requests or feedback, ask for help or get in touch with a member of the Starfish Team.

By University Faculty Senate policy and ACUE procedure, instructors are invited to complete progress surveys during weeks three (Early Indicators) and seven (Mid-Semester) of the fall and spring semesters for all full-term undergraduate courses.

The Early Indicators Progress Survey is deployed in week three. The feedback in the Early Indicators survey is meant to draw students’ attention to how their patterns of behavior (e.g., attending class, participating, and using out-of-class resources) do or do not correlate with success in your course. Receiving early feedback on expected behaviors allows students to make any corrections early enough in the semester to be successful. As an instructor, you have the option of commenting on graded work in Early Indicators surveys, but you are not expected to have graded work available.

The second survey, the Mid-Semester Progress Survey, is deployed in week seven. The feedback on the Mid-Semester survey is based on both patterns of student behavior and graded work. By ACUE policy, the Mid-Semester survey must include a flag “In Danger of Earning Below a C” and reflect some significant graded work in the assessment of student progress. Feedback from the Mid-Semester survey should help students realistically assess their progress in a course in time for them to then gather additional information and make decisions about their continued enrollment in the course.

Progress surveys are meant to facilitate feedback during critical times of the semester. However, the timing of these surveys may not work as well for your course, or you may be unable to complete the survey within the campaign window for personal reasons. Instructors who find that the survey format or timing do not fit their needs may deliver feedback to students and their assigned advisers at any time using two other feedback methods. The earlier a concern is alerted the better, but focusing on your needs and the needs of your course are important if we are going to provide effective support for students.

The email announcing the progress survey will contain a direct link to your active progress surveys. You can also access progress surveys by logging in to Starfish and clicking on a link to your “Outstanding Progress Surveys,” displayed near the top of your Starfish homepage. For more information, see the full instructions on completing a progress survey.

Your selections save automatically so you can complete the survey in multiple sittings. Once you push the Submit button, messages are sent to students and their assigned advisers, and the survey can no longer be edited. Note: If you return to the survey after some time away, you may want to open Starfish in a new window first to ensure that your session has not timed out due to inactivity. You will not be able to submit the survey if you have been logged out, and if you continue to fill out the progress survey, new responses will not be saved. Do not close the previous session. Opening Starfish in a new window gives you the opportunity to check that all of your work from the previous session has been recorded and manually copy any unsaved responses and/or comments before continuing.

You can select from a list of tracking items to express concerns (flags) or praise (kudos) appropriate to that point of the semester.

When a progress survey is submitted, any flag or kudo you raise will send a message to the student and their assigned adviser. See the templates for all messages sent by Starfish.

If you have more information you would like to share, a comment can be added to the standard message by clicking the add comment icon (+) after choosing a tracking item. The comments you add will be included in the messages sent to the student and their academic adviser and are extremely helpful, especially if adviser help is desired.

Thoughtful comments that focus on how a student can improve in your course are extremely helpful, both for students and academic advisers. When writing progress survey comments, it is important to follow the ethical guidelines for creating records in Starfish and FERPA standards. Do a quick self-check: Is this something another Starfish user connected with this student would need to know? Is this something the student would want other people to know? Are the details in my notes based on fact, or are they observation and personal perspective? Medical diagnoses or details about traumatic events should never be included in Starfish—focus instead on the academic impact of these experiences, or use only general terms (e.g. “student experienced a medical issue that is disrupting attendance”).

The full array of flags and kudos are available at all times. You can manually raise flags and kudos instead of using those included in the progress survey.

Once a progress survey has been submitted, messages are sent to students and their assigned advisers, and the survey can no longer be edited. If you were not done making changes, you can always provide feedback in Starfish using another method to alert students and academic advisers of a concern. If you raised a flag or kudo by mistake, you can resolve the flag and select the option “The flag was raised by mistake.”

You can submit feedback at any time during the semester. In addition to the two undergraduate progress survey campaigns, instructors can always provide feedback in Starfish using another method to alert advisers and others about a student concern. The earlier a concern is alerted, the better.

If your course has multiple instructors or TAs, each of you (including TAs) will receive a separate survey. Please work together to decide who will provide feedback.

Once you have submitted a progress survey, you will stop receiving reminder emails for that course section. If another instructor or TA is submitting feedback or if you are planning to provide feedback in Starfish using another method, you can submit a survey with the default “No Feedback” selected for all students to stop receiving reminders.

Follow step-by-step instructions to manage your Starfish email preferences, including turning off emails or requesting a daily digest.

If you are listed as an instructor for a course in LionPATH, then this is a local browser issue. This issue most commonly happens with Safari, Edge, and Internet Explorer. Try logging in to Starfish again on a different internet browser. If the problem persists, clear your browser’s cache before trying again.

Progress surveys may not display correctly on tablet computers or in certain browsers. If you are attempting to access the progress survey on a tablet (e.g., iPad, Chromebook), you can try to request the desktop view of the page in your browser, but if this does not work, you will need to access the survey on a desktop or laptop computer. A browser display issue is most common with Safari, Edge, and Internet Explorer and/or when a browser has not been updated recently. Try logging in to Starfish again on a different internet browser or after updating your browser. If changing or updating browsers does not work, check for updates to your computer’s operating system (OS), as an out-of-date OS may impact browser performance.

Flags can be resolved most easily from the “Tracking” tab on the Students page. Flags can be resolved (1) one at a time by hovering over a flag and clicking the “Resolve” button or (2) as a group by checking multiple items and clicking the “Resolve” button. Both methods will then require you to complete the dialog box and submit. For more information on resolving flags, see the step-by-step instructions on managing Starfish flags.

Advisers are encouraged to resolve flags when they have put in additional effort to help the student address the flagged concern. We suggest that flags be resolved after student attention is drawn to the concern (e.g., in a conversation between the student and adviser) or after ten days if reasonable outreach attempts go unacknowledged by the student.

If advisers are consistent in resolving flags, we can see the different outcomes for students who were offered and accepted support, those who did not respond to offers of support, and those who were not offered any additional support. This helps us to learn more about the interventions that make a difference for student success at Penn State.

Academic advisers are encouraged to “close the loop” with the flag raiser by sending them a message when clearing a flag. Especially in cases where adviser help was requested, flag raisers want to know their observations and concerns were taken seriously. By letting flag raisers know their concerns were acted upon, we reinforce their proactive efforts to identify students who need additional support.

In the “Resolve Flag” dialog box, check “Send a message.” If no comment is added, the flag raiser receives an automated message from Starfish that says only that “[Flag Name] item which you created for [Student Name] on [Date] was closed on [Date] by [Flag Resolver].” Because this message is terse, you are encouraged to add a brief comment that explains what the student intends to do to address the concern so they can feel more confident there was a conversation.

When a flag has been resolved, it indicates that flag has served its purpose of drawing attention to a concern. It does not mean that the underlying problem has been resolved. Even once a flag has been resolved, the flag and associated comments remain visible in the student’s Starfish record. Reasons to resolve a flag include: the concern was addressed with the student, the student did not respond to outreach attempts, the flag was raised by mistake, or the flag has been recorded in LionPATH.

Go to the Students page, open the student folder, and click on the “Tracking” tab. At the top of this screen, you will see a status selected. If the status is set to “Active,” only unresolved flags will be displayed. If the status is set to “Resolved,” only resolved flags will be displayed. A best practice is to leave the status selection on “Both” so that you will see all flags (whether “Active” or “Resolved”).

Kudos are meant to reinforce positive student behavior and do not generally require further action. If no action is taken, you do not need to resolve a kudo. If you do follow up on a kudo, you can resolve it in the same way you would resolve a flag; this may be useful if you have further information to document after following up with the student.

If you have a Starfish role of General Adviser, Advising Records and Support, or another role connected to all students at the University, the “Recent Changes” and “Flags I’m Managing” boxes on your Starfish homepage will show all activity for all students. You are encouraged to shrink these boxes (by clicking the line in the upper-right corner) and move them to the bottom of your dashboard so they’re not a distraction.

To better manage flags for students on your roster, go to the Tracking tab on the Students page. Then, use the “Connection” dropdown menu to only show tracking items for the students you want to see. You can use filters to further refine the tracking items that display.

Starfish only shows students who are currently enrolled in Penn State courses or students who have matriculated to the University. If you can’t find a student in Starfish, you should check LionPATH to make sure the student meets the necessary conditions. If they do not but you need to see their Starfish folder (e.g., to facilitate a return to campus), your student records manager can place an “ASF Indicator” on the student’s LionPATH account to make the student visible in Starfish.

You may have a filter turned on that limits the students you can see. Once a filter is applied, it remains in place until you clear it, even if you log out of Starfish. Review your filter and dropdown menu settings on the “My Students” tab to make sure they reflect the students you are looking for.

Students can use Starfish after they have been enrolled in courses or matriculated to the University. Starfish is available to both undergraduate and graduate students at Penn State.

Students use Starfish to connect to academic advisers, instructors, and other people and services that can help them with their education. In Starfish, students can schedule appointments, find support services, review progress survey feedback, and ask for help.

Yes, students can make appointments with advisers, instructors, and others in Starfish. To make an appointment, a student must have a connection to the provider in Starfish, and the provider must have open appointment blocks or group session availability that includes students with that type of connection to them.

Students see a few main pages: Success Network (connected people and services), Dashboard (notifications), Upcoming (upcoming appointments), and Profile (basic student and contact information). See the student view for demos of these features.

Students do not see notes recorded about them in Starfish. However, the person writing the note may choose to email a copy of the note to the student. Students may also request to see their Starfish notes as a disclosable part of their academic record under FERPA.

Starfish automatically sends these email messages to students for calendar events and certain tracking items.

On the Appointments page, hover over the calendar icon for the appointment and click the “Cancel” button on the pop-up dialog box. For more information, see the full instructions on adding, documenting, editing, and canceling appointments. 

Once your appointment blocks have been published, you can cancel an instance or series of appointment blocks, or you can edit all appointment blocks in a series. However, you cannot edit a single instance of an appointment block. Instead, to change your available times on a single block, click the “Reserve Time” button on the Appointments page to put a hold on the times when you would like to remove availability. Students will no longer be able to schedule those appointment times. For more information, see the full instructions on appointment blocks for student self-scheduling.

To add Starfish events to your external calendar, set your Starfish Appointment Preferences to allow Starfish to email you .ical calendar attachments for changes to office hours, appointments, and group sessions. Starfish can send .ical attachments to any external calendar. You can also set your Appointment Preferences to allow Starfish to read your external calendar for “Free/Busy” time, and Starfish appointment times will be covered up automatically when you have a conflict. In order for Starfish to read your external calendar, you must use an Exchange (i.e., Outlook) or Google calendar.

If you are looking at the Starfish Appointments tab, in the upper-left corner of the event, calendar items from your external calendar will have a small icon of a calendar with a lock; calendar items from Starfish will have the date on the calendar icon in place of the lock. If you are looking at your Exchange (i.e., Outlook) or Google calendar, items from Starfish will name Starfish Calendar as the event organizer.

Appointments made in Starfish need to be canceled in Starfish. Once you delete a Starfish appointment, you will receive an .ical that will remove the appointment from your external calendar.

Starfish by EAB offers the Penn State community a robust student success system. For undergraduate and graduate students, Starfish allows faculty and staff to flag areas of concern, celebrate successes, monitor progress, and connect students to valuable services and early interventions—all while sharing information with others in students’ Success Networks. Starfish integrates with LionPATH and is the main system for advising notes, progress surveys, and academic reviews.

In 2016, Starfish replaced existing academic advising tools (i.e., advising notes, academic summary, roster management, and progress surveys) and introduced additional features, such as online appointment scheduling and a network connecting students with their instructors, advisers, and support offices. Penn State selected Starfish after evaluating proposals and considering feedback from the academic advising community. The implementation timeline shows the schedule for early training and development when Starfish was first launched at Penn State.

Many new features have been introduced to Starfish at Penn State that contribute to student success and support faculty/staff in managing their workloads. In addition to scheduling appointments with the instructors, advisers, and services available in students’ Success Networks, students can use the “Raise Your Hand” feature to request institutional support. For faculty and staff, Starfish has grown beyond a system for advising notes and progress surveys to include tools for communicating with students, sharing information and referrals, monitoring retention/progress, managing student rosters, and conducting academic reviews. Starfish has fundamentally changed how students accomplish their academic goals and how faculty and staff support them along the way.

Starfish is the main system for advising notes, progress surveys, and academic reviews.

• Faculty and staff use Starfish to look up basic student information, filter student rosters, communicate with students, view and document appointments, refer students to resources, and provide progress surveys and academic reviews to students.
• Students use Starfish to make appointments with advisers and others, review progress survey feedback, and view members of their Success Networks.

Starfish integrates select information imported from LionPATH, Canvas, and other systems each night, which Starfish uses to assign user roles and bring in useful student information.

LionPATH is the student information system (SIS).

• Faculty and staff use LionPATH to see complete and official student information, look at transcripts, run degree audits and what-if reports, look at the schedule of courses, access course rosters, and enter course grades.
• Students use LionPATH to pay their bills, register for classes, and run degree audits.

Canvas is the learning management system (LMS).

• Instructors use Canvas to post course materials, interact with students and assignments, and post grades and attendance records.
• Students use Canvas to access course materials, submit assignments, communicate with instructors and classmates, and check grades and attendance.

Protecting student data privacy is one of our core Starfish ethical guidelines and user policies. Penn State limits access to student information so that users only have access to information necessary for the performance of their jobs. This is something the Penn State Starfish Team has been highly mindful of when creating new Starfish roles, onboarding new users, and managing existing users. The Penn State Starfish Team works with the University Privacy Office to make sure Starfish is in compliance with standards and expectations around data privacy. Starfish, as a technological system, is fully compliant with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to protect the privacy of student information.

Only currently enrolled students with an active Penn State account can log in to Starfish. Follow the login troubleshooting steps to determine the issue and get the appropriate support.

Follow the appointment troubleshooting steps, or contact the person or office with whom you’re trying to schedule directly. The “Schedule Appointment” link will only be visible for providers who have set up online appointment scheduling.

Although you can schedule appointments with many people and services in Starfish, not everyone uses Starfish for scheduling. If you believe you should be able to schedule an appointment, you’ll want to check that you have the right connection to the provider to schedule an appointment and that you have selected the correct appointment type. Follow the appointment troubleshooting steps to find the problem. If you are still not seeing any openings after completing the troubleshooting steps, contact the person or office with whom you are trying to schedule to make an appointment in some other way. 

Instructors, advisers, and others in your Success Network can raise kudos (for areas of excellence) and flags (for areas of concern) on issues related to your academic progress, which will send messages to your Penn State email. You may receive more of these messages during certain times of the semester, called progress survey periods, when instructors are asked to give you holistic feedback about your course performance so that you can make the changes you need to improve your success in the course. You will also receive messages with .ical calendar invitations from Starfish when you schedule an appointment or when the appointment is canceled or changed. See the templates for all messages sent by Starfish.

Carefully selected information comes into Starfish from other University systems (e.g., LionPATH) so that people with whom you’re connected in Starfish can support you. Starfish is role and relationship based, and only individuals in particular roles (e.g. academic advisers, instructors) who are in a relationship with you (e.g. your assigned adviser, your instructors) can see information in Starfish. Even if someone is connected to you, they can only see information necessary for their role.

Within Starfish, instructors, academic advisers, and others can alert you to areas of excellence (through kudos) and to areas where changes are needed (through flags). These alerts are sent to your email. You are expected to read these messages and take appropriate action. Depending on the type of flag or kudo raised, select members of your Success Network (e.g., academic advisers) will also be able to see these alerts so they can help you develop strategies for building on strengths and for meeting challenges.

Academic advisers and others use Starfish to document the topics discussed in meetings with students. This documentation is an ethical standard for advising because it helps advisers better help you make your way through Penn State. Notes kept in Starfish need to meet professional and legal standards and fall under your Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) rights.