Managing Starfish Early Alert

Across Virginia’s 23 Community Colleges

Sue Ann Curran, Early Alert Coordinator, VCCS

Colleen Miccolis, Manager, Starfish Implementation, Hobsons

July 28, 2015

VCCS Governance Structure

Project Governance Structure

Each VCCS

College had

its own

Team.

(23 total)

Steering Team

Project Team

Institution Teams

• Executive Sponsor• Project Manager• Functional Leads• Technical Leads• Institutional

Representatives

• VCCS Executives• Institution Executives

Team Responsibilities

Steering Team• Set overall strategy and direction• Developed communication plan for the project• Resource management• Issue resolution

Project Team• Scope and project definition• Implementation and configuration• Integration decisions• First level testing

Institution Teams• Served as subject matter experts• Provided input on implementation/configuration decisions• Participated in integration testing and workflow testing• Led training and roll-out at institutional level

VCCS Starfish Implementation

Multi Institution Best Practices

Common Tracking Items • Requires common workflows in regards to roles and privileges; requires general

email templates.• Starfish enhanced email template functionality to allow for VCCS college-specific

messaging.

Common Roles and Privileges• Institutions should think about roles from a business process perspective rather

than organizational hierarchy/title perspective.

Progress Surveys• Distinct surveys may be necessary based on different academic calendars.• Focus on reporting and institutional statistic needs.

Organizations• Plan to create an organization for each institution for the purpose of establishing

relationships between staff and students.• This organization will allow access to the features of Starfish CONNECT™ for

institutions that have also purchased CONNECT™.

Communication• Unified, consistent deployment communication strategy.

Project Timing and Goals for Launch

Project Kickoff in Richmond on February 27, 2013• Steering team and project team members present. • Kickoff content included goals discussion, implementation methodology review, and

technical kickoff components- architecture, integration, access.

SAILS Launch on September 30, 2013• VCCS branded Starfish as the SAILS (Student Assistance and Intervention for Learning

Success).• Pilot of developmental education math and English course sections.

Pilot Goals:• Allow faculty and staff to identify and provide interceptive guidance to students

demonstrating behaviors, performance, and characteristics that correlate with risk of not succeeding academically.

• Replace what has typically been a manual, labor-intensive process with an automated early alert system that seamlessly works to provide a holistic view of students in need of assistance and provides accurate and real-time records of student interventions.

Virginia Community College System

SAILS Background at VCCS

SAILS – Student Assistance and Intervention for Learning Success Achieve 2015 – Student Success

• Triple the number of students graduating, transferring, or completing a workforce credential, to 91,173, including tripling the success of students from underserved populations to 39,393.

Department of Labor TAA-CCCT GrantStarted with pilot of developmental education courses in Fall 2013.Spring 2014 Implementation – Gateway Courses

(All ENF’s, all MTE’s, all SDV’s, ENG 111, MTH 163, BIO 1 and BIO 101)

SAILS Today:• Gateway courses - CVCC, DSLCC, GCC, JTCC, NVCC, PHCC,

RCC, TCC, TNCC• All Credit courses - BRCC, DCC, ESCC, JSRCC, LFCC, MECC,

NRCC, PDCCC, PVCC, SSVCC, SWVCC, VHCC, VWCC, WCC

Starfish Implementation in the VCCS

College Connect? Spring 2014 Summer 2014 Fall 2014 Spring 2015 Summer 2015 Fall 2015BRCC No FULL FULL FULL FULL FULL FULLCVCC No PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED FULLDCC No PHASED PHASED FULL FULL FULL FULLDSLCC No PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASEDESCC No PHASED PHASED FULL FULL FULL FULLGCC No PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASEDJSRCC No PHASED FULL FULL FULL FULL FULLJTCC No PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED FULLLFCC No PHASED PHASED FULL FULL FULL FULLMECC No PHASED PHASED PHASED FULL FULL FULLNRCC No FULL FULL FULL FULL FULL FULLNVCC No PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASEDPDCCC No PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED FULL FULLPHCC No PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASEDPVCC Yes PHASED PHASED FULL FULL FULL FULLRCC No PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASEDSsVCC No PHASED PHASED FULL FULL FULL FULLSwVCC No FULL FULL FULL FULL FULL FULLTCC Yes PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASEDTNCC Yes PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASED PHASEDVHCC No FULL FULL FULL FULL FULL FULLVWCC Yes PHASED PHASED FULL FULL FULL FULLWCC Yes FULL FULL FULL FULL FULL FULL

Full Roll Out Count 5 6 12 13 14 16

Central Coordination of SAILS

• Instructor and staff roles.• Student groups.• Flags and Kudos same across the system.• Progress survey flags and kudos same for each

survey type.• Continued coordination with Starfish team at

Hobsons to prioritize PeopleSoft integration changes, product enhancements, etc.

Progress Surveys Coordinated Centrally

Initial and Midterm Progress Surveys – for 16, 12, 10, and 8 week classes.

• Initial Progress Surveys – timed around census date.• Midterm Progress Surveys – prior to withdraw date.

One progress survey for 5, 4, and 3 week classes.

College option for DYN session surveys.

Standard flags and kudos for each survey type.

Automatically generated to open and close.

Reminder email sent if Progress Survey is not completed prior to due date.

College Specific Implementation

College Specific

Email templates• Progress survey emails for each college• Flag emails – use advance field to manage college

specific text.

Roles/Group membership• Managed by the college through SIS

Flag response process

Starfish CONNECT ™ Implementations

VCCS Colleges independently had option to purchase Starfish CONNECT ™

• Governance structure put in place for CONNECT launch also.• Each ‘CONNECT College’ had its own implementation team.• Necessary collective decisions were made in meetings between the CONNECT

College leads and Starfish implementation manager.• Additional Colleges have joined this group over time.

Organization-level access to CONNECT™ features• College specific organizations established via the PeopleSoft integration provides

access to the features of Starfish CONNECT™ for institutions that have also purchased CONNECT™.

CONNECT™ College integration needs• VCCS CONNECT Colleges have requested unique integration changes to support

their efforts- such as guest user records so that they may track interactions with prospective students.

Demo of Reynolds Community College Site

Developed training and resource site for faculty and staff.

Business Process Review

Managing Starfish

Issue managing the volume of flags.

Develop a process using college specific resources and prioritize to manage flag response.

College Business Process

Next Steps

• Continue business process review to manage SAILS at the college.

• Configuration changes to add new roles to meet college needs.

• Deploy cohort functionality to assist with flag assignment and reporting on special populations. This is improving the business process.

• Deploy delegated admin for reporting functionality to allow for on-demand reporting at colleges. This has opened the door for college specific evaluation of how SAILS is working. IR staff are beginning this evaluation process now.

A Valued Partnership

• Starfish (now Hobsons) has worked very closely with VCCS system office staff to ensure we understand the needs of this large, multi-college client.

• Product enhancements have been made (that benefit many of our clients) to ensure that VCCS Colleges can be more successful in their use of the system such as email template changes to allow for college-specific messaging.

• Acknowledging the time investment of VCCS system office staff to generate reports for the colleges, we’ve recently enhanced Starfish to allow for designation of delegated admins for reporting functionality. VCCS will deploy that functionality soon which will allow for on-demand reporting at colleges.

Questions?