
Owl Scholars Program
About Starfish
Starfish — a new platform managed by the Owl Scholars team — is a tool that makes it easier for students to get connected to campus resources. Starfish increases communication between faculty, staff, and student services to maximize students' chances for success.
Learn more about this new tool by selecting a topic.
What is Starfish?
Starfish allows faculty to provide timely and direct feedback to students on academic progress in their course(s), while connecting students to campus resources that will help maintain or improve their class standing—all in one online hub!
Students and faculty can also use Starfish to ask questions, submit referrals, or request assistance from a number of campus resources.
Starfish Pilot Phase
Fall 2017 marked the start of phase one of the Starfish project. Currently, Starfish is piloting in certain classes in the AB 705 pathway.
If you are an instructor or student not affiliated with one of the pilot courses, you will not have access to Starfish right now.
For a full listing of those courses, please visit our Owls Scholar homepage
Key Features of Starfish
Services and Support Networks
- Starfish holds a catalog of important resources that students should know about and engage with during their educational journey here at Foothill.
- Students can use the "I Need Owl Scholars" help feature to request information or assistance getting connected. An Owl Scholars team member will review the request and connect the student to the appropriate service.
- The system also identifies certain resources and points of support that are most relevant to students based on classes they are actively enrolled in, or programs they belong to--making access to a wide array of support available at a click of the mouse!
Starfish Tracking Items/Alerts
Alerts raised in the Starfish system will generate an email/text to the student encouraging them to login to follow up on the tracking item.
Starfish allows users to raise four main alerts:
- Kudos (to recognize good work and effort)
- Flags (to encourage students to meet with their instructors and seek additional support)
- Referrals (to campus resources)
- To-Do's (actionable items to be completed by students)
Appointments
In Starfish, faculty and staff can enable the appointment feature to set up office hours scheduling for students online.
- Use Starfish to set appointments with members of our Owl Scholars team!
- Save time emailing back and forth to confirm availability!
- Track cancellations and no-shows, and keep notes on topics covered in your appointments.
- Appointments generate an outlook meeting invite that populates on work calendars when accepted.
How To Use Starfish
Faculty and Staff
The Owl Scholars Team provides Starfish tutorials for faculty and staff in written and video format through Canvas.
For in-person training, please contact Adrienne Hypolite at hypoliteadrienne@fhda.edu.
Students
Please check out this video to learn the basics of how to navigate Starfish.
- To access Starfish, log in to MyPortal, and click on the "Students" tab.
- Scroll down to find the Starfish link on the bottom left side of the page.
To schedule an individual training, please contact the Owl Scholars program at 650.949.7852
In Student Services, we acknowledge our role in not serving our Black students adequately. Please read full statement of our commitment to alter our course of action with a quaretly updated public plan. |

Questions?
Contact Owl Scholars
Chris Chavez
650.949.7852
Counseling Center, Building 8300