1. Northern Virginia Community College
SAILS Training
Northern Virginia Community College
Green text should be edited for college specific names and details.

2. Training Agenda SAILS at NOVA How Does SAILS Work?
Description of Flags & Kudos
Demonstration and Hands On
Accessing SAILS
Progress Surveys
Flags & Kudos
Clearing a Flag
Closing the Loop
Student View in SAILS
Business Process Review
The agenda and the slides should be customized for your college and the training audience. Please edit and remove slides to meet your training needs.
For the training, we recommending presenting the background information about SAILS (slides 4 through 7) as background.

3. SAILS Background
Student Assistance and Intervention for Learning Success
SAILS is the VCCS name for the Early Alert System
The proprietary name for the Early Alert System VCCS is using is “Starfish”

4. SAILS at NOVA Starfish Implementation Team AL: Rhonda Myers
AN: Joann Credle, Ray Orkwis
LO: Jeremy Cook
MA: Lynn Bowers
MEC: Beatrice Veney, Kim Nicely
WO: Bryan Brown
ELI: Preston Davis
CS: Keri Bowman
IT: Sue Liller
Items in greens should be edited for college specific information.

5. Student Services Staff
How Does SAILS work?
Instructors
Raise flags when appropriate.
Submit a progress survey when ed.
Student Services Staff
Receive notifications or login to SAILS to view activity.
Record follow up actions in SAILS:
Add notes
Clear flags
Close the loop
Students
Receive notifications when flagged.
Contact appropriate support office.
This chart is a general comparison of the different roles and responsibilities in SAILS.

6. VCCS Flags Flag Name Description Assignment Concerns
Raise this flag if you have concerns about a student receiving low scores on assignments.
Attendance Concern
Raise this flag if you have concerns about a student missing class or being late to class.
In Danger of Failing
Raise this flag if a student is in danger of failing your class and requires immediate intervention.
Low Participation
Raise this flag if you have concerns about a student's low participation in class.
Low Quiz/Test Scores
Raise this flag if you have concerns about a student receiving low scores on quizzes or tests.
Never Attended
Raise this flag for students who have never attended the course section.
General Concern
Raise this flag if you have a general concern about a student that does not fit one of the other flag categories. Comments will be required to describe the concern.
This is a description of all the flags in SAILS. Instructors have the ability to raise all flags. Student services staff can only raise the General Concern flag.

7. VCCS Kudos All Flags and Kudos are disclosable under FERPA Kudo Name
Description
Keep up the Good Work
Raise this kudo when you want to encourage a student to keep working hard and producing positive results.
Outstanding Academic Performance
Raise this kudo to congratulate a student on producing excellent academic work.
Showing Improvement
Raise this kudo when a student is showing improvement from previous performance or behavior.
Kudos are only available to instructors.
The progress survey type (initial or mid-term) determines what flags and kudos are available. For example, the “Low quiz/test scores” is not included in the initial survey for 16 week courses because that survey is scheduled around the college census data and not enough quiz/test score data may be available to raise this flag.
Flags and kudos can be raised outside a progress survey. Instructors have all flags and kudos available to them when they are not a part of a progress survey.
All flags and kudos along with any comments that accompany them are disclosable under FERPA.
All Flags and Kudos are disclosable under FERPA

8. ACCESSING SAILS
This next phase of the training will provide a demonstration of the functionality in SAILS and then an opportunity for participants to apply it through hands-on exercises.
Please modify the content to meet the training audience’s need at your college. Add or remove slides as necessary to support your college’s implementation.

9. Logging into SAILS – My VCCS
Displaying the link to SAILS on My VCCS. Clicking on the link takes the user directly to SAILS.

10. Accessing SAILS - Blackboard
Login to Blackboard
Click on SAILS listed under the Tools menu
SAILS can also be accessed through the Blackboard.

11. Progress Surveys
Progress Surveys are deployed for certain courses (to encourage use of SAILS):
ENF ENG 111
MTT MTH 163
BIO 101 SDV
Courses that do not receive progress surveys can still report academic concerns.

12. Example Survey Reminder to Instructor
Dear Instructor Name,
As you know, we are utilizing the SAILS (early alert) system to help us make the process of reporting on the academic progress of our students as easy and efficient as possible. Through a Progress Survey you have a quick way to inform us of your students' progress in class.
To access the Progress Survey for your course(s):
Go to:
Click on the SAILS link to access the system.
Login using your MyVCCS credentials (same credentials used to log into Blackboard).
You will see a link(s) to your Outstanding Surveys at the top of your SAILS homepage.
Once you reach the survey, simply check the box next to the particular student's name for whom you would like to report progress. You will have options to add comments.
Click Submit. If you don't have any progress to report, it is important that you click Submit, so we know you reviewed the survey. You will receive a confirmation .
Items you raise will be addressed by the appropriate individuals from our institution.
You have # surveys, which need to be completed before date survey closes.
Outstanding Surveys:
Name of survey(s) to complete
Your responses will help us know which students to reach out to and offer help.
What if I want to add more details? When you check off a box to raise a flag on a student you will see a small yellow icon appear next to the student's name. Click that icon to add a comment.
Name of Chief Academic Officer
The following is a sample that is sent to instructors to notify them to complete progress survey(s) for their class(es). The items in green can be customized for your college as an example.

13. Progress Surveys
sent to instructor with reminder to complete progress survey(s).
Click on Progress Survey tab to access survey(s).
To complete survey, check the appropriate boxes and click Submit to raise flags.
Completing a Progress Survey for a Class
To access a progress survey, click on the Progress Survey tab.
On the left hand side, there is a drop down list with classes followed by the survey name.
Select the class for which you want to complete the survey.
The default is no feedback for each flag or kudo.
Make a selection for each student. If you do not have any flags or kudos to raise, leave the default “no feedback” checked.
If you have any questions about what each item in the progress survey means, click on the small “i” icon for a description.
When you click a box to raise a General Concern flag, a comment box appears and it is required.
Important to note during the training – if an instructor has no feedback either kudos or flags to give to a class, they should still access the survey and submit it without making any changes.
For the pilot period, fall semester 2013 starting from the Sept. 30 “go live” progress surveys will be created for the pilot group (Developmental Education classes) for the following sessions:
16 week courses
10 week courses
8 week courses
5 week courses
4 week courses
Dynamic courses
If a college plans to use SAILS for developmental education classes not included in the sessions listed, the faculty member will have to manually raise flags outside a progress survey.

14. Raise a Flag or Kudos Directly
Click My Students tab.
Search for a student by
Typing the student’s name into the Search field.
Choosing your Connection to them
Click the student’s name then select Raise a Flag or Add Kudos..
Note that only instructors have all flags and kudos. Student services staff only have the General Concerns flag.
Progress surveys are released for a specific time period. If an instructor has a concern about a student or would like to add a kudo when a progress survey is not open, the instructor can search for the student to raise the flag or add the kudo.
Group flags and kudos can be raised as well. An example of a group kudo may be a “keep up the good work” kudo to a selected students who did a good job working together on a group project.

15. Raising a Flag - Instructor
Tracking item is the type of flag being raised.
A comment is optional
The student will see the comment.
A course contact must be selected.
This screen shot displays what the instructor sees when he/she raises a flag for a student.

16. Taking Attendance To take attendance in SAILS:
Click the Attendance tab
Click the Record Attendance icon
Select the correct course and date. The list of students in that course section will display.
The default attendance status is present. Change the attendance status to absent, excused, or tardy.
Once attendance is recorded click submit.
If all students are present, do not make any changes, but remember to submit. If it is not submitted, then the attendance is not recorded.

17. Clearing a Flag
“Clearing a Flag” refers to the action that someone at the college takes to follow up to a flag that was raised.
To clear the flag, search for the student by name, connection, or advanced search.
Click on the icon next to the flag name.
The Flag Menu will display. Click on Clear Flag

18. Clearing a Flag
To “clear the flag” the item needs to be opened and click the submit button. However, it is a good practice to enter a comment to explain why the flag is cleared.

19. Closing the Loop
When a comment is entered in the second text box for the instructor, this process is called “closing the loop.”
By entering a comment in the “close the loop” box, the instructor receives an notification. If the flag is simply cleared, the instructor is not notified. The instructor could look up the student to check on the status of the flag; however, an notification is a more direct means of letting an instructor know that their concern was followed up by the student and the appropriate staff in the college.

20. Student Perspective
Note this section should only include the notification slide unless a college is using Starfish Connect. Starfish Connect colleges can expand this section to include the additional features available to students in Connect.

21. Student Flag Email Notification
The student receives an from the instructor who raised the flag.
The instructions to receive help were developed by the college based on the college’s business process for the particular flag.
If the instructor adds a comment to the flag, the student will receive that comment in the notification.
If you removed the next slide (Student View in SAILS), just note that students can access SAILS through My VCCS; however, we are not emphasizing it because the student has limited functionality unless a college has Starfish Connect.
Recommend – replace the image on this slide with the notification from your school.

22. Student View in SAILS
This slide is optional and is provided for information only to for college implementation leads, student services staff, and instructors. Students will have access to SAILS through a link in My VCCS. If they click the link to SAILS, they will see a display similar to this screen shot. The emphasis for SAILS for students is for the notifications (next slide)
For this example, an instructor raised a flag and added a comment to the flag. This view shows how the student sees it in SAILS.
Recommend removing this slide for colleges not using Starfish Connect. The student view only has information that the student receives elsewhere ( notification for flags, schedule in SIS, course listing in Blackboard, etc.)
If the college has Starfish Connect, this section should be expanded to included the additional functionality that students have in Connect.
Starfish Connect colleges

23. College Business Process Review

24. Business Process for Flags Raised by Instructor
This diagram is the sample business process presented at the September 5, 2013 College Implementation Leads training. We recommend that you take one of the flags and create a flow chart or step-by-step description of the process that is followed once the flag is raised. Describe s generated, people contacted, offices/divisions involved, and steps that should be taken to “close the loop.” This flow chart was created in VISIO. If you would like a copy of the original flow chart to modify for a business process for your college, please with your request.

25. Support Having trouble?
Please contact your campus Implementation Team member
or Alison Thimblin at
Add information about your college’s help desk and college implementation lead to provide support.