Starfish is a student success system that allows the University to connect you with the tools and resources that you might need in order to be successful. The system will allow you to easily schedule appointments with your professors and advisor, and allow them to identify and help at-risk students, remind you of non-classroom related tasks that you need to complete, and commend you for a job well done.
You can access the Starfish system in one of two ways: from the main navigation menu on the Desire2Learn homepage or from the Student Information menu within WebAdvisor. The first time that you enter the Starfish system, please update your personal profile including a picture so that faculty and staff can easily recognize you. To access your profile, simply click on your hyperlinked name in the upper right hand corner of the Starfish window. When you are entering your profile information, please keep in mind that anyone you make an appointment with in Starfish will be able to access your profile information. We recommend that you change your default time zone to Mountain time and determine the frequency of emails that works the best for you. After you finish updating your profile, select either of the two Save buttons. (Callout: The Nevermind buttons will discard any information that you entered without saving it.)
After you have finished updating your profile, please select the hyperlink for the Home screen which will provide you with access your Starfish dashboard. This screen shows you a list of all of your courses as well as a list of your professors. The drop-down menus allow you to filter these different sections of the system.
If you want to schedule an appointment with one of your professors, simply locate that professor in the My Success Network section of the screen and then select the See available appointments link under that professor’s name. You will then have the option of viewing that professor’s availability either by the day or the week. When you locate an available time that works for your schedule, click the sign up link and fill out the components of the appointment request window. The appointment will automatically show up on your Starfish calendar and your professor’s calendar. Notice that when you return to your Home screen, the appointment that you just created appears in the appointments section of the screen.
The other area of the Home screen is the Success Network. This area contains a listing of some of the services and resources that are available to you here at Black Hills State. Since Starfish is a Statewide system, the resources at the other State Universities will appear here as well.