Advising Units use of iAdvise

Advising units can take advantage of the following capabilities of iAdvise to perform the day-to-day functions of advising and student records management:

• Calendar and Appointment Management
  • The system is capable of handling both individual appointments and group sessions. Depending on the role of the individual staff member, it can manage both standard advising appointments or peer mentoring/coaching/tutoring sessions.
    • Online Scheduling
      • Each individual advisor can manage their own calendar and provide authorization for professional and student staff to manage their calendar;
      • Students can schedule online through the system as long as the advisor with whom they would like to schedule has provided permission to do so;
      • Advisors can also designate time for drop-in’s to provide for the option for students to interact without an appointment;
    • Group/Event Scheduling
      • In addition to individual advising appointments, iAdvise is capable of managing group sessions or events;
      • Group sessions can be designed for registration before the event.
      • Events are designed for after an event, where registration is entered post interaction as an event that happened in the past.
• Virtual Lobby (Kiosk)
  • Units can employ a virtual lobby with kiosk-ing for students to check in for their appointment or drop-in’s. Kiosks can be used for study rooms, tutoring, and student-based activities beyond appointments.
    • Units can have multiple functions/appointment types (e.g. advising and tutoring) in one kiosk simultaneously;
    • Units have more than one kiosk associated to their unit and run them simultaneously in different locations;
• Document Upload
  • iAdvise supports document upload to student records. Documents will need to be password secured if restricted to the unit; however, password protection does allow for both documents that can be shared across units and restricted viewing documents to be uploaded.
• Messaging
  • Users can email students through the system, and students can message those associated to them through the system.
• Notes
  • iAdvise has multiple areas where notes can be entered. They can be entered as outcomes in an appointment or as standalone notes. The iAdvise Functional Working Group has worked with the project team to organize two different note types in standalone notes – a shared note and a unit-based note restricted to unit-level viewing.
    • The General Shared Note is a note that is shared across units and viewable by professional staff members (advisors, administrators) who have a relationship to the student.
    • The unit-based note is shared only within the unit. The General Shared Note is considered the default note type.

iAdvise provides varied ways to promote positive action for student success and provide opportunities for collaborative action to assist students in their success.

• iAdvise’s features are:
  • Flags – Flags are to notify users of an issue.
  • To Do’s – To Do’s are action items.
  • Referrals – Referrals are the transfer of an issue to a unit.
  • Success Plans – Success Plans provide an ability to create an overall action plan for success.
  • Kudos – Kudos provide positive reinforcement and validation of optimal student behaviors.

• The features of iAdvise are called “Tracking Items” in Starfish.
• Features in iAdvise can be accessed in a range of menus but the primary navigation starts in the Student Menus – My Students and Tracking.
• One of the key aspects of iAdvise is the opportunity to close the loop when taking advantage of using these features.
  • A user can communicate with another user associated to the student in assigning themselves a tracking item or assigning a tracking item to another user.
  • An advising user can communicate with the faculty member who raised a flag when closing the flag thus providing the faculty member with an understanding of the results of the flag being raised.
  • When accepting a referral, the staff member can communicate to the user who made the referral to close the loop.