ARTICLE INTENDED FOR:

Faculty and staff Starfish users

INTRODUCTION:

This document addresses how faculty and staff are granted access to Starfish. By logging in to Starfish, users are accepting the user policies and expectations to (a) protect the privacy of student records and (b) maintain standards of accurate and ethical record-keeping.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS:

STEP 1: Complete FERPA Training Module

All faculty and staff who work with students or their educational records should have completed Penn State’s FERPA Tutorial and Quiz as part of their hiring process after accepting employment at Penn State.

1. Complete Penn State’s FERPA Tutorial and Quiz.

• • If you have not completed the FERPA tutorial and quiz, the course can be found in Penn State's Learning Resource Network (LRN). Once in the LRN, you will need to log in and authenticate with your Penn State Account to take the course.
  • If you are unsure whether you have completed the FERPA tutorial and quiz, check your LRN transcript to verify that this step has been completed.
    • Your transcript can be found under the “Learning” menu item of the LRN. Change “Filter By Training Status” to “All” to ensure you are seeing older as well as more recent trainings. 
    • Note: If the FERPA tutorial was completed prior to the implementation of the LRN in 2015, it may not be noted in your transcript.

STEP 2: Get Access to Starfish

1. For automatically assigned roles (e.g., Assigned Adviser, Instructor, TA, Student), Starfish roles are derived from information in the system of record and updated nightly.

1. 1. Starfish roles are derived from information in:

1. • • LionPATH for all students and faculty and staff working with undergraduate students
     • The Graduate Program Management System (GPMS) for faculty and staff in The Graduate School

1. 2. Roles are both assigned and removed automatically based on information from these systems of record.
   3. If you do not have access to an automatically assigned role in Starfish and believe you should, please contact the records person for your area, college, or campus.

1. 1. 1. Your records person must add you to the appropriate course, roster, or role in the system of record (e.g., LionPATH, GPMS).
      2. You will then be automatically assigned a role in Starfish during the next nightly update (usually within 24 hours).

2. For undergraduate student employee roles, your supervisor must ensure you complete FERPA, train you on your responsibilities, and provide you access to a “Peer” version of the Starfish role needed for your work.
3. For locally delegated roles, the Starfish Role Manager for your area, college, or campus must assign roles in the SRM. If you are unsure of whom to contact, a Starfish Contact Network representative can direct you to the appropriate person.

1. 1. Log in to Starfish Role Management (SRM) to view all Starfish roles.
      1. Go to Starfish Role Management (SRM) at srm.psu.edu.
      2. Click the “Log In” button on the “Welcome to Starfish Role Management” screen. It may be necessary to authenticate with your Penn State Account. 
   2. Your current Starfish roles will display at the top of the page. Scroll down to browse all categories, search for a specific role, or click on a Starfish role category to skip to a section.

   

   3. Users may have multiple Starfish roles and will inherit the highest-level privileges among the roles.
   4. Users should use the fewest number of roles needed for the fulfillment of their job responsibilities.

4. If your job responsibilities do not match a currently configured role, please contact the Starfish Administrator for guidance. 

STEP 3: Access and Use Starfish

Once you have a Starfish role, you can use the following resources to help you get started with Starfish:

1. Consult these Knowledge Base resources to learn how to log in and the basics of working with Starfish.
2. Review other self-help resources on the Starfish Info website, under quick-start guides for academic advisers, instructors and TAs, and students, as well as more detailed how-to guides.

STEP 4: Remove Starfish Role

If a Starfish role is no longer relevant to the work you do, your manager should remove you from the role. To remove a Starfish role, follow the same process used to add that role:

1. If you were automatically assigned a role, you will be taken out of that role automatically when you no longer meet the role criteria in the system of record (i.e., you no longer have any students on your LionPATH roster, you change job titles in the GPMS, or you are no longer an active student in LionPATH).
   • Note: If there are any students remaining on your LionPATH roster, you will remain in the Starfish role until the student(s) are reassigned or removed from your roster in LionPATH, even if you no longer work in this role. Please contact your records person to have your roster reassigned.
2. If you were locally delegated a role or requested the role via an older process, you will be removed by the Role Manager responsible for the area, college, or campus. If you are unsure of whom to contact, a Starfish Contact Network representative can direct you to the appropriate person. There are also audits of these roles in which users who should no longer have access to the role are removed.

Note: Users who leave Penn State will lose access to Starfish automatically, according to the technology deprovisioning process.

LINKS:

1. • Starfish: User Policies and Expectations
   • Starfish: Log In to Starfish
   • Starfish: Basics of Working with Starfish
   • Starfish: Assign Roles to Users in Starfish Using Starfish Role Management (SRM)
   • How-To Guides for Faculty/Staff
   • All Starfish Roles