I N T RO D U C T I O N
Early Alert is a homegrown application attached to the Web Grading product. It is primarily a retention and communication tool, enabling instructors to responsively provide their students feedback concerning their in-class performance or lack thereof. Situations such as excessive absences or unsatisfactory participation can be addressed by the instructor. Instructors also have the option of keeping private notes about individuals that display in the student history table located at the bottom of the Early Alert page.
E A R LY A L E RT S C R E E N
On the class roster, click Student’s ID to display the following page:
This is the Early Alert screen, and it holds many options that the instructor may use to contact their students about academic problems. Similar to the Class Roster, the Early Alert screen also displays course information and the student’s email address.
Figure 2-1
Numbers of Absences – a drop down menu, select the number of days a student has not attended a class.
Alerts – six radio buttons that represent specific academic problems:
o Unsatisfactory Attendance – Student has missed an excessive amount of
classes.
o Poor Academic Performance – Student has failed to learn the necessary skills
to pass the course.
o Both Unsat. Attendance and Poor Performance – Student has missed an
excessive number of classes as well as performed poorly at learning the necessary skills.
o In Danger of Failing – Student may fail the course if action is not taken
immediately.
o Other Problems – other problems that do not apply to the ones listed, these
problems can be posted in the Instructors Notes section.
o Unsatisfactory Participation – Student does not participate in discussions or
put forth effort in a team environment.
Instructor & Student Notes – Sections where the instructor may post private notes to themselves or email notes to the Student.
Contact number – Textbox where an instructor may enter a contact number.
Update Notes – This button updates all changes on the Early Alert form, and saves them into a row in the Current Student History Table.
Email & Print Letter – prints/emails a pre-written letter for/to the student.
Current Student History Table – Table that keeps track of all updates made to that student’s Early Alert page. This bar also displays the date the updates were made.
P E P S I N F O R M A T I O N
PEPS, is the Productivity Environment Preference Survey and is the tool we use to assess students’ personal learning styles. This survey results can be viewed by instructors if their students have completed the survey, currently the following viewing options exist:
Individual PEPS – a link labeled “Individual PEPS” will appear on the Early Alert form of a student that has completed the survey. Click on the link to show a bar graph of the student’s PEPS results. (See Appendix C, “Viewing Individual PEPS”)
PEPS Class Summary – this button is located on the Class Roster page, in the class roster buttons. (See Appendix C, “Viewing PEPS Class Summary”)
Click the button to open an Excel spreadsheet that lists the students that have completed the PEPS and also if the results were above 60 or below 40. (See Appendix C, “Interpretations of PEPS Report”).
U S I N G E A R LY A L E RT
If the following screen appears, then no record for that student can be found. Information is downloaded nightly, and there is a twenty-four hour delay on having it display properly.
It is possible that the data for that student has not been loaded to the server yet, but over the course of the next twenty-four hours it should display correctly.
NUMBER OF ABSENCES
Select the number of absences from a drop down menu.
Figure 2-2
No Record Found Screen.
Figure 2-3
An instructor will click the drop down arrow, and a list will appear. The Description section is a good area to store the total amount of days absent.
After the absence has been selected, press the update notes button, and the number of absences will be saved. Return to that student’s Early Alert screen, now in the bottom table it will show the updated row containing the # of Absences.
ALERT RADIO BUTTONS
These six radio buttons identify specific problems that the instructor should notify students about. The “Other Problems” option should be selected if none of the other situations are applicable. The letter and email corresponding to this option will indicate a generic problem in this particular class.
Select the problem and press the Update Notes button. Only one problem can be selected at a time.
Figure 2-4
Current Student History Table
Figure 2-5
Return to the student’s Early Alert page, and the update changes are displayed in the current student history table.
EARLY ALERT DESCRIPTION
The text area to the left is where the instructor may write a description why the student has received an Early Alert.
Figure 2-6
Selecting a problem
Figure 2-7
Only the instructor has the ability to read this description. They are displayed in the Current Student History table in the column labeled “Description”.
An example of making use of this area is to put some test data in the instructor notes.
Figure 2-8
Early Alert Description text box.
Figure 2-9
When the Early Alert page is accessed again, the information is retrieved from the database and displayed on the web page.
STUDENT NOTES
If the instructor emails the notes then the student will be able to view them. If a student has not provided an email address the button will be disabled.
Student notes are not stored with Early Alert data. If the Student Notes section contains characters and the Update Notes button is pressed, then all the data in Student Notes is not saved.
Once the “E-mail Student Notes” button is pressed the page will return to the class roster. A message will be posted along the top of the page stating that the email was sent.
Figure 2-10
A saved Description
Figure 2-11
EMAILING A LETTER
Clicking on the “Email Letter” button will send the student a prepared email. The letter is addressed from the instructor’s network email address. The body of the letter contains paragraphs describing that the student is having trouble in the course.
The instructor may also receive a copy of the email if the checkbox labeled “Email Instructor a copy of email” is checked at the time of pressing the email letter button.
Figure 2-12
Confirms that an email was sent
Figure 2-13
Once the email is sent the page redirects to a screen with a confirmation message.
PRINTING A LETTER
Clicking the Print Letter button brings up a pre-written Microsoft Word document.
The document is addressed from the instructor, and already contains the instructor’s name and student contact information. An instructor contact number is also listed if the instructor provided one on the Early Alert form.
Figure 2-14
Email copy to instructor checkbox
Figure 2-15
The body of the letter contains paragraphs informing the student of problems that the instructor would like to help resolve. The instructor must print out a copy of the letter for the student, and mail it to the student’s home address.
INDIVIDUAL PEPS REPORT
An Individual PEPs Report link will appear on the early alert screen for all students who have taken the PEPs survey.
Figure 2-18
Individual PEPs Link
The “Individual PEPs” link will generate an electronic version of the student’s individual report as shown below in figure 2-19.
Figure 2-16
Textbox where contact number is entered
Figure 2-17
Figure 2-19
Individual PEPs Report
The “Export to Excel” button will create a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet than can be either viewed in the browser or downloaded to you local system. Pressing this button will generate the following dialog box to appear in Internet Explorer:
Figure 2-20
