Navigate Project Updates

The Navigate Implementation team continues its student-centered work focused on increased student engagement within the Navigate platform. Recent updates regarding the Navigate Implementation are as follows:

• As of Oct. 1, all current students have transitioned to utilizing Navigate for scheduling appointments with their assigned advisor.
• All new, transfer and readmit students are also being introduced to the Navigate platform upon their entry into the College.
• The steps to enroll have been updated to align with student introduction to Navigate.
• The Academic Planning Team continues its work to build additional Educational Pathways with a focus on course sequencing and introducing that “light your fire” course in the student’s first term.
• The student login feature and student sign-in process to navigate has been redesigned and simplified.
• Student focus-group feedback was received on the Academic Planner component. Revisions and improvements were initiated based on the student feedback provided.
• 10 members of the Navigate Implementation team will attend the Annual Navigate Connected conference this week where they will learn strategies and best practices that support student momentum and student success.
• To date, there have been 2,704 students actively engaged within the Navigate platform, and 939 students have completed the Major Explorer. There have also been 16,165 unique Intake Survey responses completed thus far.  

Early Alert Program

As we expand our implementation of the Navigate platform, we invite faculty to take part in the next phase of the College’s Early Alert program to provide an additional layer of support for their students. The purpose of Early Alert is to identify students who may be facing challenges and quickly conduct outreach to them. The Early Alert program does not replace the important conversations between faculty and their students; it can, however, serve as a supplemental tool to augment those conversations and support students. The Early Alert tool allows you to easily give feedback to students via an electronic progress survey. Raising an alert within the Navigate system triggers an automated email to the student’s College email address and notifies an academic success coach (or the student’s assigned advisor), who then conducts additional outreach to that student via text messaging and phone calls. The Early Alert program provides a secondary safety net and is designed to help make students aware of the support resources available to aid in their academic success. Thus, we invite faculty to consider implementing it in their Spring 2022 courses. If you are interested in participating in the next phase of the Early Alert program, please email Dr. Lisa Valentino by Dec. 15. You will then receive an invitation to a workshop on how to use the Navigate tool for Early Alert that will be held Jan. 7.

For additional information regarding Navigate implementation or to inquire about how you can get involved, please contact Navigate Program Owners Dr. Valentino, Pilar Acosta, or Dr. Geoff Fortunato. More information and resources are also available on the Navigate Implementation Plan webpage. 

Members of the Navigate Implementation Team have been hard at work as the pilot continues this fall. Here's the latest:

Fall Implementation

For the fall implementation, all students enrolled in the First Year Experience course, all students enrolled in the courses taught by our five faculty champions, as well as all students who have faculty who worked in the Starfish platform, will be engaged through the progress survey/early alert Navigate feature. This expands our pilot to 77 faculty members and 5,659 students, with more to be added from the First Year Experience course in the 12W and B sessions. Additional care units coming on board for the fall are the Career Development Center, Academic Success Center and student success specialists. Spring care units include Veteran Student Services, Disability Support Services and Student Life. 

Navigate at Convocation

Members of the Navigate Implementation Team will host a panel-led discussion at Convocation Sept. 28. This session with provide information pertaining to the implementation of Navigate. Attendees will be given an overview of the comprehensive technology that brings together faculty advisors, administrators, staff and students in a coordinated care network. This discussion will share the implementation timeline, project updates and information on how Navigate plays an important role in the College’s strategic plan as well as the benefits of utilizing Navigate to improve student engagement and connection with members of the college community.

Navigate Student Site and Communication Plan

The Navigate Student site has been updated to include resources, events, and to-do’s, and new communication informational pieces, including a faculty/staff flyer, student flyer and social media posts to be shared at a later date, have also been developed for the fall. We have broadened the communication plan based on recent student feedback.

Team Updates

Insights & Analytics has completed its work and has sent the final document to EAB. Data and analytics training was also held with EAB. 

Navigate Tech Lead Pilar Acosta and the Technical Team are aiming to bring one-click registration live for Spring Term, but more testing and refinement are needed. 

Academic Planning is on track as designed and making great progress. 

Revisions and Progress

Survey responses and feedback from advisors, faculty members and students were obtained from our summer pilot. Revisions are underway based on the data received. All objectives are up to date on the Navigate project management plan. 

Progress on the Navigate project continues with several objectives due for completion this spring:

1. Complete initial overview training with users involved in pilot implementation.
2. Complete setups and verifications for alerts, messages, calendars and other features used during pilot implementation.
3. Identify and contact students and faculty involved in the initial pilot (estimated at 440 students).
4. Begin alerts, contacts and interactions between students, advisors and faculty for the targeted pilot group.
5. Use Navigate to facilitate the Summer Term enrollment campaign for students in the pilot.
6. Complete plans for a systematic approach to load students' academic plans to further utilize additional Navigate features throughout 2021.
7. Assess the effectiveness of pilot rollout with feedback from students, advisors and faculty to further refine the system for ongoing expansion throughout 2021.

Navigate is moving forward as we prepare a pilot launch of the system in Spring 2021 with a group of approximately 500 students, five faculty, and supporting advisors and staff. Here is the project status as of Dec. 1, 2020. 

• Application administrators are configuring the system for the Spring pilot, loading and verifying student information, schedules and messages.
• The Student Intake Survey, which gathers information on students’ needs and interests, is completed and being loaded into Navigate. 
• On the technical side, student and course-level data from PeopleSoft is loaded into Navigate; validators are completing verifications and data integrity.
• Training site configurations and setups are being reviewed.
• Project administrators completed Navigate Intensive Training, which equips them with tools to configure Care Units in Navigate and streamline the appointment scheduling experience for students and staff.
• Members of the Navigate Implementation Team are meeting with representatives from Broward College, which implemented Navigate in 2018. We hope to learn from Broward's experience to streamline and facilitate Seminole State's implementation. 
• The team is beginning the process to build our Predictive Analytic Model with historical institutional data.

Sub-teams and committees are meeting to revise and change internal processes as needed. Next steps include building Appointment Campaigns for Academic Advising and Counseling, completing Educational Pathway reviews and data loads, developing the training timeline for system users, and preparing for the pilot launch in January 2021.

The Navigate project is moving forward as we prepare to launch the system in Spring 2021 with a pilot group of students, faculty, advisors and staff. Here is the project status as of Nov. 4, 2020. 

• Advising Care Units are being built.
• Application administrators are configuring the system for the spring pilot.
• The initial submission of the Student Intake Survey, which will provide vital information on students’ needs and interests so we can better serve them from admission through graduation, has been completed. 
• On the technical side, the PeopleSoft integration with Navigate is being validated and tested.
• The training site configurations and set-ups are being reviewed.
• Some of the project administrators have begun the four-session Navigate Intensive Program, which will equip them with the tools to configure Care Units in Navigate and streamline the appointment scheduling experience for students and staff.  

Sub-teams and committees are meeting to revise and change internal processes as needed. Among our next steps will be building/creating the Appointment Campaigns for Academic Advising and Counseling, completing the Educational Pathway review/curriculum updates, and developing the training timeline for end users.

You can also learn more about Navigate and its many benefits in the latest episode of the Seminole State Says podcast, which features Drs. Geoff Fortunato and Mark Morgan, program owners for the Navigate project. Listen now.