Metamorphosis – Free training for teachers and office staff in MISTAR-Q

Metamorphosis Mistar training

The MISTAR consortium offers two self-paced training courses introducing new users to the tools commonly used by teachers and secretaries.  Offered at no cost to MISTAR districts via the Alludo learning platform, the Monarch “game” is a great fit for teachers new to our district.  Players complete a series of online lessons and submit evidence / screenshots in the Alludo app, tracking their progress.  They can select from a variety of modules to best meet their learning needs with the MISTAR teacher tools. Staff can get started on this training at any time, and there are SCECH hours available to those who complete the training.  

New this year is the Skipper “game” for those in office roles.  There are several modules including Building Blocks, Enrollment and Scheduling as well as more modules coming during the school year.

To get started with either Monarch or Skipper, please submit a service request asking for the specific training course(s) desired so that we can set you up and send you a customized link.  

MISTAR Release 3.9.1 Highlights

Mistar Q

The latest release of our student information system (SIS) MISTAR includes the following updates:

  1. Main Page Enrollment Widget: With this release, the procedure that is used to build the Main Page Enrollment Widget has been updated to include a count for ‘Other’ for students who are neither ‘M’ nor ‘F’. The new field is now visible in the Widget Editor.

MISTAR 1

  1. In Student Profile, when the phone icon in the banner is clicked (1) and ‘Show Student Contacts’ detail is displayed:
  • The Contact PIN now displays in the detail shown (2)
  • It is now possible to choose to also include email addresses for the Student, Counselor, or Advisor when clicking an email link for a Contact. This setting will be remembered when navigating from one student to another (3).

MISTAR 2

 

  1. The Student Pronoun field was added to the Roster tab–If a student has pronouns added to MISTAR they will appear in the student pronoun field in the Roster Tab.
  2. Mass Email will now check and warn if the user is attaching a file too large to upload.  

MISTAR 4

 

  1. Parents and Guardians can now retrieve their PIN and reset their Password from the login page of Parent Connection:

MISTAR 5

Middle School Teachers: Transition from Quarter 1 to Quarter 2 in Canvas reflected by grading periods

summary of grading period information

As of November 10th, now that Quarter 1 grades have been turned in at the secondary level, Grading Periods will be in place in Canvas to reflect the closing of Q1 grades in MiStar. Students will have view-only access to first quarter course content and will be unable to submit work for assignments associated with the first quarter (Q1) since it is not the current grading period. While teachers can edit their previous term’s course content, they cannot make further adjustments in the feedback or grading of any non-current grading period submissions.

When grading periods are enabled, the due date of an assignment will determine the grading period within which the assignment will appear in the Gradebook. If no due date is set, the assignment defaults to the last (current) grading period available for the course. Therefore, if there is a quiz or assignment that a student must still complete from a past quarter, you might make a copy of that quiz/assignment, give it a due date in the current grading period, and assign it just to the few students that need it. In that case, grade passback to MiStar should be avoided and, should you want it reflected in MISTAR manually enter the grade for those students in the Q1 quiz or assignment instead (note, even if this is done, the student’s viewable-as-of November 12th report card, won’t reflect any change).

Importantly, while students will still find their definitive grades in MISTAR, this grade period demarcation will also result in a more accurate current grade average, as far as what Canvas reflects, since only the current marking period will be presented.

Please find quick overview directions and screenshots in this document.

Please also revisit this blog post from last November on how to extend access for students to a Canvas course past the term end date based on an interest in allowing students an additional time period to access course content or to interact with and submit coursework.

*Please note elementary and high school teachers — it is very conceivable that we will similarly update Canvas for courses that span grading periods too, in the coming weeks, to allow for term filtering.

Submit a ticket for more support.

New Nightly MiStar/Canvas Grade Auto-Syncing

Steps for setting up grade sync each night

If you would like your Canvas grades to automatically sync with your MiStar gradebook each night, that is now possible with just a few clicks.

  1. Make sure Grade Sync is enabled under Settings/Navigation
Showing grade sync enabled
Students do not have access to this page.

2. Once enabled and saved, you can navigate to the Grade Sync from the Course Navigation menu and toggle the option on.

Steps for setting up grade sync each night

If you need more information about the necessary set up for your Canvas Grades to sync with MiStar, take a look at the resources on the P-CCS Tech website.

 

 

Two-factor authentication now required for MISTAR access

2FA Mistar

As shared in an earlier newsletter posting, due to enhanced cybersecurity insurance requirements in response to the dramatic rise in cyber-attacks, districts now have to ensure that staff pass two-factor authentication to gain access to personally identifiable data (PII), including student data, in two MISTAR applications (Q and Student Scan).

  • Upon logging in, each staff user will be required to retrieve and enter a system generated six-digit number.
  • The number will be emailed to their email address and will come from noreply@resa.net with subject MISTAR-Q Login Code.
  • If logging into the mobile app and notifications for the app are activated on the device, the number may also be received via push notification.
  • Staff will need to authenticate only once per day (as opposed to each login throughout the day) using the same browser and same device. Each browser or device will require authentication each day access is attempted.
  • Each initial login attempt will generate an email of a different six (6) digit code and the most recently emailed code will be the only code that will work to successfully log in.

2FA for MISTAR

NOTE: since the Student Connection and Parent Connection applications accessed by our students and parents ARE NOT required to have two factor authentication at this time, our district has decided to NOT MAKE that a requirement for successful login for those account holders.

Two-Factor Authentication (for staff) to access MISTAR, goes into effect August 27, 2021

2FA Mistar

Due to enhanced cybersecurity insurance requirements in response to the dramatic rise in cyber-attacks, districts must ensure that staff pass two-factor authentication to gain access to personally identifiable data (PII), including student data within MISTAR. Districts, including ours, are required to enable two-factor authentication for staff accessible applications (Q and Student Scan) by August 27, 2021.

NOTE: The Student Connection and Parent Connection applications accessed by students and parents ARE NOT required to be enabled at this time.

  • Upon logging in, each staff user will be required to retrieve and enter a system generated six-digit number.
  • The number will be emailed to their email address and will come from each user’s own email address.
  • If logging into the mobile app and notifications for the app are activated on the device, the number may also be received via push notification.
  • Staff will need to authenticate only once per day (as opposed to each login throughout the day) using the same browser and same device. Each browser or device will require authentication each day access is attempted.

2FA for MISTAR

MISTAR landing page is changing

new MISTAR landing page

On Monday, April 19th, the district’s landing page for MISTAR-Q will be updated. WayneRESA staff are also working on a mobile version which will direct to mobile apps, to be installed at a later date.

The current landing page that has been around for quite a while looks like this:
Old landing page
The new landing Page looks like this:
new MISTAR landing page

MISTAR-Q Announcement: New Login Screen Coming Soon

New MISTAR logo

For all staff who use MISTAR-Q you will soon see a new login screen with an updated styling and logo. NOTE: A user’s credentials WILL NOT CHANGE with the new login screen. 

New login screen with District Announcement sample.

New MISTAR logo

Once a user logs in, there are more selections if more than one track is available to the staff:

Track selection

The user can select the radio button of Current Year tracks or All tracks.  This is a very helpful feature for those staff, like secretaries and counselors, who have tracks open in both the current and next year.