RU-N4Success for professors – Navigate Student

RU-N4Success/Navigate is used by professors, academic advisors, and other staff members to support the success of students. Professors use RU-N4Success to submit feedback about student progress (“Progress Reports”). Professor feedback is key to student success!

Feedback allows students to reflect on their performance and take timely and effective action to succeed in classes.
- Students in Math courses who received a Progress Report (PR) recommending tutoring were twice as likely to get tutoring compared with students who did not get a PR (data from Spring 2022, Fall 2022, and Spring 2023).
Positive feedback can personalize the learning experience, giving students confidence that they are seen and heard.
Professor comments help academic advisors and student support professionals develop a picture of each student’s overall performance and know when to offer assistance (e.g. when a student has concerns noted across several courses).

Professors teaching undergraduate courses will receive an email requesting Progress Reports according to the following schedule:

Early alerts – during the 4th week of each fall and spring semester
Mid-semester – during the 8th week of each semester, and halfway through Summer Session courses

Professors can send feedback about students at any time. See a user guide for ‘ad hoc’ Progress Reports, and see more Information about Progress Reports in the FAQs below.

Information in RU-N4Success is protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). Read about FERPA at Rutgers.

Progress Report FAQs:

Faculty-student interaction is key to student success! Progress Reports offer faculty an opportunity to give students positive feedback or send a message with concern about their performance early and mid-way through the semester, giving students time to take action to improve their academic outcomes. Professors may issue progress reports for students using pre-set feedback reasons, or they can indicate ‘For Advisor Attention’ and add comments in an open-text response box. Students will NOT see any comments entered for any of the concern reasons. Examples of feedback messages include:

Your performance in this class is improving. I’m sending this note to encourage you to keep up the good work! If you’d like to discuss the coursework or your interests, please see the course syllabus for times I’m available.

Lack of performance such as not logging into the course, low test or assignment grade, unprepared for class, or at risk of course failure – Students are encouraged to contact their professor as soon as possible using the contact information in the course syllabus.

Needs Tutoring – you will be able to select Math, Writing, or Other STEM. Students are encouraged to seek tutoring, and given the appointment scheduling link in RU-N4Success and the Navigate-Student app. Tutoring office directors and coordinators are alerted to your referral.

For Advisor Attention – this option is for professors to send concerns to the advisor(s). Students will not receive an email and will not see the comments.

Professors are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to provide students with information about their academic progress to date, and to make recommendations for action. This is especially important for students early in their undergraduate career.

No, you can submit feedback only for those students you are concerned about, or to whom you want to send a positive message.

If there is more than one professor for a course, each professor will get a Progress Report request. Only one person needs to complete the report, so be sure to coordinate your response with your teaching partner(s).

The Progress Report feature in RU-N4Success includes 2 positive feedback reasons (‘improved performance’ and ‘very good performance’).

If you’d like to send additional messages of encouragement and affirmation you can do so by:

logging into RU-N4Success,
selecting the student(s) from the class lists,
and choosing ‘Send a Message’ from the Actions drop-down menu. Emails will be sent to each student’s ScarletMail address.

A brief email recognizing something specific that a student has said or done can be an important boost of energy or motivation, and a very powerful demonstration of care!

When you report a concern or select a positive feedback reason for a student, an email is sent to their ScarletMail address. Depending on the feedback reason, notification will go to the appropriate tutoring coordinator or director or the students’ academic advisor(s). See a list of all PR feedback reasons and messages to students for details about the wording of emails to students, and which staff members get notified. Contact your Associate or Assistant Dean if you have questions.

The PR process operates within the RU-N4Success platform and may be initiated by a school Dean or by a professor. There are two ways to issue a Progress Report:

In a campus-wide ‘campaign‘, the Associate/Assistant Dean from a school emails a Progress Report link to professors. Professors open the link, see a list of students, and respond as needed.
Professors can login and provide feedback on an ad-hoc basis any time during the semester or term.

There are two reasons why a student may not appear on the Progress Report roster. Professors are strongly encouraged to reach out to a student directly if there is a concern but the student is not listed.

Student has dropped the course
Student is not enrolled at Rutgers – Newark. Students enrolled at Camden and New Brunswick do not have access to RU-N4Success and will not appear on the Progress Reporting roster, even if they are taking a course from a Newark school.

In a few instances, course titles, particularly courses with Subtitles, may be listed incorrectly in RU-N4Success. This happens if the course number was used for a different course title in an earlier term. Even with an incorrect course title appearing in the Progress Report, the roster and course number are correct and you may submit progress report feedback per instructions.

Progress Reports have replaced the Warning Grade system (in REGIS) for undergraduate students. Progress Reports are not just limited to mid-term warnings, which may be too late for some students who are falling far behind. Progress Reports allow professors to give more detailed feedback and automatically send emails to students, something the Warning Grade system did not do.