1.0 Introduction to StudentCounsellor.com *

2.0 Using StudentCounsellor.com *

3.0 Accessing the Educator Resource Room *

4.0 Customer Service *

5.0 Technical Assistance *

Welcome, counsellors and teachers! StudentCounsellor.com is a unique online academic and career planning solution that provides your students with access to information on more than 1,000 careers, 12,000 postsecondary programs and more than 1,200 Canadian universities, colleges and vocational institutions. StudentCounsellor.com also contains information on more than 4,500 entry-level scholarships and bursaries, amounting to over $30 million in funding, including information on eligibility.

Your students can use StudentCounsellor.com to plan specific career and educational paths, which are customized to their interests and academic qualifications. This is achieved on StudentCounsellor.com by combining both career assessment and academic matching tools:

• Career Assessment – Students can take the Career Profiler personality test to identify potential careers paths and then explore StudentCounsellor.com’s detailed profiles of over 1,000 careers. Each career profile is also cross-referenced to the postsecondary programs that are required to pursue the student’s chosen career path.

• Academic Matching – Students can not only search the database of postsecondary institutions and programs to obtain detailed information, they are informed as to their likelihood of gaining admission by matching their high school courses and grades to the admission requirements of each selected program. A positive match is generated if the student has the correct high school courses and grades to gain admission to a specific program.

Students can access these features by using the following four wizards on StudentCounsellor.com:

Students can take the Career Profiler assessment and view career profiles, which match their interests. They can also go directly to the career profile database to search by work group or specific occupation. StudentCounsellor.com then connects the student’s career choices to appropriate postsecondary programs. This section of StudentCounsellor.com is especially useful for younger students or students who haven’t chosen a career path.

Students can use this wizard when they know what field of study they are interested in, but have yet to decide which school is most appropriate. StudentCounsellor.com allows students to select a field of study and region in Canada to generate a list of all schools that offer this type of academic program. Students can then determine their chances of admission to these programs. This section of StudentCounsellor.com is especially useful for older students who know what they want to study and are preparing to submit applications.

This wizard is useful for students who want to enroll at a particular university, college or vocational school, but are undecided on their academic path. StudentCounsellor.com identifies all the available programs at a chosen postsecondary institution. This section of StudentCounsellor.com is useful for all students and is best-used in combination with the Find a Career Wizard.

Students can use this wizard to search for awards based on search criteria such as province, institution, award amount, study interest area and eligibility criteria. Students are provided with detailed award information such as award amount, eligibility requirements and application method.

Each time your students use StudentCounsellor.com they will find more information valuable to their career and academic planning. This information can be saved using the StudentCounsellor.com portfolio functions.

Students can search as many career and academic paths that interests them and save their results to a personal career portfolio each time they use StudentCounsellor.com. The information on postsecondary programs, institutions and scholarships is researched and verified by StudentCounsellor.com staff and continually updated for accuracy.

The journal and planning features of StudentCounsellor.com include three

personalized portfolios:

• My Hotlist – allows students to save the careers, academic programs and postsecondary institutions they have searched for to a personalized list for ongoing use

• My Grades – allows students to save their actual and/or anticipated high school courses and grades to determine their eligibility for gaining acceptance to postsecondary programs

• My Planner – allows students to save the results from their Career Profiler personality test and maintain a personalized career and academic plan

Each of the wizards – Find a Career, Program, School or Scholarship – can be easily accessed from anywhere on the website, along with each of the portfolio functions.

While StudentCounsellor.com can be used by students on their own, it was designed to be fully integrated into career centres, classrooms, libraries and computer laboratories.

This orientation manual is intended to provide you and your colleagues with the

information needed to get StudentCounsellor.com implemented at your school.

The information has been divided into four key sections:

• Using StudentCounsellor.com, which provides you with an overview of the main sections of this career and academic counselling service

• Accessing the Educator Resource Room, which provides you with an overview of the online resources and tools available to you and your colleagues

• Customer Service, which provides you with information on the support material, training and ongoing help that is available to you from StudentCounsellor.com

• Technical Assistance, which provides you with the technical requirements and checklist to ensure StudentCounsellor.com operates smoothly at your school

StudentCounsellor.com is committed to helping you and your students find their career path. We welcome any feedback or suggestions to make StudentCounsellor.com a better service for you and your students.

• Students must take their school’s universal username and password and go to www.StudentCounsellor.com

• Students must type in their school’s universal username and password in the login fields provided.

They will then be logged on and may begin using StudentCounsellor.com. Logging on with the school’s universal username and password enables students to access most information on StudentCounsellor.com. They can immediately begin searching for schools, program, careers and scholarships at this point.

As soon as students choose to access any of the personalized features on StudentCounsellor.com (e.g. My Hotlist, My Grades, My Planner and Career Profiler), a registration form will appear prompting the student to create their own personal username and password. The username and password they create for themselves will be what they use to access StudentCounsellor.com from that point on.

Students must carefully fill out each field in the registration form. Students are encouraged to choose a username and password that they will remember. After filling out the form, students will click CONTINUE and they have now created their own personal username and password that they will use each time they visit StudentCounsellor.com.

If a student has forgotten their password, they can follow the link in the login box on the opening page of StudentCounsellor.com to retrieve it. Students can retrieve their passwords via email or online. To have their password sent to their email students will be asked to enter their email address and their username. Their password, along with their current username, will be emailed to them within minutes. To retrieve their password online students only need to enter their username and answer the verification question they filled out when registering. Their password, along with their current username, will immediately appear on their screen.

My Hotlist is the student’s home base and used for storing personal search results. It is where students save a record of the careers, schools and programs of their choice. To add information to their Hotlist, students click ADD to the left of the school and program of their choice under the ADD TO HOTLIST column on their wizard results page. Wizard results indicate if a specific school and program is already stored in the student’s Hotlist.

Students can add or delete any career, school or program in their Hotlist at any time. To delete a school, program and the possible careers, students go to their Hotlist and click REMOVE next to the school and program that they want to delete. Students can easily access their Hotlist on subsequent visits to StudentCounsellor.com by logging in and going to the My Hotlist screen.

In this section, students enter information about the courses and grades of their senior high school years. Grades are determined by which courses they plan to take or are taking. The achievement percentages may be actual or expected.

To move from field to field, the student clicks the desired field or uses their keyboard’s TAB button. They must not click their keyboard’s ENTER button. This removes them from My Grades. To move up and down the page, students use the scroll button on the right of their computer screen or the up and down arrows on their keyboard.

Students enter overall averages in terms of a percentage, actual or expected, for their senior high school grades.

Students then locate the courses they are taking or plan to take, and enter the marks that they have achieved or expect to achieve in senior high school. StudentCounsellor.com displays all the provincially recognized courses. Students can use the Other Course field to include another locally developed, optional or alternative course. All the information entered here is stored for ongoing use by the student during subsequent visits to StudentCounsellor.com. Anytime throughout the school year, students can make changes to their course selections and marks. These changes are automatically applied to the admission requirements of all schools and programs, saved in the student’s Hotlist.

Once the student has finished filling out their My Grades page they must click SAVE.

My Planner allows students to manage their personal information and is composed of five sections, which allow students to create and maintain education and career plans.

• My Career Profiler – Once students take the Career Profiler assessment, their results are automatically saved and accessible from this section
• Make a Plan – Students can use this section to develop and record their career goals and postsecondary plans
• Budget Builder – Students use this section to determine their income and expenses for their first year of postsecondary studies
• Resume Builder – Students use this section to create any number of resumes. Students are able to build, format, print and save their resumes
• Personal Information – This section allows students to manage their personal login information

Find a Career allows students to explore careers of interest to them from a career profile database of over 1, 000 careers. Find a Career then takes students to the next step by identifying the academic programs needed to pursue these careers.

• Career Profiler – This feature allows students to take a personality test and search careers that match their personality results

• Alphabetical/KeyWord Search – This feature allows students to locate a specific career by searching an alphabetical index or conducting a key word search

• Work Groups – This feature allows students to search for careers by work groups

• Apprenticeship Search – This feature allows students to search for careers that require apprenticeship training

Students who are unsure of their career or postsecondary education plan may wish to take the Career Profiler personality test.

Developed based on more than 15 years of research and field testing, Career Profiler is a Holland-type test based on the career choice theory most heavily researched and widely used by career counsellors. Originally available only in paper form, the test has been adapted for Internet use by students as young as Grade 7. It takes only twenty minutes to complete and students instantly find out which careers suit them, based on their personality types. The Career Profiler test has three steps to complete.

Students are asked to rate a wide range of school subjects.

Students rate a number of occupations.

Students are asked whether they like or dislike a number of work-related activities.

Career Profiler automatically gives students their score according to six personality types. Students can read the descriptions of the personality types for which they have scored the highest. The Career Profiler measures how similar the student is to six basic types of people, the higher the student’s score, the more their answers fit that personality type.

From their results, students can read about the different personality types and the work environments and occupations that best suit each personality type by clicking on each respective link. Students can click on a particular occupation to view Career Details and to link to programs leading to or relating to that particular occupation. Students can save their Career Profiler results in My Planner for future access.

The Alphabetical/KeyWord Search feature allows those students looking for a specific career to locate it using an A to Z index or by conducting a key word search. To search alphabetically, the student selects the letter that represents the first letter of the specific career they want to view. To search by key word, students enter the title of the career they are looking for. Once they locate a career to view, they can click on the career to view a career profile. Students can search for related postsecondary programs using the link provided in the Educational Paths section of the career profile.

The Work Groups feature allows students to search for careers by a work group.

Students select one work group. Click the selection to move forward to Step 2.

Students select a career that they would like to explore. A pop-up window will appear providing career details. Once they are finished exploring the career details they can click on the link provided in the Educational Paths section of the career profile to move forward to Step 3.

Students select the level of study that interests them. Students click their selection to move forward to Step 4.

Students can select the region in which they would like to study. Students click their selection to generate search results.

The Apprenticeship Search feature allows students to explore careers that require apprenticeship training using an A to Z index. To search alphabetically, the student selects the letter that represents the first letter of the specific career they want to view.

Regardless of how students choose to search for careers using Find a Career, they will be able to access a career profile for each career of interest. Details provided in career profiles include a description, typical tasks, interests and skills, salary information, future employment outlook, educational paths and more. To access detailed information on any postsecondary program relating to a specific career, students can click on the link provided in the Educational Paths section of a career profile.

The Find a Career wizard results page displays information about the schools and programs relating to the career the student has selected. By clicking the results in each column, students can access detailed information about each school and program, including their admission chances and possible scholarships.

The Find a Program wizard helps students identify a complete list of academic programs

for a specific study area of interest. Students search for these programs from a database of over 15,000 postsecondary programs (including French programs at the university level).

Students select the type of institution that interests them. If they select "University" or "College," the search also includes all "University-College" programs. Students make their selection to move to Step 2.

Students select an area of interest from those listed. They can repeat this step later and choose alternatives to generate different results for consideration. Students can only choose one area of interest at a time. Students make their selection to move to Step 3.

Students select one or more fields of study related to their chosen area of interest. They can choose multiple fields by holding down their keyboard’s CTRL button, while clicking the mouse on their selection(s). Students make their selection to move to Step 4.

Students select the province in which they would like to study.

Students select a region of the province in which they would like to study. They may choose one region or search the entire province. Click SEARCH to generate results.

The Find a Program wizard displays information about schools and programs that match, or nearly match, the student’s selections.

By clicking the links in each column found on the results page, students can access detailed information about schools, programs, careers and scholarships.

The Find a School wizard helps students identify the academic programs available at the school of their choice. Students can access school information and program listings for over 1, 200 Canadian universities, colleges and vocational schools (including bilingual institutions).

Students select the province in which they would like to study. Click the selection to move to Step 2.

Students select a region within the province in which they would like to study. Click the selection to move to Step 3.

Students select the level of study that interests them. Click the selection to move to Step 4.

Students select the school where they would like to study. Click the selection to move to Step 5.

Students select the faculty or department where they would like to study. Click SEARCH to generate search results.

The Find a School wizard displays information about the programs available that meet the student’s specified school and study interests. Students can immediately generate different results by clicking the New School search link near the top of the page. By clicking the results in each column, students can access detailed information about each school and program, including career profiles.

Regardless of which wizard the student uses, they will always be able to view their admission chances into programs listed in their search results. Students click the Chances of Admission column beside the programs of their choice. (Note: Students will not be able to view information in this column if they have not entered any grades in their My Grades page.)

StudentCounsellor.com calculates the student’s courses and grades against a selected program’s entrance requirements and qualifies their chances of admission as one of the following:

• Looking Good
• You’re Close
• Marks too Low

• Missing a Course or Courses
• View Special Requirements

You’re Close – The Chances of Admission bar graph is barely

In addition to detailed information on their admission chances, students also receive application deadlines and any other valuable school or program admission information.

The Find a Scholarship wizard allows students to search our database of over $30 million in awards based on various criteria. Students can search for awards by province, institution type, school, field of study, award amount and eligibility criteria.

Students can choose to select a specific province in which to search for awards or move to another step.

Students can choose to search for awards at a specific type of institution or move to another step.

Students can choose to search for awards at a specific school or move to another step.

Students can choose to search for awards offered within a specific field of study or move to another step.

Students can choose to search for awards of a certain dollar amount or move to another step.

Students can choose to search for awards based on one or more of the award criteria listed. Click SEARCH to generate results.

The Find a Scholarship wizard displays information about the awards available that meet the student’s specified criteria. Awards are listed in groups of 10 and students can continuously click NEXT at the bottom of the page to view their full list of matches. By clicking the award name, students can access detailed information about the award such as award amount, eligibility requirements and application method.

Here students can access a variety of career and education information sources including:

• Career Café – students can access articles on a number of different topics including education, careers, financial planning, health and nutrition, and lifestyle

• Cool Links – linking students to various free websites including government agencies, career information sites, CampusStarter.com and SchoolsinCanada.com

• Glossary – an alphabetically searchable list of terms students will frequently encounter as they research postsecondary and career opportunities

The Educator Resource Room is designed for professional counsellors, teachers and educators and accessible by them only. To use this feature click on the Educator Resources tab located in the Navigation Bar on any StudentCounsellor.com page. Please note that in order to see the Educator Resources tab you must be logged on with a specially designated counsellor/teacher username and password provided by StudentCounsellor.com.

This brings you to the opening page of the Educator Resource Room.

Orientation Manual – Here you can access the StudentCounsellor.com Orientation Manual in PDF or HTML format for printing and online reference.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – Here you can access conveniently categorized Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) which cover a range of topics. To view questions and answers, click on the category that is of interest to you. You can submit your questions to: service@studentcounsellor.com.

Other Resources – Other resources in the Orientation Materials section include a Trainer’s Guide and Curriculum Charts.

You can access 36 lesson plans and activities online to use throughout the school year with your students. StudentCounsellor.com allows for a variety of instructional situations, such as length of time and grade level or age of students. Lesson plans are divided into three distinct activities:

• research activity
• planning activity
• evaluation or decision-making activity

Activities are further categorized as "teacher-initiated" or "self-directed." The suggested grade level is also indicated. Each lesson plan presents an overview of the assignment and suggests outcomes, learning materials, evaluation procedures and step-by-step activities. To access a lesson plan, click LESSON PLANS. A list of the lesson plan titles will appear. To view, select and click each lesson plan. You can print a lesson plan by clicking PRINT. Lesson Plans are available in PDF or HTML formats.

The following teaching resources can also be accessed online for reference and printing:

• Find a Program Index – This index lists the area of interest to select when searching for a specific field of study

• Glossary – This provides you with definitions for terms that students will frequently encounter as they research their postsecondary education path

The Parent Brochure is an informational source for you to share with parents and can be easily printed online. This brochure is intended to provide parents with information on StudentCounsellor.com as a tool for their children and for themselves to make informed decisions about the future.

Here StudentCounsellor.com can post feature articles about students and counsellors who subscribe to StudentCounsellor.com. Please share with us your stories so that we can highlight your school on Inside Tracks. Email: service@studentcounsellor.com

StudentCounsellor.com generates tracking reports detailing valuable information about how your students use the service. For example, information provided includes the most popular programs, schools and careers searched by your students.

As a new subscriber to StudentCounsellor.com, you will receive a customer support package. Your customer support package contains your universal username and password along with login instructions. Your package also contains your personal, specially designated counsellor username and password, as well as StudentCounsellor.com posters for promoting the site to students and parents. Other valuable resources are available online and can be accessed from the Educator Resource Room.

StudentCounsellor.com’s online Help Index enables users to access context-sensitive Help from each screen. The StudentCounsellor.com Help Index provides detailed information on each specific section of StudentCounsellor.com. To access help information, click HELP in the Navigation Bar from the StudentCounsellor.com page where you require assistance.

StudentCounsellor.com offers training and orientation sessions to new subscribers. Comprehensive telephone orientations are available to all subscribers and in-person workshops are available where possible to groups of subscribers. Contact our Customer Service Department for all your training and orientation needs.

For any queries regarding StudentCounsellor.com, please call our Customer Service Department toll free at 1-888-617-7855, ext. 230, from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday (PST.)

Help Desk/Customer Service Department

StudentCounsellor.com

210-4475 Viewmont Avenue

Victoria, BC V8Z 6L8

Fax: (250) 708-0044

Email: service@studentcounsellor.com

StudentCounsellor.com is compatible with both PC and Macintosh platforms.

• Pentium Processor or better (Pentium 100 or better recommended)
• 32 MB RAM (64 MB or more recommended)
• Hard disk drive with a minimum of 50 MB free (70 MB or higher free space recommended)
• 56K modem (High speed internet recommended)
• 256 colour monitor

• Macintosh Power PC Processor (100 MHz or better recommended)
• 32 MB RAM (64 MB or more recommended)
• System 7.1 (System 8.1 recommended)
• Hard disk drive with a minimum of 50 MB free (70 MB or higher free space recommended)
• 56K modem (High speed internet recommended)
• 256 colour monitor

Certain factors will ensure that you are able to easily utilize StudentCounsellor.com. The following list provides you with necessary technical information on properly accessing our service.

• Minimum Browser Requirements - StudentCounsellor.com requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0, Netscape Navigator 4.0 or more advanced versions of either browser.

• Cookies Enabled - Some websites store information in a small text file, called a cookie, on your hard disk (source: Microsoft Corporation). Cookies must be enabled to ensure that specific searches that you have completed with Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator are stored for your next visit. Most computers are already set to accept cookies. If a computer is not set to accept cookies the StudentCounsellor.com site will automatically alert the user and provide instructions on how to enable cookies.

• JavaScript Enabled - Javascripting must be enabled to ensure that all StudentCounsellor.com pop-up windows can be viewed. Although a check is built into the website, some browsers may slip through.

How do I enable JavaScript in Internet Explorer 5.x or 6.x?

1. From the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
2. Select the Security tab.
3. Click on the Custom Level button.
4. Scroll down to the section called Scripting.
5. Verify that Active scripting is enabled. If it is not, then click the circle next to Enable. Click OK.

How do I enable JavaScript in Netscape?

1. Go to the Edit menu.
2. Select Preferences.
3. Click on Advanced.
4. Uncheck the box marked Enable JavaScript.
5. Click OK.

• Clearing Cache – Beware of Caching. Know that sometimes a page you've visited recently may be coming from your cache (or the cache on a proxy server within your school). To get the "fresh" version of the page, click on "Reload/Refresh" button in your tool bar. Caching can be very misleading; it may indicate a site is down when it is up.

Internet users may encounter errors as they use any online resources. The following list contains common errors that Internet users may encounter online as well as instructions on how to proceed.

• 430 Not found Unable to resolve name: www.example.com

If you receive this error be sure to check that you are typing in the URL correctly: www.studentcounsellor.com

• 425 HTTP Error Unable to connect with remote host

This means that you are unable to connect with the website. Try typing the URL (www.studentcounsellor.com) again or try reloading/refreshing. If that does not work, try typing in an URL for a well-known website (e.g., www.yahoo.com). Be sure to refresh, so you know it is not cached.

If you get the same message it is a problem with the local network in your area, or a router somewhere between you and the remote machine. In this case the local administrators or Internet service provider will correct the problem.

If you are able to get to another website, try www.studentcounsellor.com one more time, if it still does not work then contact our Help Desk.