Student Overview

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Student Overview NASA One Stop Shopping
Initiative (OSSI) Student On-Line Application for
Recruiting Interns, Fellows, and Scholars System
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Student Tutorials

• Purpose This version of the student tutorial in
  Microsoft PowerPoint is recommended for dial-up
  Internet Connections. It contains the same
  information as the two student tutorial videos in
  OSSI
• Student Tutorial Registration, Profile, and
  Application
• Student Tutorial Searching For and Applying to
  Opportunities

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Tutorial 1
Registration, Profile,and Application
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OSSI Homepage
This is the OSSI homepage for users that have not
yet registered. This page contains information
about the OSSI system, instructions for new
students, and important dates to remember. If
this is your first time using the site, click on
first time users register button to register for
an account. If you are a returning user, click
on the current student user login button.
These links provide basic eligibility for student
applications such as internships, fellowships,
and scholarships.
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Registration
The registration page allows you to enter in
contact and account information. Youll notice
that some of the fields have a help icon beside
them. Clicking on the icon will give you more
information about that specific field. To
begin, enter your first and last name. It should
be noted that U.S. citizenship is a requirement
to apply for opportunities in OSSI. Continue
by entering in your permanent address. Then,
enter a temporary address, if applicable. Next,
you will enter in two phone numbers one home
phone number and a secondary number. Until all
the required fields are populated.
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Registration (continued)
Next you will enter in your email address, which
needs to be a valid email address (make sure you
enter it correctly!). Your primary email address
will be your log-in ID for the OSSI system.
Then, you will create a password. Refer to the
password requirements on the right for more
information.
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Registration (continued)
Then youll enter in information about your
college or university.There are two ways to
select your college or university. You can
start by entering the college name, and as you
type, the college list will populate beneath the
field. Or, you can use the find institution
button to search for your institution. You can
search by name, city, or state. After you
enter the search criteria, select the search
institution button, and select the institution
from the list below. Then, choose a degree level
at the time the opportunity will begin, then an
academic discipline or major, and finally the
planned graduation date of the current degree.
Once you have completed all the information on
the registration page, select the register
button.
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Student Home Page
Once you register, this page will appear as your
homepage it serves as a dashboard so that you
can quickly see information about opportunities
youre interested in and opportunities that
youve applied to.
If you need more help, select either the Getting
Started sub-tab for more information, or submit
a question by clicking on the Need Help? Click
here hyperlink at the very top of the page. To
update your registration information, click the
update registration information sub-tab.
Next, click the My Interest Profile tab
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Interest Profile
This is the interest profile page. The interest
profile serves three purposes. First, you can
define default search criteria, for when youre
ready to search for opportunities. Second, you
can configure a schedule of notifications about
new opportunities to be sent to you via email.
Third, it allows you to enter more information
that will help mentors find you. To start,
select the highesteducation level attained at
the time the opportunity would start. (Freshman
through senior refers to college, and
pre-college have high school grade levels except
freshman.) Next, select the opportunity type you
are interested in applying for this could be
internships or fellowships. Next, select up to
ten NASA centers or facilities for your work
location preference. If you do not know which
NASA facility youd like to work at, or if you
dont have a preference, leave this field blank.
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Interest Profile (continued)
Select up to four sessions you are interested in
working. This could be Spring, Summer, Fall, or
year-long. (Fellowships are considered to be
year-long opportunities.) Now you can select up
to ten areas of interest. These disciplines do
not necessarily need to be related to your
academic major. Next, supply a list of keywords
for the opportunities you are interested in, if
youd like. Finally, you can select the schedule
for emails to be sent to you when new
opportunities are posted. This can be daily,
weekly, monthly, or none at all.
When you have completed this page, select save
profile and click the My Applications tab.
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Internship Application
The My Applications page allows you to
complete internship, fellowship, and
scholarship applications. Much of the
information is similar between the
applications, with some additional data
required for fellowships and scholarships. In
this tutorial, we will take a look at the
internship application. The internship
application has six parts. This page shows the
status of each part. All areas must be completed
before you can apply to opportunities. To
begin, select the general information section.
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Internship Application General Info
The general information page pulls information
from your registration. It also requests your
permission for photographs to be taken while
youre working on NASA opportunities.
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Internship Application General Info (Continued)
Certain NASA programs require that demographic
information be provided to determine eligibility.
However, this information is optional, and you
may select Decline to answer. When youve
completed this page, you can either save the
page, or save and continue to the next section.
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Internship Application Educational History
The educational history section allows you to
enter in previous as well as current high level
education institutions. The first time you come
to this page, it will pull your current
university in as a record. However, there will be
fields that are incomplete. By default, the
information that is incomplete will be the attend
from date, the education level, you will need to
enter in at least one course, and upload a
transcript. To complete them, click the edit
icon.
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Internship Application Educational History
Pre-College Students
If you are a pre-college applicant your
educational history section allows you to enter
in the High School Name, Address, City and State
of your institution. The education level that
currently are ranked at the opportunity dates you
have an interest to apply. You will need to enter
in at least one course, and upload a unofficial
transcript. Once uploaded select the save and
continue button.
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Internship Application Educational History
(continued)
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Internship Application Educational History
(continued)
Now that your information for the education
record has been saved, you can upload an
unofficial transcript by clicking the upload
link.
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Internship Application Educational History
(continued)
To upload a transcript, you can browse for one on
your computer. This should be an unofficial
transcript, and it is advisable that you remove
or block out any personally identifiable
information. Once youve selected the
transcript, click upload transcript. Next, you
can add previously attended universities, or move
on to the next section.
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Internship Application Work/Volunteer History
This is the work/volunteer experience page. On
this page, you can enter in previous employment
or volunteering by clicking Add Work/Volunteer
History. You can leave this section blank if you
do not have previous work experience.
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Internship Application Work/Volunteer History
(Continued)
On this page you can enter employer name,
location, job title, your dates of employment,
and any duties, accomplishments, or related
skills. It should be noted that work/volunteer
history can either be a job, volunteer
opportunities, or previous NASA internships Once
youve completed the form, select save employment
information.
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Internship Application Letter of Recommendation
The next section is the letter of recommendation.
This is where you can enter the information for
someone you would like to write a letter of
recommendation for you. One letter of
recommendation is required (although you may have
additional). The reference can be a professor,
an employer, a co-worker, or even a teachers
assistant. Family members should not submit
letters of recommendation. Enter a first name,
last name, the relationship with the reference, a
telephone number, and an email address. When
finished, click Save, or Save and continue, and
an email will automatically be sent to the
supplied email address for the reference to fill
out a letter of recommendation for you.
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Internship Application Additional Information
Next is the Additional Information section.
Although many of these fields are not required,
it is in your best interest to fill out as many
of the fields as you can. This is your chance to
stand out, and explain why NASA should select you
for the opportunity.
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Internship Application Additional Information (
Continued)
If you have any NASA-affiliated educational
experiences, enter them here. This can be any
work or activities youve done with NASA or
related to the NASA mission, such as an
educational activity or an internship. To add
more information, click Add more NASA-affiliated
educational activities. When you are finished,
click the Save additional information button.
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Internship Application Terms of Acceptance
The final section is your acknowledgement of the
terms of acceptance. Once you have read this
section, if you agree, click the Acknowledgement
checkbox and select the Agree and submit
application button. After you accept the terms
and have a letter of recommendation submitted on
your behalf, you can apply for up to 15
opportunities and NASA mentors will be able to
review your application from the applicant pool.
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Fellowship Application

• The fellowship application is similar to the
  Internship application, but the process has more
  steps.
• The process for applying to a fellowship in OSSI
  is as follows
• Complete a fellowship application (in order to be
  considered complete you will need to have at
  least 1 letter of recommendation (1 letter must
  come from a faculty advisor for fellowships)) and
  agree to the Terms of Acceptance
• Search for and select specific fellowship
  opportunities of interest
• Submit a proposal idea to the mentor, including
  the research you will conduct for their
  opportunity
• Mentors have up to 10 business days to respond to
  your proposal idea at that time, they will
  either accept your proposal idea, decline it, or
  decline it and request modifications
• Once the proposal idea is accepted, you will work
  with the mentor and your faculty advisor to
  create a proposal. The proposal, along with the
  university signature form, must then be submitted
  and received by the last day of the application
  period.
• It is important that you plan enough time for the
  Fellowship Application process as all of these
  steps need to be completed by the end of the
  application period.

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Tutorial 1 - Summary
We just registered for an account, completed an
interest profile, and filled out a student
application. In the next tutorial, well see
how to search for and apply to opportunities. If
you need further assistance, use the Need help
link at the top of the page. Thank you.
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Tutorial 2
Searching For and Applying to Opportunities
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Search Opportunities
The Search Opportunities page will automatically
pull in your interest profile information as
default search criteria. You can change this
criteria, as well as save the criteria as your
Interest Profile. To search for opportunities,
select your academic level at the time the
opportunity would begin. Then select the
Opportunity type for which youd like to apply.
Next, select up to 10 NASA Centers or Facilities
as your work location preference.
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Search Opportunities (Continued)
You can also select sessions youre interested in
applying for, as well as available disciplines
and majors that are related to the opportunity.
Next, you can provide a date to search for
opportunities posted after that date. Finally,
you can also enter in keywords for opportunities.
Once you have finished the search criteria,
click the Search button.
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Search Opportunities (Continued)
The search results page will display
opportunities that match the search criteria that
you entered. To find out more information about
an opportunity or to apply, click the
View/Apply button.
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Search Opportunities (Continued)
The view opportunity page will provide you with
all of the information about the opportunity,
such as the title, description, expected outcome
and results, special comments, session, academic
disciplines it relates to, NASA Center, as well
as other info about the work environment.
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Search Opportunities (Continued)
If you are interested in applying to the
opportunity, you must supply additional
attributes that would make you a good candidate
for this opportunity. This tells the mentor why
you would like to apply. To apply to an
opportunity, select Apply for Opportunity
Consideration. You can apply to up to 15
opportunities. Or, if youre interested in the
opportunity but not yet ready to apply, you can
save the opportunity to a temporary list where
you can revisit it later and apply by selecting
Add to Saved Opportunities List.
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My Opportunities
Go to the My Opportunities tab to review the
status of the opportunities you have either
applied to or saved to your temporary list. If
you receive any offers, you can review and
respond via the My Offers sub-tab.
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Tutorial 2 - Summary
We just demonstrated how to search and apply for
opportunities. If you are selected for an
opportunity, you will receive an offer via email
and you will have 5 business days to respond.
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