Online schools and testing...

Nursing Students NP Students

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Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.

I'm curious if using a proctoring company is typical for online programs. Those doing classes online...how do your exams work? Are you proctored?

Also...curious what grade is considered passing vs failing.

Specializes in PICU.

I did not have proctored exams. Our exams were open book, but you had very little time to answer the questions, so if you didn't know the content you would not pass. Passing was 85% or greater.

More and more schools are requiring proctored exams, I use ProctorFree in my program. I've heard others use ProctorU. It gains programs more credibility I think. I don't mind the proctored exams, its a way of ensuring the student studies the material for understanding and preparing for the board exam and ultimately for real life practice. Have to get at least an 80/100 to pass.

One school I was dealing with, changed to proctored exams during the time frame I was enrolled in a class. On their registration page, you were allowed to choose online proctoring or on site proctoring until a certain date, then they did away with the on site proctoring.

Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.

I was asking because my program is proctored. I wad recently told some programs are not proctored and it shocked me. It made me wonder if t was true.

My school used proctoru. I don't mind proctoring but I have had an know others who had had issues with the proctoring company and it just causing issues.

Our passing grade overall is 84%.

Specializes in Internal Medicine.

My university is online and does not use a proctor. We really don't have exams either, only quizzes. We do have to turn in all of our big papers to "Turnitin" to check for plagiarism though.

Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.
My university is online and does not use a proctor. We really don't have exams either, only quizzes. We do have to turn in all of our big papers to "Turnitin" to check for plagiarism though.

What school is this? Do they have a high board pass rate?

Specializes in Emergency, ICU.

My program has a mix. There are proctored exams and then there are open book exams. The open book exams are much harder than the proctored exams because you really have to dig in the material for answers that deal with more details. The proctored exams are generally more big picture.

I don't mind the proctor, but I think it's just a PR thing to maintain the program's reputation up. I don't think people can cheat their way through a graduate program. And if somehow they do, there are boards to take and I would not want to be in their shoes!

Now, on an academic level, I get much more out of the open book exams. I really have to get deep into the readings (and it's not just 1 textbook, but usually 2 textbooks and various other sources and scholarly articles). My answers require a deeper understanding of the material and just taking the exam helps me learn. It's really a wonderful thing. The nature of those open book exams makes it very hard to just go in cold and try to google search your way through. People fail those just as much as the proctored ones.

Specializes in Internal Medicine.
What school is this? Do they have a high board pass rate?

UTEP. I'm unsure of the most recent class to graduate, but the previous FNP class had a higher than the national average of 86% passage rate.

On the anecdotal side, I haven't met a nurse from any of the schools programs that have failed their boards, be it FNP, ACNP, or PNP.

Specializes in Emergency.

My program has a remote proctor device and company, I'm not sure of the company name. I call the device a cyborg because of it's big, one eyed device. No sound, no activity in the room. The device has to be placed just right, 360 view, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure I could figure out a way to cheat with it, but it cuts down on the cheating. I saw far more cheating at B&M classes in my RN program than I do in this "online" program.

We also have open book assignments, papers, quizzes, case studies, whatever they can think of to give us more work! lol However, to pass a class you need to have a passing grade in the entire class as well as a passing grade on the exams for that class. So, you can't pad your grade with some bogus paper assignment and flunk the exam.

My program also requires the student to pass a "mock board" prior to graduating. The program tries to keep this mock board as realistic as the actual boards will be, and I believe that is why the program has such a good pass rate for the real boards. They just switched from having students do the mock board at a proctoring facility to having them use the remote proctoring company.

Personally, I'm not so sure one approach is all that better than another, as long as the faculty at the program are consistent in how they implement the testing and grading throughout the program. I know UTEP has a very good reputation and Riburn3 says they do not do remote proctoring, so there is an example of an approach that is very different than my universities and yet they both seem to work well.

Specializes in family practice.

zmansc, I believe we went to the same school (I just graduated). I went to a proctored school which used Remote proctor. It's attached to your computer and records you as you take the exam. The teachers then watch the video to see if the student was in compliance with the school policies of the camera. Passing grade was 80% in each classes

I think the camera helped me because I would not have taken the exams serious if they were all open book. I think it also makes an honest student of most people

We have had a mix of proctored vs non-proctored during my program. Depends largely on the content of the course and the professor. I am in the FNP program. We have the option to take the exam on campus or to find a proctor site near our home. I have chosen to take it a a local college in their testing center because it is closer to my house.

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