Hybrid nursing program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale adopts Elsevier 360
For Kelli Whittington, it began with the strong relationship she had with her Elsevier sales representative.
“I had worked with our sales rep for 10 years at a prior location, and never, ever have I had the customer service that she provided,” said Dr. Whittington. “I knew if she provided that at her level, then the whole team would likely follow suit.”
Dr. Whittington is the program director for the BSN program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC). The program launched in 2020, and Dr. Whittington had joined the year prior to get it off the ground.
“We have three tracks: a traditional track, an accelerated track, and RN to BSN. I provide oversight for all three tracks and I'm also an assistant professor,” she says. “We're face-to-face, but quite a few of our courses have hybrid options, which is where Elsevier merges in with us so nicely.”
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Kelli Whittington, MSN, PhD
Program Director at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Elsevier 360 meets the needs of prelicensure nursing program
Dr. Whittington's nursing career began in 1992 with practice in the acute care setting. Her nursing experience includes ICU, oncology, management, and administration. When it came time to choose a program solution for SIUC, Elsevier 360 was the perfect fit.
“Because our program is prelicensure, we needed a full package,” Dr. Whittington explained. “I didn't want to have multiple different textbooks and then a separate company to do our pre-licensure testing, like the HESI.”
“I wanted one seamless package because it's too difficult to teach students how to use [multiple products]. Additionally, I have novice faculty, so to be able to put them in one package that goes from the classroom to testing to prep for NCLEX® is essential for me,” she added.
Now that Elsevier 360 is an essential part of SIUC’s program, Dr. Whittington appreciates all that it has to offer.
HESI Dashboard empowers nursing educators
“Not only does 360 give me all the course-related materials, but it allows me a deep dive into the HESI dashboard,” she said. “The metrics could be overwhelming, but 360 gives us the ability to tweak courses and curricula.”
“We then use that 360 approach to pick out students that are at risk for not passing the NCLEX and pull in things that are already in the Elsevier package facilitate their ability to pass,” Dr. Whittington added. “Now, we've got our feet under us, we use this platform not to just educate our students, but to best predict where they are with NCLEX and prepare them better for that.”
Finally, Dr. Whittington truly appreciates the strong support she gets from her technical team at Elsevier.
“Our technical liaison will respond to me or my faculty within a day, which to me, is phenomenal.
That's above and beyond what I thought I was purchasing with 360,” she said. “I feel like we have everything we need. If there's a problem, it's not because of Elsevier. It's usually because we haven't looked in the right place, or we haven't asked the right question.”
She concluded: “I'm on a first-name basis with my Elsevier team.”
About Elsevier 360
Elsevier 360 supports nursing students’ full learning journey by providing interconnected learning tools that build student knowledge and clinical judgment and enable you to accurately assess their NCLEX and patient readiness. Learn more