Guilford Technical Community College builds one of North Carolina’s largest nursing programs on Elsevier 360 and Sherpath AI

If you’re going to improve your outcomes, 360 is the way to go.

For David Tanner, Director of Nursing Programs at Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC), that’s not just a recommendation he gives to other programs considering Elsevier. It’s the conviction that has guided every decision he has made since arriving at the college in 2021.

A program built for scale

Guilford Technical Community College is the only community college serving Guilford County, North Carolina. With more than 31,000 students, GTCC is the third-largest community college in the state, and its nursing division has grown to match that scale. Offering an ADN program, an LPN program, and an LPN-to-RN Bridge Program, GTCC has capacity for up to 380 nursing students across all three programs at any given time.

That growth didn’t happen by accident.

Turning around a program on warning

When Tanner joined GTCC, the nursing programs were on warning for low NCLEX pass rates. He came with a clear philosophy and a track record.

“I always want to be on the cutting edge of the newest, best evidence-based practice for nursing education,” he says. He had seen what Elsevier could do at his previous institution, Hondros College of Nursing in Cleveland, Ohio, and he was determined to bring that same foundation to GTCC as quickly as possible.

He also knew how not to do it. A previous director had switched publishers mid-year, forcing students to change platforms over a single holiday break. The result was widespread course failures. Tanner took the opposite approach, bringing Elsevier in only for incoming students while teaching out the existing system for those already enrolled, and onboarding faculty one course at a time.

“It was a slow process,” he says, “but the response was fantastic.” Today, fewer than 5% of his students purchase physical textbooks. Nearly everyone works entirely within Sherpath, Elsevier’s digital teaching and learning platform.

Some of the most telling feedback has come from students who struggled under the old system and later transitioned to Elsevier. “They said they wished they’d had it from the beginning,” Tanner notes.

The solution: Elsevier 360 as the single source

GTCC is a full Elsevier 360 customer, and Tanner has made it the sole source for nursing education across all three programs. Within 360, Sherpath serves as the central hub for course content, lesson plans, virtual simulations, AI chat tool (Sherpath AI), and Elsevier Adaptive Quizzing (EAQ).

The breadth of content types is intentional. With an average student age of 29, many juggling jobs and families, GTCC’s learners span a wide range of learning styles and life circumstances.

“The more variety you can assign in Sherpath, the better your chances of hitting every type of learner,” Tanner says. “It also breaks the monotony of studying when the material is presented in different ways.”

Personalized remediation with HESI’s Personalized Learning Plan (PLP)

This semester marked GTCC’s first full implementation of Elsevier’s Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs) following HESI assessments. Previously, remediation meant packets, skills reviews, and case studies assigned uniformly to all students. Now the process is tailored to each individual student.

“Students love that it’s specific to their needs,” Tanner says. “They don’t feel like they’re wasting time on material they’ve already mastered.”

The benefits extend to faculty as well. HESI reports now give instructors a detailed view of each student’s assigned Personalized Learning Plan and areas of weakness, allowing them to adjust instruction accordingly. “We can see exactly what each student is working on,” Tanner explains, “and that helps us guide what we assign in Sherpath to bridge those gaps.”

Sherpath AI: Flipping the classroom

Among all the tools in the Elsevier 360 ecosystem, Sherpath AI, a conversational AI tool, may be generating the most enthusiasm at GTCC. Tanner introduces it to students on the very first day of class.

“I tell them to ask Sherpath AI whatever questions they have. It will pull directly from their textbooks for a course and show them exactly where it found the information so they can verify it themselves.”

Students have embraced it, particularly for practicing dose calculation questions, an area where accuracy is, as Tanner puts it, “of the utmost importance.”

Faculty have found a different but equally valuable use: monitoring the AI dashboard to see which topics students are asking about most frequently, then adjusting their lectures in response.

“It tells you the number of questions asked that week and which topics came up most,” Tanner says. “You can fine-tune your lecture based on exactly what students are struggling with. It’s spectacular.”

Faculty are also using Sherpath AI to write and refresh exam questions, a growing priority as answer keys find their way onto online sites. Instructors across experience levels are getting on board, with newer faculty leading the way and veteran instructors increasingly following their example.

Simulation: Where technology meets human connection

GTCC’s commitment to cutting-edge learning extends well beyond the digital platform. The college operates one of the most advanced simulation programs in the region, staffed by a certified Healthcare Simulation expert and fully aligned with national simulation guidelines.

The simulation spaces feature full immersion technology, where images are projected onto walls to create completely enveloping clinical environments.

Perhaps the most distinctive element is GTCC’s partnership with its own drama department. Theater students serve as patient actors in live simulations, bringing an authenticity to scenarios, particularly mental health cases, that technology alone cannot replicate.

“It’s the best live theater you could ever see,” Tanner says. “It enhances the learning in a way that interacting with actual people simply does differently.”

Tanner sees simulation as essential precisely because clinical rotations cannot be scripted. “In a hospital, it’s always a roll of the dice what patients are there that day,” he explains. “Simulation lets you pinpoint the specific learning outcomes you need to meet, which you can’t always guarantee in a real clinical setting.”

Results and what’s ahead

GTCC’s ADN program currently posts a 96% first-time NCLEX pass rate. The LPN program stands at 100%. The program’s first cohort educated entirely on Elsevier 360 graduated in May 2026 and their NCLEX results are expected later this summer. Tanner is confident those numbers will reflect the full benefit of an integrated Elsevier education from day one.

In the meantime, he has become an informal ambassador for the platform. His advice is consistent.

“If a college is looking to change, it’s usually because their NCLEX numbers are dipping,” he says. “The more variety you provide your students, the better the learning experience, the better your outcomes, and the better your pass rates will be. If you’re going to improve your outcomes, 360 is the way to go.”