HESI Exam Security Policy
The HESI exams must be administered in a proctored environment and all individuals who have access to the exams and related materials must comply with all legal and ethical requirements. This includes, but is not limited to, copyright, data privacy, and confidentiality restrictions as well as codes of conduct and terms of use. Maintaining security helps ensure that the exam results reflect each student’s knowledge, skill, and understanding of the exam content, rather than reflecting unauthorized access to content or unethical behavior.
Proctoring is the active oversight of a trained, authorized, and neutral person of an evaluation to protect the integrity of the testing experience. A proctor is responsible for the following:
creating and maintaining an environment that is conducive for secure testing
confirm technology is working
provide materials when required (e.g., headphones)
preventing prohibited items in the testing session (e.g., smart devices);
verifying the test taker’s identity and eligibility to test;
ensuring no forbidden study, answer, or collusion materials are allowed during testing;
monitoring the proctoring dashboard and/or patrolling the room;
watching individual test taking behaviors; and
protecting test content from being removed from the test session.
Proctoring can either be in-person live proctoring by a trained proctor or remote. In the case of remote proctoring, using an Elsevier-approved remote proctoring vendor is recommended. Additionally, use of trained proctors for remote proctoring via a group meeting platform (like Zoom) is allowed but not recommended.
1. Legal Obligations for Test Security
HESI exams and accompanying materials, including rationales and other remediation content (collectively the “HESI Materials”), are confidential and protected by the federal and international copyright law.
Access to HESI Materials is strictly conditioned upon compliance with the terms of the license agreement between Elsevier and its customers.
As part of the agreement between Elsevier and users of the HESI Materials (including, but not limited to faculty, students, administrators, and proctors), users are prohibited from copying, reproducing, adapting, disclosing, or distributing HESI Materials , in whole or in part, before, during, or after taking an exam, by any means now known or hereafter invented.
Users further acknowledge that disclosure or any other use of HESI exam content may constitute professional misconduct and may expose them to potential criminal and/or civil liability. Aside from those legal remedies, those who engage in prohibited conduct may also have additional penalties imposed against them, including, but not limited to, invalidation of examination results, exclusion from future examinations, or suspension.
With respect to assessment practice products, rationales, and remediation content within the HESI Materials, users agree access to such content components is strictly conditioned upon agreement that they:
will not copy, reproduce, distribute, or make any adaptations of such materials in any manner
will not assist someone else in the infringement or misuse of these or any other Elsevier copyrighted works.
2. Institution responsibilities to maintain HESI Exam Security
Apart from the legal obligations for ensuring security and protecting Elsevier’s intellectual property, to ensure the highest possible validity for each exam score Elsevier further requires all institutional customers accessing HESI Materials to:
Establish academic honesty policies that are
Detailed -- specifically outline for students both what is expected of them and what is considered inappropriate behavior
Actionable -- specify the corrective procedures corresponding to inappropriate behaviors
Enforced -- retain documentation of inappropriate behaviors and corrective actions taken with the ability to produce such documentation upon written request.
Ensure that access codes for the HESI exams are kept secure and delivered to the trained proctor and/or students in a secure manner.
Prohibit faculty members from taking HESI secure exams themselves for any reason.
Confirm that every potential test taker is eligible, has their identity confirmed, and is scheduled to take the current exam.
Require proctoring of all HESI exams by trained proctors.
Prevent electronic or photographic devices (phone, watch, smart glasses, other wearables, etc.) from being seen or used by any test taker while testing is active. It is the proctor’s responsibility to ensure items belonging to test takers cannot be used to compromise the test (e.g., by bringing material into or taking information from a test, or by communicating with someone during testing).
Refrain from sharing exam-specific details (including identifying the version) with test takers before, during, or after exam administration. To discourage illicit behavior, it is recommended that the selection of test versions be varied across cohorts and semesters.
(For Legacy customers) Establish a process to close exams as soon as the last test taker has finished testing to ensure that:
The access code for this session is only used by approved test takers;
If others still need to take the exam after the exam is closed, the institution should administer a separate exam (ideally a different version) with a new access code.
Remediation content is viewable in a timely manner.
Analyze test taker performance after the exam administration to determine the validity of the testing session.
Look for uncharacteristic scores that might indicate a test taker’s score is not reflective of their true knowledge. This includes scores that are very high, very low, and/or very different from previous performance by that test taker in prior HESI exams.
Pay particular attention to the scores of test takers who complete an exam very quickly or very slowly and check their scores against past performance to identify if their score was indicative of their knowledge.