The Clinical or Practicum Requirements Course in Canvas
Olivet Nazarene University keeps the working rules for your practicum inside a track-specific Canvas course, the Student Clinical or Practicum Requirements Course. New-curriculum students are enrolled by Olivet and invited by email; current-curriculum students enroll themselves before their role course. Open it as soon as you can: your preceptor search has to satisfy what it says.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Olivet program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your Olivet course.
What the course is and why it has the final word
Olivet's graduate handbooks tie your practicum to one place. Signing the handbook agreement means agreeing that the requirements course for your track governs your clinical or practicum hours. The course sits inside Canvas, Olivet's learning system, and only enrolled students can open it.
That makes it different from a program page or a handbook PDF. Olivet publishes a great deal in the open: course numbers, hour totals, the compliance list, the approved states for FNP clinicals. The working details of a practicum sit in the course instead, and those are exactly the details a preceptor search depends on. Treat the course as the rulebook, and take any gap in it to your course faculty.
Each track has its own version. An FNP student and an NEL student see different requirements courses because the practicums differ: primary care clinicals from adults to children on one side, a population health practicum and an education and leadership practicum on the other.
New curriculum: Olivet enrolls you
Students on Olivet's new curriculum do not have to go looking for the course. The new-curriculum MSN/PG-APRN handbook says Olivet enrolls each student automatically in a clinical or practicum orientation course built for their track.
- Watch your Olivet emailThe enrollment arrives as an email invitation. Act on it when it lands instead of letting it slide down a busy inbox.
- Check the Canvas dashboardThe same invitation also appears on your Canvas dashboard, so a missed email still leaves a second way in.
- Read it well before your first clinicalIn the new FNP sample order,
NRSG 636CAdult and Older Adult Primary Care Clinical follows nine courses,NRSG 601throughNRSG 645. The requirements course tells you what Olivet expects to be in place by then. - Ask when nothing arrivesNo invitation by the time your role course is near? Raise it with your course faculty, or email GraduateNursing@olivet.edu, the mailbox Olivet gives for its MSN/PG-APRN Program Support Coordinator.
NEL students on the new plan reach a practicum sooner. NRSG 604 Population Health, a course carrying 30 hours of direct clinical work, is fourth in the sample schedule, so the invitation deserves attention from the first weeks of the program.
Current curriculum: you enroll yourself
Olivet's other MSN handbook, the current-curriculum edition that governs students already enrolled, describes the opposite arrangement. Students self-enroll in the Canvas requirements course, and they do it before the role course for their track: NRSG 627 APRN Role Development for FNP and post-graduate FNP students, NRSG 629 for the Education track.
NRSG 627 heads the current handbook's FNP course order, ahead of the pharmacology, health assessment and pathophysiology sequences and far ahead of the NRSG 665A to NRSG 665F clinicals. Self-enrollment is therefore an early task, not something to leave until a clinical course is in view.
| New curriculum | Current curriculum | |
|---|---|---|
| How you get in | Olivet enrolls you automatically | You self-enroll in Canvas |
| How you hear about it | Email invitation, also shown on the Canvas dashboard | Handbook instruction: enroll before the role course |
| FNP role development course | NRSG 635 | NRSG 627 |
| Education role course | NRSG 615 | NRSG 629 |
| FNP clinical courses | NRSG 636C to NRSG 639C | NRSG 665A to NRSG 665F |
| Compliance system named | Verified Credentials QualifiedFirst | CastleBranch |
Olivet publishes these as two handbooks, and neither says which start dates fall under which. Your advisor has that answer. The page on the new and current curricula lines up the rest of the differences.
What to look for once you are inside
Olivet's public pages leave several practicum questions open, and the requirements course is the first place to look for each one. Read it with a list in hand, and write down anything it leaves unsettled so you can raise it with your course faculty.
Questions to answer from the course
- Who may precept your track: the credentials, license and setting Olivet accepts for your clinical or practicum
- How approval runs: what Olivet wants to see about a preceptor and site, where it goes and when
- Deadlines: when preceptor details are due for each clinical course in your plan
- Compliance timing: how the background check, drug screen and immunization records line up with your first clinical day
- Hour logging: what Olivet expects you to record in Project Concert for your track
- Site paperwork: anything a site has to sign before your first day
Some points are settled in the handbook itself, and each has its own page here. Start with preceptor approval and preceptor requirements, then the compliance checklist.
Where students trip up
The most common gap is timing. A current-curriculum student who never self-enrolls can arrive at the clinical sequence without having read the rules that govern it. A new-curriculum student who misses the invitation ends up in the same spot by a different road.
The second gap is mixing versions. A classmate on the other curriculum may describe a different compliance system, different course numbers or a different way into the course, and both of you can be right. Go by the handbook for your own start and the requirements course for your own track.
The third is expecting the course to hand you a preceptor. It explains what Olivet needs, while the program pages still put the first stage of the search in your hands, starting with people you know personally and professionally. For FNP students, coordinator help begins once 30 attempts have failed, as the 30-attempt rule page explains.
Your requirements course, not a classmate's, sets your practicum rules. Confirm your curriculum with your advisor before relying on either handbook.
Why Olivet students bring their requirements course to us
Our placement desk is built around the document Olivet itself treats as the rulebook. Share your track, your curriculum and what your requirements course asks for, and we turn those rules into a search: preceptors near home, in a state Olivet approves for your clinicals, with a patient mix that fits the course you are about to start. Credentials, license numbers and site details are collected before anything goes to Olivet.
The course stops being a reading assignment and becomes a checklist that is already filled in. Approval stays with Olivet, and the packet it reviews arrives complete and shaped to your track's rules. Should a preceptor step away in the middle of an eight-week course, the desk is still on call to line up the next one.
Read how it works for the full sequence, or fill in the form below with your next clinical start date.
Questions Olivet students ask
Is the requirements course the same thing as clinical orientation at Olivet?
Olivet's handbooks use both ideas for the same track-specific Canvas course: the new-curriculum handbook calls it a clinical or practicum orientation course and says the Student Clinical or Practicum Requirements Course sets your practicum rules. If your Canvas account shows two similar titles, ask your course faculty which one carries the requirements for your track.
Can I read the requirements course before I am admitted to Olivet?
No. It sits inside Canvas and opens only to enrolled students. Before admission you can read the program pages, both MSN handbooks on the library site, the School of Nursing fee sheet and the licensure disclosures. For clinicals, the admission items to have ready are a current RN license with no encumbrance and your consent, signed at admission, to the background check and drug screen.
Which requirements course does a post-graduate FNP certificate student use?
The current-curriculum handbook groups post-graduate FNP students with the FNP track, so they self-enroll before NRSG 627. The new-curriculum handbook covers MSN and PG-APRN students together, and Olivet enrolls each student by track. Either way you land in the FNP version; your advisor confirms which handbook governs your start.
Does the requirements course list preceptors I can call?
Olivet's public pages describe no preceptor list or database. Graduate students are asked to open the search through contacts of their own, and the course defines what any preceptor they find has to meet. Our placement desk runs that search for you in your own area.
I switched from NEL to FNP. Do I need a different requirements course?
Yes, because each track has its own version with its own practicum rules. Tell your advisor about the switch and ask how your enrollment moves over. Olivet's FNP disclosure also says its state limits on practicum hours apply to students who switch into or return to the FNP track.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Olivet's own handbooks, program pages, fee sheet and licensure disclosures. Your handbook version, your Canvas clinical requirements course, your faculty and the SON Clinical Coordinator have the final word.
Olivet asks you to start with your own network. We make the search the easy part of your program.
Tell us your Olivet track, where you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, inside Olivet's approved states, and prepare everything Olivet's approval and the site's onboarding need.
- Preceptors matched to the course: adults and older adults for
NRSG 636C, women's health forNRSG 637C, children forNRSG 638C, education and leadership forNRSG 620 - Credentials, license and site details ready before your clinical course opens, with the drug screen timing on your calendar
- In your own community, in Illinois or any state Olivet approves for your clinicals
Start your placement plan
Track, city and start date is all we need to begin.