Methodology

Ontology

The directory is organized as an ontology: a defined set of entity types, the relationships between them, and controlled vocabularies for their attributes. Each relationship is tied to the organization that publishes it, so a board approval, an accreditation and a school’s own description are recorded as separate facts from separate sources.

What counts as a nursing school

A nursing school is an institution at one location that offers at least one program leading to initial licensure as a registered or practical nurse. An institution with several campuses is counted once per campus, because boards approve each campus separately.

Programs that train only nursing assistants (CIP 51.3902) are excluded. A program with no graduates in the most recent survey year is still included and is marked as such. A college with no reported nursing completions is included when a state board lists it as approved.

Record matching

The primary key for a school is its IPEDS unit ID. Board, accreditor and federal award records carry a school name and city rather than an ID, so they are matched by name within the same state, using the city to distinguish campuses that share a name. A record that cannot be matched to exactly one school is not assigned to any school.

Board records that match no federal record are published as the board lists them, under listed only by the state board. They have no coordinates of their own, so the map shows them at the center of the city the board gives.

Controlled vocabularies

Approval status takes one of five values: approved, provisional, conditional, withdrawn or unknown. Provisional covers new programs with initial approval and is kept separate from conditional, which boards use for programs under review or on probation. Unknown means no board source covers the program; it does not mean the program is unapproved. School pages show the status exactly as the board wrote it.

Membership takes one of three values: listed, when an official source shows a prelicensure program; candidate, when only the school’s own website does; and out of scope, when none of the school’s programs leads to initial licensure.

Source coverage is recorded separately for each board’s approved-program list and its NCLEX results, using five values:

• Read in full The board’s approved-program list was read in full. The board’s NCLEX results table was read in full.
• Read in part Part of the board’s approved-program list was read. The state page names every source read. Part of the board’s NCLEX results table was read. The state page names every source read.
• Blocked The board publishes an approved-program list on a site that refuses automated reads. The board publishes an NCLEX results table on a site that refuses automated reads.
• Not published The board publishes no approved-program list. The board publishes no NCLEX table by program.
• Not yet read The board’s approved-program list has not been read yet. The board’s NCLEX results table has not been read yet.

Where a board publishes its program list without a status column, the coverage table shows not printed. This currently applies to 10 boards.