InPlace at Liberty: where your practicum logs and evaluations live

What InPlace is, and what it replaced

Liberty's School of Nursing moved its clinical tracking to InPlace during the 2022-23 school year. The 2022-23 MSN Student Handbook announced a partnership with InPlace Student Placement Systems and put the change plainly: "This system will replace Typhon Group."

The switch began with students entering their first practicum course in the Fall 2022 B term. Anyone who started practicum before then may remember Typhon logs, and some older Liberty preceptor material still refers to them. If you are starting practicum now, InPlace is the name to look for in your course instructions.

That handbook was written during the changeover, so it still carries earlier passages describing the Typhon setup. If you read the PDF and see both names, treat the InPlace passage as the newer one, then confirm the current process in your Gate course.

What Liberty says InPlace holds

InPlace is broader than an hour log. In the 2022-23 handbook's description, it is where the School of Nursing keeps the record of who you are placed with, what you did there and how the placement went.

InPlace functions named in the 2022-23 MSN handbook

• Clinical placement records for each practicum course
• Clinical evaluations, including your preceptor's evaluation of you
• Student portfolios
• A database of preceptors, contracts and clinical sites
• Placement compliance tracking

The handbook also says "Students will be responsible for the program fee." Liberty's residential BSN fee table, updated in September 2026, still lists an InPlace line for each year, which shows the system remains in use. No current fee table for the online graduate programs was found, so ask the practicum team what applies to your track.

Logging hours: the rules in Liberty's written material

The public logging rules come from the 2022-23 MSN handbook, written for MSN students. They are sound habits for any Liberty track, but your own course syllabus in Canvas overrides them if the two differ.

1. Meet your preceptor firstThe handbook says student and preceptor must meet before any hours are logged. Time before that first meeting doesn't count.
2. Log only inside the term datesHours count only during the course's term dates. Days spent at the site before the sub-term opens won't carry forward.
3. One practicum course at a timeMSN students take one practicum course per sub-term, so each log belongs to a single course.
4. Have the preceptor validateThe preceptor "will validate the number of hours" and keeps in touch at least weekly, per the same handbook.
5. Expect faculty feedbackYour course professor comments on the practicum log and completes the final evaluation.

Evaluations: who completes what

Evaluations run in both directions. Under the 2022-23 handbook, the preceptor evaluates you, either online or by email from a work address, and you evaluate the site and the preceptor. Because the handbook straddled the switch, it still names Typhon for the preceptor's form.

A 2023 Liberty orientation page for DNP and APRN preceptors is more direct. It asks preceptors to "Conduct documented student practicum evaluation via InPlace evaluation tool." A nurse practitioner or physician who agrees to precept you should therefore expect a request from InPlace rather than a paper form.

Mention this to your preceptor at the start. A busy clinician who has never used InPlace can easily overlook the email, and the handbook treats the preceptor evaluation as required, not optional. If your preceptor has questions about the tool itself, the practicum team is the right contact.

What's public for DNP and NP students, and what isn't

Liberty's own pages confirm InPlace for the residential BSN (the fee table) and for MSN students from 2022-23 (the handbook). For FNP, PMHNP and post-master's DNP students the public evidence is thinner: the 2023 preceptor orientation page and a closed Liberty job posting that described InPlace as the tool for all School of Nursing programs.

Liberty's current DNP, MSN and RN-BSN handbooks are course items in Canvas and need your Liberty login; the public handbook pages only link to them. So the exact log fields, evaluation schedule and hour-approval steps for NURS 771, NURS 768 or NURS 840 can't be quoted from any public source.

Students report that a 2024 PMHNP practicum guide tells them to set up an InPlace account with an annual fee. Treat that as something to confirm, not a rule. Your Gate course and APRN.DNPPracticum@liberty.edu can tell you when your account opens and what goes into it.

InPlace and CastleBranch: two systems, two jobs

Liberty relies on two outside systems around practicum, and students often mix them up. CastleBranch is the compliance and background-check vendor. InPlace is the placement and tracking system where logs and evaluations live.

The overlap is compliance. The 2022-23 MSN handbook sends your license, CPR card, immunizations and preceptor agreements to CastleBranch, yet it also lists placement compliance among InPlace's jobs. The public material doesn't say how the two divide that work for current students, so read your Gate course instructions line by line to see which upload goes where.

For the compliance side, see CastleBranch at Liberty and the clinical clearance checklist. For where Canvas, ASIST and your Liberty email fit in, see myLU, Canvas, ASIST and email.

Getting you to your first InPlace entry

InPlace records a placement; the work that creates one comes before your first log entry, and that is our specialty. We search for a preceptor and site that suit your Liberty track and gather what the practicum team asks for, such as the preceptor's CV and license details. Approval stays with Liberty, and the practicum team's own matching carries on alongside ours.

Once you're placed, we can help you brief your preceptor on what Liberty will ask of them, including the InPlace evaluation. If a preceptor withdraws mid-course, read what to do when a preceptor drops out. To start a search, use the form below or contact the placement desk.