These Certification Rules apply to anyone who participates in a SNOMED International certification exam (referred to below as the 'candidate'). These rules form part of the Terms and Conditions that must be accepted prior to enrolling in a certification exam.
General Rules
The following general rules apply to all SNOMED International certification exams:
- Any form of copying, downloading, printing, sharing or distributing a SNOMED International certification exam is not permitted.
- It is forbidden to obtain or attempt to obtain access to the examination prior to the start of the examination.
- No individual, other than the candidate, may be present in the examination room while the exam is in progress.
- The candidate must not communicate with anyone while the exam is in progress.
- No one should communicate with the candidate while the exam is in progress.
- Mobile phones and all other electronic devices (other than the computer being used to take the exam) should be turned off during the exam.
- The candidate must remain in view of the camera at all times throughout the exam, unless they need to leave the room for a toilet break.
- By enrolling in a certification exam, the candidate consents to the following information being collected for the duration of the exam:
- Microphone input
- Webcam input
- The candidate's identity
- Any website visited
- Any other applications running
- All tasks undertaken in the training authoring platform
- Only one toilet break is permitted per exam, and this must be limited to a reasonable duration.
- Any modifications to these rules to accommodate individual circumstances requires prior written approval by SNOMED International.
- Making false declarations in an attempt to obtain modified assessment provisions or special consideration is a breach of these certification rules.
- Being party to any arrangement whereby a person other than the candidate fraudulently represents, or intends to represent, the candidate in an examination is a breach of these certification rules.
Candidates must inform SNOMED International (via certsupport@snomed.org) of any technical issues experienced during the exam within 24 hours of sitting the exam for these to be taken into consideration.
The decision on whether to certify a candidate or not is solely at the discretion of SNOMED International.
All certifications will be valid for 3 years. To continue certification after this time, either the certification exam must be retaken and passed or a higher level certification must be achieved.
If a candidate fails a certification exam, they may re-enrol in the certification exam. Full payment is required for re-enrolment.
SNOMED International reserves the right to make changes to these rules without notification. It is the candidate's responsibility to check the current certification rules prior to taking a certification exam.
Authoring Certification Rules
The following rules apply specifically to the SNOMED International authoring level 1 and authoring level 2 certification exams:
- Prior to accessing the SNOMED International training authoring platform, all participants must accept the Authoring Platform Terms of Usage. These terms of usage stay in effect during any period in which access is granted.
- The following reference materials are permitted for use during all of the exam:
- Any internet search sites for understanding a concept's clinical meaning including medical dictionaries
- Personal notes and course material
- SNOMED International Browser
- SNOMED International Training Authoring Platform
- SNOMED International Guides
- SNOMED International Confluence Pages
- SNOMED International Jira Pages
- Please be aware that we do not provide individual exam results or feedback whether or not the exam has been passed.
- If a candidate fails a certification exam, they may re-enrol in the certification exam at most once within 12 months of completing their first attempt.
If a candidate fails a certification exam twice within 12 months, then prior to re-enrolling in the certification exam they must either (a) enrol (or re-enrol) in the relevant SNOMED International preparation course and successfully complete this course, or (b) wait a further 12 months after their most recent attempt before re-enrolling in the certification exam.
Terminology Services Certification Rules
The following rules apply specifically to the SNOMED International Terminology Services certification exam:
- Students must answer each question using the terminology service API that is requested by the given question - i.e. either the Snowstorm API or the Snowstorm FHIR API.
- Students must use the base URLs provided in the exam to access each terminology service API.
- The following tools are permitted during the exam:
- Swagger (for the Snowstorm API)
- Postman (for the Snowstorm FHIR API)
- SNOMED International browser (not to be used in place of the required API calls)
- Text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, or similar)
- The following reference materials are permitted for use during the exam:
- Personal notes and course material
- SNOMED International Guides and Confluence Pages
Violations
SNOMED International takes any attempt to violate these certification rules very seriously. SNOMED International may use exam monitoring data to check adherence to these Certification Rules. SNOMED International may refuse to certify any candidate who is found to have violated these certification rules. SNOMED International may refuse to accept future enrolments by any individual who has previously violated these rules. SNOMED International reserves the right to determine if a candidate has violated these rules, and this determination is at the sole discretion of SNOMED International.
If you think you may have inadvertently violated one or more of these rules, please contact us at elearning@snomed.org within 24 hours of completing the certification exam.