Continuing Education Made Easy

Article Series by Sam Shamsi

This multi-part series of short articles on Continuing Education was published in the ASCE Pittsburgh monthly newsletter from December 2013 to June 2014.

Technology, codes, and standards continually evolve as a civil engineer progresses through his or her career. To be at the forefront of the profession, civil engineers have an obligation to stay up-to-date with advancements that affect their industry and specialty areas. Active continuing education helps individuals' career growth, advances the profession, and ultimately benefits the safety, health, and welfare of the public (ASCE, 2013).

Continuing education is no longer an optional career enhancement activity. Civil engineers are mandated to obtain continuing education for their professional engineer licenses and professional certifications, such as Diplomate Water Resources Engineer (D.WRE) certification from ASCE’s American Academy of Water Resources Engineers (AAWRE). Unfortunately, continuing education requirements vary for various licenses and certifications which leads to confusion, and often frustration. The main purpose of this section is to clarify the continuing education requirements, share resources, and suggest an easy but structured approach to meet those requirements.

1. Definitions and Acronyms

Continuing Professional Competency (CPC): This terminology is used to specify license renewal requirements in various jurisdictions.

Contact Hour: The number of instructional contact hours excluding non-instructional time (e.g., breaks, lunch, or housekeeping information).

Professional Development Hour (PDH): A contact hour (nominal) of instruction or presentation. The PDH is the common denominator for other units of continuing education (e.g., CEU defined below). Some licensing jurisdictions have an erroneous interpretation of definition of a PDH. For example, consider a 1-day seminar that begins at 8 AM and ends at 5 PM with a 1-hour break for lunch. According to NCEES Model Rules, a maximum of 8 PDHs can be earned for this seminar. But the question invariably arises, what about a morning and afternoon break of 20 minutes each? The general understanding is that short-term breaks are permissible as long as a minimum of 50 minutes of presentation/participation per hour is undertaken. If there are no breaks or if breaks of less than 10 minutes per hour are included, no additional time may be claimed. Seminar presenters may attempt to take the number of elapsed minutes (such as 8 hours x 60 minutes) and then divide by 50 to arrive at the PDHs for which the seminar is advertised. This would result in over 9 PDHs in an 8-hour period, which is not permitted. The general rule is that PDHs cannot exceed the actual contact clock hours. For the fractions of hours, NCEES recommends rounding PDHs to the nearest half hour and no credit for an activity of less than 30 minutes. For example, a qualifying activity of 50 minutes would be reported as 1 PDH, and an activity of 40 minutes would be reported as a 0.5 PDH (NCEES, 2013).

CEU and PDH are the units to quantify continuing education. They are often mistaken to be synonyms - but they are not. Generally, 1 CEU = 10 PDH.

Continuing Education Unit (CEU): Unit of credit customarily used for continuing education courses. One continuing education unit equals 10 hours of class in an approved continuing education course (NCEES, 2013). Since one CEU is awarded for each 10 contact hours of instruction, it logically follows that one CEU is equivalent to 10 PDHs. When a sponsor of PDH activities fully follows the requirements of the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) in awarding CEUs, 10 PDHs can be credited for 1 CEU. However, licensees should be aware that some organizations may advertise CEU credit without having met the requirements of the IACET. In addition, some organizations report 1 CEU of credit for each contact hour of instruction (ASCE St. Louis, 2013).

2. Continuing Education Requirements for Pennsylvania Professional Engineers

State Registration Board

Pennsylvania Department of State, Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs provides administrative and legal support to 29 professional and occupational licensing boards and commissions including State Board of Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists. Professional licensing protects the health, safety and welfare of the public from fraudulent and unethical practitioners. Professionals range from Engineers and Physicians to Cosmetologists and Funeral Directors.

In order to help safeguard life, health and property and to promote the public welfare, the practice of professional engineering, professional land surveying and professional geology in the Commonwealth requires continuing professional competency. Section 4.5(b) of the Engineer, Land Surveyor and Geologist Registration Law requires that each licensee shall be required to meet the continuing professional competency requirements as a condition for licensure renewal. The Board neither maintains a listing of continuing professional competency activities nor provides preapproval for any continuing professional competency activities, courses or providers. The following information is based on the content from Board’s Web site shown above (Pennsylvania State Board, 2013).

Pennsylvania State Board Definitions

Activity: any qualifying activity with a clear purpose and objective which will maintain, improve or expand the skills and knowledge relevant to a licensee’s professional practice.
College or unit semester hour or unit quarter hour: credit for courses in programs approved by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology or other related college courses.
Continuing education unit: a unit of credit customarily used for continuing education courses.
Course: any qualifying course with a clear purpose and objective which will maintain, improve or expand the skills and knowledge relevant to a licensee’s professional practice.
Professional development hour or PDH: 50 minutes of instruction or presentation relevant to professional practice or any equivalent.

Pennsylvania Continuing Professional Competency Requirements

Each licensee shall be required to meet the continuing professional competency requirements as a condition for licensure renewal. Continuing professional competency obtained by a licensee should maintain, improve or expand skills and knowledge obtained prior to initial licensure, including law and ethics applicable to the profession, or develop new and relevant skills and knowledge. No credit shall be given for a course in practice building or office management.

If you cannot break away from your schedule to a classroom or conference course and you prefer reading a book and using a pencil, the good old fashioned correspondence course may be just the thing for you. See Author’s Web site www.GIS-Training.com for PA DEP approved 8 PDH GIS and GPS correspondence courses which offers 10% discount to Section members.

Each licensee shall be required to obtain 24 PDH units during the biennial renewal period. If a licensee exceeds the requirement in any renewal period, a maximum of twelve PDH units may be carried forward into the subsequent renewal period. PDH units may be earned as follows:

Successful completion of college courses relevant to professional practice.
Completion of continuing education courses relevant to professional practice.
Completion of correspondence, televised, videotaped and other short courses or tutorials relevant to professional practice.
Completion of seminars, employer-sponsored courses, workshops or professional or technical presentations made at meetings, conventions or conferences relevant to professional practice.
Teaching, presenting or instructing in any of the activities listed in clauses (1), (2), (3) and (4).
Authoring published papers, articles or books relevant to professional practice.
Obtaining patents relevant to professional practice.

Pennsylvania Continuing Education Credits

Units of other types of credit shall be converted to PDH units as follows:

One college or unit semester hour shall equal 45 PDH units.
One college or unit quarter hours shall equal 30 PDH units.
One continuing education unit shall equal ten PDH units.
One hour of professional development in course work, seminars or professional, technical presentations made at meetings, employer-sponsored courses, conventions or conferences shall equal one PDH unit.
Each published paper, article or book shall equal 10 PDH units.
Each patent obtained shall equal 10 PDH units.

Teaching any of the activities listed in (1) to (4) above shall equal double the amount of PDH units provided for in those activities. Teaching credit shall be awarded for teaching a course or seminar but shall not be awarded to full-time faculty members in the performance of their duties at their employing institutions.

A licensee may be exempt from the requirements of this section for any of the following reasons:

A licensee serving on temporary active duty in the armed forces of the United States for a period of time exceeding 120 consecutive days in a year shall be exempt from obtaining the professional development hours required during that year.
A licensee experiencing physical disability, illness or other extenuating circumstances as reviewed and approved by the board may be exempt. Supporting documentation must be furnished to the board.
An individual applying for initial licensure and registration shall be exempt for the licensure period immediately following initial licensure and registration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What courses are qualified?

A. It is relatively safe to say that any course that relates to a licensee’s practice of engineering will qualify. Courses on marketing, office management, general business courses or practice building are specifically excluded and will not qualify. In other words, the licensee is responsible to take courses that relate to his or her respective engineering practice. In the event that a course is questionable, the Registration Board has final authority. Courses in ethics and law do qualify.

Q. Is there a list of approved courses?

A. There is no process that allows for preapproval of courses or providers in Pennsylvania so no pre-approved course list exists. Any provider offering “Pennsylvania preapproved” courses for engineers should be viewed skeptically. New York State does require courses to be pre-approved.

Q. Can the Pennsylvania State Registration Board challenge my determination that a course relates to my professional practice?

A. Yes. The Registration Board makes the final determination of whether or not a course qualifies.

Q. If I hold more than one type of license issued by the Registration Board, must I take separate courses for each (e.g. 24 PDHs for engineering and an additional 24 PDHs for land surveying)?

A. No, as long as a course relates to your professional practice in both fields, the PDH may apply to both license renewals.

Q. Can I take courses online?

A. Yes

3. Continuing Education Requirements in Other Jurisdictions

Because P.E. license continuing education requirements are not the same in every state, you probably face confusion when satisfying continuing education requirements in multiple jurisdictions. As an increasing number of jurisdictions adopt and implement continuing education requirements, establishing uniformity in the requirements across jurisdictions has become a difficult issue. As jurisdictions implement different variations of CPC requirements, it is difficult for civil engineers who are licensed in multiple jurisdictions to keep track of what CPC activities are acceptable in each jurisdiction. According to NCEES Model Rule 240.30 - Continuing Professional Competency, a licensed professional engineer is required to obtain 15 PDHs per year. Since the NCEES requirement is a model rule, each individual jurisdiction is free to adopt its own requirements. Although most jurisdictions adopt the NCEES requirement, the amount of required PDH units can vary among jurisdictions from zero to 36 per year (NCEES, 2013). To complicate matters, many jurisdictions often require the standard to be expressed as a biennial or triennial requirement and the calendar dates defining a renewal period vary among jurisdictions. When this is the case, the NCEES Model Rule requires 30 PDH units for a biennial reporting period and 45 PDH units for a triennial reporting period. ASCE has developed a tabular summary of continuing education requirements by state, which is available from www.asce.org Web site (ASCE, 2010). The requirements for Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio are compared in Table 1.

You may be awarded CEUs for AWWA training by your licensing agency. While trainings may be pre-approved for CE Credits in a given state, this does not mean that your agency will award you credit. AWWA recommends that you contact your agency prior to attending any training.

Specialty Certifications

Professional specialty certifications have their own continuing education requirements which may be different from the P.E. license requirements. Certification is the recognition of attaining advanced knowledge and skills in a specialty area of civil engineering. ASCE offers the highest advanced post-licensure certification in areas of coastal, geotechnical, navigation, ocean, ports, and water resources engineering. All certifications adheres to ASCE’s policy to broaden and deepen the body of knowledge for practicing engineers and to elevate the standards in civil engineering.

Table 1. Continuing Education Requirements in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia

State	PDH Hours	Renewal	Preapproval	Notes
Pennsylvania	24	Biennial	No	CPC obtained by licensee should maintain, improve or expand skills and knowledge obtained prior to initial licensure or develop new and relevant skills and knowledge.
Ohio	30	Biennial	No	The continuing professional development requirement may be satisfied by coursework or activities dealing with technical, ethical, or managerial topics relevant to the practice of engineering or surveying.
West Virginia	15	Annual	No	Must be relevant to the profession of engineering and may include technical, ethical or managerial content.

For example, the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers (AAWRE) was founded in October 2004 under the leadership and guidance of members from ASCE’s Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI). AAWRE started the Diplomate, Water Resources Engineer (D.WRE) certification as the highest level of advanced certification offered in the water resources engineering profession for professional engineers. As part of the annual certification renewal process, each Diplomate is required to earn a minimum of thirty (30) professional development hours, including two professional development hours in ethics and two professional development hours in sustainability, every year. American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES) specialty certification called Board Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE) on the other hand requires 40 PDHs of continuing professional development activities in two years.

4. Modes of Continuing Education

The method of delivery of continuing education, referred to as mode, can include traditional instructor-led classroom style lectures or unconventional and modern distant learning methods.

Some continuing education programs make heavy use of distance (or distant) learning, which can include independent study, recorded media (e.g., CDs and DVDs), or broadcast programming which has more recently dominated the distance learning community (Wikipedia, 2014).

Distance learning means any of the following (Brenke, 2013):

Courses where an instructor and a licensee may be apart and instruction takes place through an online or electronic media.
Courses which include, but are not limited to, instruction presented through interactive classrooms, at the job site, computer conferencing, and interactive computer systems.

NCEES Guidelines indicate that PDHs may be earned by successful completion of distance education courses offered through correspondence, television, videotapes, or the Internet (NCEES, 2013).

Distant learning mode of continuing education is generally acceptable provided that proper documentation (to be discussed in the next issue) is maintained. NCEES Continuing Professional Competency Guidelines (NCEES, 2013) indicate that PDHs may be earned by successful completion of short courses/tutorials and distance education courses offered through correspondence, television, videotapes, or the Internet. However, it is always a good idea to confirm in advance what’s acceptable for a particular license type in a particular jurisdiction.

Some universities, such as Southern New Hampshire University, have begun to offer hybrid courses. These courses offer adult learners the option of having in-classroom and online learning. In addition to independent study, the use of conference-type group study and online study networks can be used to facilitate learning. A combination of traditional, distance, and hybrid type methods may be used for a particular continuing education course or program (Wikipedia, 2014).

An Example of an Unconventional Course

For several years, the author has successfully offered online distance education courses approved by Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for Certified Water and Wastewater operators which are also taken by professional engineers for their continuing education requirements. People can register and pay online. The course content, which is mostly PDF files that don’t even have to be printed, can be downloaded online. One course includes watching online educational videos on the YouTube and answering multiple-choice quiz questions. A course completion certificate is issued to those who score at least 70% in a quiz that can be faxed or emailed to the instructor. So far no one has failed the test. DEP is also notified online by the instructor about course completion, and therefore, attendees do not have to submit the course completion documentation to DEP. An online transcript system is available to operators to track their PDH units and courses. Available at www.GIS-Training.com, some of these courses offer discount to ASCE-Pittsburgh members.

As people have more difficulty taking time away from work to attend conferences and workshops, the idea of offering continuing education courses via the Web has become more desirable.

ASCE Distance Education Courses

ASCE offers similar online distance education courses and much more. At http://www.asce.org/webinars/ you can search the largest catalog of Webinars for civil engineers. Live Webinars are ASCE's high-impact training solution delivered by leading experts, with minimal disruption to your workflow. With Live Webinars you can train an entire group of engineers with a single registration fee, and all participating engineers can earn PDHs and obtain certificates at no additional cost. ASCE allows you to create, update, view, and print a personalized transcript of your PDHs at myLearningundefinedASCE’s new hub for continuing education and your PDH Tracker. Learn more at asce.org/myLearning.

5. Continuing Education Documentation

Record Keeping

According to NCEES Continuing Professional Competency Guidelines (NCEES, 2013), the requirement to maintain adequate continuing education records is the responsibility of the licensee. The following record keeping practices are recommended.

A log showing the type of activity claimed, sponsoring organization, location, duration, instructor or speaker name, and PDHs earned. This is intended to require specific information on each continuing education activity where PDH credit is claimed. For example, it is not acceptable to simply state, “Attending educational activities at ABC Company.” Specific information on each Continuing Competency Activity (CPC) is required. The log helps the proper completion of any continuing education activities form at the time of renewal.

Attendance verification records in the form of completion certificates or other documents supporting evidence of attendance. The general rule is that the licensee must have sufficient verification for credits claimed. Certainly, those activities that are of a longer duration (such as over an hour) should have verification. On occasion, it is recognized that short activities, such as a meeting of a technical or professional society, might include a 30-minute speaker and verification was not provided in the meeting. This should be an unlikely exception.

A sample activity log from Pennsylvania State Registration Board is provided below.

Examples of right and wrong ways of filling out a CPC reporting form are provided below.

Are You Ready For a Continuing Education Audit?

Licensing boards may conduct audits of licensees for verification purposes. In fact, auditing a percentage of randomly selected CPC reporting forms is strongly encouraged by the NCEES. State board staff can also cursorily review CPC reporting forms to look for obvious errors, and board members can review a sample to assess the quality and accuracy of returned forms. Each year, approximately 2% of all Active Board Certified Environmental Engineers, Board Certified Environmental Engineering Members, and Board Certified Environmental Scientists are randomly selected for audit by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers.

An ASCE-Pittsburgh Member Audit Story

I’ve been audited twice by two difference state registration boards over the span of my 40 year professional engineering career. In the first instance, I was notified by a phone call from the state board of registration that they were conducting a random audit and wished to see back-up documentation to support my claim of the required hours of continuing education for the prior year of practice to support my license renewal application. In the second instance, a few years later, I received a letter from a different state board indicating that, again, I had been randomly picked for an audit of my continuing education records.

Was it time to PANIC? Could I lose my license in the state in question; what about other states were I was registered if I could not back-up my claimed CE credits? It certainly could have been a dark day had I not kept records that backed-up my claim of PDH or CEU credits! I must admit that my records- keeping would not pass an inspection by the Inspector General’s office, but I did have hard copies of several forms of documents that I was able to copy and submit to these registration boards. Certainly, copies of PDH/CEU certificates made out to me and signed and dated by the authenticating party were the best form of documentation. However, in a few instances, all that I had as back-up was a copy of the conference program which showed dates, topics, presenters, and length of presentation, as well as my personal notes taken during these sessions. In both cases the boards accepted my documentation and renewed my P.E. license. Since then, I have continued to keep complete files of my CE activities just in case that third audit notice arrives!

References and Resources

ASCE (2010). Continuing Education Requirements by State, http://www.asce.org/PPLContent.aspx?id=18788
ASCE (2013). P.E. License Renewal Requirements, Continuing Education Website, http://www.asce.org/knowledge-learning/continuing-education/
ASCE St. Louis Section (2013). Continuing Professional Competency For Professional Engineers Continuing Education Website, http://sections.asce.org/stlouis/Education.htm
Brenke, R. (2013). Michigan Licensure Law: Continuing Education Requirements for Professional Engineers, American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), September 18, 2013.
National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) (2013). Continuing Professional Competency Guidelines.
Pennsylvania State Board of Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists (December 2013). Continuing Education Information, Web Page

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/state_registration_board_for_

professional_engineers,_land_surveyors_and_geologists/12510/continuing_education_

information/804656
Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers (PSPE), PE Licensure, Web Page, http://pspe.org/pe-licensure/
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (2014). Continuing Education,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_education. Site visited March 26, 2014.

Visit our sponsors

Website by OKWhoa.com