CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD)
1. What is CPD?
Broadly speaking Continuing Professional Development (CPD) includes any activity that
extends or updates your knowledge, skill or judgment in your area(s) of practice and
enables you to:
Professional engineers undertake CPD activities in order to maintain and extend their knowledge, skills and judgment. One of the main functions of CPD is to equip you for your planned career path.
CPD should not normally be undertaken on an ad-hoc basis, although there will alway be exceptions as the job dictates, but it should be planned along with work and career path.For an activity to qualify as CPD it must be related to your career as a professional engineer. For many engineers CPD activities will include technical and non-technical topics. Non-technical topics include management, accounting, law, economics, and foreign languages in which you carry out business. If you are undertaking non-technical CPD you should also maintain and update your knowledge in your area(s) of practice. Over a three year period it is expected that a substantial proportion of your CPD should be in your area(s) of practice. If the non-technical CPD you are undertaking is of significant content (eg a law degree), then you must still continue to undertake some technical CPD in your area(s) of practice and be able to indicate future CPD plans on completion of the non-technical CPD.
Functions that you routinely perform as part of your employment are not normally claimable. For instance university lecturers cannot claim, under Presentations and Papers (see Section 7 ) the lectures they present as part of their employment. On-the-job learning is claimable (see Section 5), but you must be able to demonstrate how the activity contributed to your knowledge, skill or judgement and how it was acquired.2 CPD requirement for Chartered status (current
year) and registration on NPER
The CPD requirements for maintaining current year endorsement for
Chartered status and registration on NPER are identical in scope. On an ongoing basis, you
need to undertake at least 150 weighted hours of CPD activities during any three-year
period, keep records of the activities and make the records available for audit when
required.
For many engineers, the most convenient method of recording sufficient detail for audit will be through brief entries in their professional diary. However, you may prefer to maintain a spreadsheet in accordance with the layout of the attached pro-forma sheet so that your records are easy to produce when requested for audit.
Six main types of CPD activities are discussed below for which different time weighting factors apply. Engineers in academic positions must also show that they undertake a minimum of 40 hours of industry involvement in any three years.
The weighted hours of CPD for any given activity are obtained by multiplying the actual hours spent on the activity by the relevant time weighting factor. For example, participation in a short course attracts a time weighting factor of 2 (see Section 4 below). Hence, if 8 hours were actually spent on the short course, this would convert to 16 weighted hours.
3 Types of CPD The six major types of CPD are.
A Formal Education and Training Activities
If you believe you are undertaking other types of CPD that comply
with the general definition in Section 1 above, you should make a submission for this to
be recognised. In your submission
you should state how you think it has complied with the intent of CPD and explain the
content of the activity and how it was provided.
A - Formal Education and Training Activities (time weighting factor = 2)
Such activities include formal face-to-face education, distance education and short courses. They may be external to your employment or conducted in-house, but will always include time spent in preparation and/or follow-up, either through lectures and/or self study and will always involve some form of assessment.
A special case relates to the undertaking of the entire course work for a higher degree or post graduate diploma, either by the face-to-face or distance modes, which will cover the CPD requirements for the rolling three-year period containing the course. However, you should continue to record other relevant CPD activities to show that you are continuing to keep up to date throughout the period of higher education study and beyond when completed.
For formal face-to-face education the time claimed can include the actual hours of lectures attended and/or research undertaken. For distance learning, the simplest approach is to estimate the equivalent number of hours of formal face-to-face education that would have been involved if this mode had been utilised instead of the distance mode. A time weighting factor of up to 2 can then be applied.
Short courses are defined as involving presenters who are external to the workplace. They include courses at tertiary institutions that are not taken for award purposes, but still involve some form of assessment. Training activities within the workplace that do not involve some form of assessment are classed as on-the-job learning (see Section 5).
Note: You must provide evidence of the award (eg copy of certificate or academic transcript) when your records are requested for audit.
B - Informal Learning Activities (various time weighting factors)
There are two different forms of informal learning activity, namely on-the-job learning, that takes place because of workplace requirements, and private study where you can exercise complete discretion. On-the-job learning requirements usually arise when you undertake a new project and areas are identified where you need to extend your competency base. It almost always involves another person training you rather than self paced learning. Exceptions could be learning from videos or structured software based training. On the other hand, private study is self paced and is an opportunity for you to direct the way in which your professional career develops. Typical private study activities are the reading of books, journals, manuals, etc and familiarisation with the operation of technological aids, computer programs, equipment, etc.
In both cases any activity claimed must pass the simple test that it contributes to the development of your career as a professional engineer. A time weighting factor of 1 applies to on-the-job learning while a factor of 0.5 applies to private study. In both cases, the maximum number of "weighted" hours that you can claim over a three year period is 75 hours. Although you can meet your 150 hours CPD obligations if you are able to justify the maximum allowable claims for both on-the-job learning and private study, you are encouraged to broaden CPD activities to include some formal activities. At least some of your CPD activities should be planned in advance to further develop your competency no matter what stage you are at in your career.
Informal learning activities must be supported by sufficient detail to allow a proper assessment when requested for audit. It is not sufficient just to list books, journals, manuals, standards, software etc. without supporting information. Details of the chapters, articles, papers or other relevant information must also be provided so as to give an indication of the new knowledge that was gained.
6 C - Conferences and Meetings (time weighting factor = 1)
Conferences, symposia, seminars, workshops, inspections and meetings run by acknowledged experts can be claimed as CPD provided that the content relates to the development of your professional career. This includes those events run by IEAust Divisions, Societies and other groups to provide information relating to the profession of engineering.
The hours claimed should be only those for the formal technical presentations, inspections and meetings that you attended at such events. and must not include social or travelling time.
7 D - Presentations and Papers (various time weighting factors)
The preparation and presentation of material for conferences, seminars, symposia and courses can be claimed if these activities contribute to the engineering related competencies of engineers and associated professionals.
For the preparation and presentation of papers a time weighting factor of 10 should be applied to the actual duration of the presentation if the paper is not published.
Material published in journals and conference papers can be claimed as follows:
For the preparation of material for courses that are not part of your normal employment (eg visiting lecturer from industry) the preparation time can be claimed where it extends your knowledge in your area(s) of practice. A time weighting factor of 1 applies to all such activities.
The preparation and presentation of material designed to promote awareness of engineering, membership of IEAust and benefits of registration to potential members and the community can be claimed. A time weighting factor of 5 should be applied to the actual duration of the presentation. You may claim up to 30 weighted hours of this type of CPD in any three-year period.
8 E - Service Activities (time weighting factor = 1)
Service to the profession may be allowable particularly where it contributes to the continuing professional development of others. Within IEAust, this includes contributions as a College Membership Reviewer, member of a course accreditation team, participation in CPD audits, review of technical papers prior to publication, and the technical aspects of work undertaken on or for the Boards and Committees of the Institution, including national committees and technical societies. The time involved in mentoring of graduate engineers during their time of professional formation can also be included, particularly where it is part of a graduate development program. A time weighting factor of 1 applies to all such activities.
CPD allowable under this heading is limited to 20% of your total in any three years.
9 F - Industry Involvement (per academia) (time weighting factor = 1)
Engineers employed in academic positions are expected to foster links with industry to the benefit of engineering education, research and practice in Australia. This requirement also ensures that they are exposed to developments in engineering practice outside their university.
Industry involvement will normally be in the form of consulting services. However, where you have close ties with industry, you can include supervision of industry sponsored research.
Supervision of design projects carried out for industry and field trips may also be counted if they have contributed to the above objectives.
Professional engineers in academic positions must be able to show they have had at least 40 hours of industry involvement every three years in addition to their 150 weighted hours of CPD.
10 Example: Summary Record of CPD Activities
The example below is a summary record of CPD activities that may be expected for a Chartered Professional Engineer practising as a structural engineer
Refer to the Institutions printed version of this sheet for the table and proforma. (click here for Guidelines in WORD format)
22 January 2003 Issue 3 Revision 0