Continuing-Education Fundamentals
Understanding PDH, CE, and CPC
Licensing boards use several related terms to describe professional
continuing education. Understanding the terminology helps licensees
evaluate courses and maintain accurate renewal records.
Terminology Overview
Related Terms with Different Functions
Professional Development Hour, continuing education, and
continuing professional competency are related concepts, but
they do not always mean precisely the same thing.
PDH commonly describes a unit of credit.
CE broadly describes educational activity
completed after initial professional qualification.
CPC commonly describes the overall regulatory
system through which a licensing board requires continued
professional competency.
Terminology and calculation methods can vary among jurisdictions.
Licensees should apply the definitions and rules established by
the board responsible for the applicable license.
Professional Development Hours
What Is a PDH?
A Professional Development Hour is a common unit used by engineering
and surveying licensing boards to measure qualifying educational
activity. In many jurisdictions, one PDH represents approximately
one contact hour of participation in an approved or otherwise
acceptable professional-development activity.
Breaks, meals, registration periods, unrelated activities, and other
noninstructional time generally should not be counted as educational
contact time unless the applicable board expressly provides otherwise.
A course advertised for a stated number of PDHs should contain an
appropriate amount of educational content and require the student to
satisfy the stated completion conditions.
Unit of Measurement
PDH generally refers to the number of qualifying professional-
development hours earned through an educational activity.
Subject Relevance
The subject ordinarily must contribute to professional competence
or satisfy a specific regulatory requirement.
Completion Evidence
A certificate or equivalent record documents the activity, date,
provider, subject, and hours claimed.
Continuing Education
What Does CE Mean?
Continuing education is a broad term for structured learning
completed after a person’s initial education, examination, or
professional qualification.
CE may include online courses, classroom instruction, seminars,
webinars, technical presentations, academic study, and other
learning activities recognized by the applicable licensing board.
The term CE does not by itself establish how many credits an
activity provides or whether a particular board will accept it.
Those determinations depend on the jurisdiction’s rules.
Continuing Professional Competency
What Is CPC?
Continuing Professional Competency generally refers to the broader
licensing-board program that requires professionals to maintain and
document competence after initial licensure.
A CPC program may establish the required number of hours, renewal
period, acceptable subjects, approved delivery methods, ethics or
laws-and-rules requirements, carryover limitations, record-retention
periods, exemptions, and audit procedures.
PDHs are often the units used to satisfy a CPC requirement. In that
relationship, CPC is the regulatory program and PDH is the credit unit.
01
Competency Requirement
The licensing board establishes the amount and type of professional
development required for renewal.
02
Documentation Requirement
The licensee maintains certificates and supporting records in case
the renewal is selected for audit.
03
Licensee Responsibility
The individual licensee is ordinarily responsible for compliance,
reporting accuracy, and course acceptance.
Related Credit Terms
CEU, Contact Hours, and Other Units
Some organizations and licensing authorities use additional units or
terminology.
Contact Hour
A contact hour generally represents a defined period of
instructional participation, often approximately 60 minutes.
Continuing Education Unit
A CEU is commonly associated with a larger block of contact hours.
Conversion rules must be confirmed with the applicable authority.
College Credit
Academic semester or quarter hours may convert to PDHs according
to formulas established by the licensing board.
Do not assume that every jurisdiction uses the same conversion between
PDHs, contact hours, CEUs, semester hours, quarter hours, presentations,
publications, or other professional-development activities. Apply the
conversion formula published by the board responsible for your license.
Subject Requirements
Not All PDHs Are Interchangeable
Some licensing boards divide continuing-education credit into
technical and nontechnical subjects or require a minimum number of
hours in ethics, laws and rules, standards of practice, or health,
safety, and welfare.
A course may be educational and professionally useful without
satisfying a particular mandatory classification. Review both the
course subject and your jurisdiction’s requirements before relying on
the course for a specific credit category.
Documentation
Maintain Complete PDH Records
A certificate supports a PDH claim but does not replace the
licensee’s responsibility to maintain complete and accurate
records. Retain course information for the period required by
each applicable licensing board.
Apply the Requirements
Review Your State’s Continuing-Education Rules
Confirm the terminology, required hours, subject classifications,
renewal period, and recordkeeping rules that apply to your license.