Activity Categories and Levels of Effort
A credible continuing professional development program must define minimum levels of effort. The unit of measure for this effort is the Professional Development Hour (PDH). Engineers PEI recognizes six general activity categories as contributing to continuing professional development. These are listed below with corresponding PDHs and summarized in Table 1.
To meet the Engineers PEI Program requirement:
- a member must accumulate an average of 80 PDHs per year, over a 3 year period, with a minimum of 60 PDHs in any year (unless a member has been granted an exception), and
- the same activity cannot be included in more than one category.
|
Table 1 - Professional Development Activity Minimum Requirements |
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|
Category |
Examples of Activities |
PDHs Earned Ratio |
Max. PDHs per Year |
|
Professional Practice |
Professional engineering within scope of practice |
1 PDH/ 20 hours |
40 |
|
Formal Activity |
Structured courses or programs, including those provided by universities, colleges, industry and technical societies |
1 PDH/ Contact Hour |
30 |
|
Informal Activity |
Unstructured courses; self-directed study; conferences; technical sessions; seminars; technical, professional & management meetings; structured peer discussions, etc. |
1 PDH/ 1 Hour |
30 |
|
Technical Participation |
Peer interaction as mentor, service on public bodies, service with technical societies, etc |
1 PDH/ 1 Hour |
20 |
|
Non-Technical Participation |
Service on charitable, community, church, sports, school boards, government, etc. |
1 PDH/ 1 Hour |
10 |
|
Presentations |
Technical and professional presentations at conferences meetings, workshops, seminars, courses, etc. |
5 PDH/ Hour of Presentation |
20 |
|
Contribution to Knowledge |
Activities that expand or develop knowledge such as development of codes and standards, patents, publishing technical information, editing papers, etc. |
Various (See section 3.3.6.) |
30 |
Carry Over
The following conditions apply to the provision for carrying over excess PDHs from a reporting year for use in the following year. The provision has the same objective as the averaging provision, i.e. to assist Members, Engineers-in-Training and Licensees in meeting the requirements of the Program in a year when, for one reason or another, they would otherwise experience difficulty in accumulating the requisite number of Professional Development Hours.
- PDHs carried forward from the previous year in a category may be claimed for the current reporting year (up to the maximum allowed per year) in that category. Any PDHs carried forward from the previous year and not claimed in the reporting year will be nullified.
- If PDHs carried forward from the previous year are insufficient to claim the maximum allowed per year in a category, then PDHs earned in the reporting year, if any, must be used to claim the balance of the maximum allowed for that category.
- Only PDHs earned in the current reporting year that are not required for claiming the maximum allowed per year in a category may be carried forward to the next year.
Example:
|
Category |
Maximum # of PDHs allowed per year |
PDHs earned in current reporting year |
PDHs carried over from previous reporting year |
PDHs claimed for current reporting year (up to maximum) |
PDHs from current reporting year carried to next year |
|
Column 1 |
Column 2 |
Column 3 |
Column 4 |
Column 5 |
Column 6 |
|
Professional Practice 1 PDH/20 Hrs |
40 |
72 |
59 |
40 |
72 |
|
Formal Activity 1 PDH/ 1Hr |
30 |
29 |
17 |
30 |
16 |
|
Informal Activity 1PDH / 1 Hr |
30 |
23 |
0 |
23 |
0 |
|
Technical Participation 1 PDH / 1 Hr |
20 |
0 |
25 |
20 |
0 |
It is the responsibility of the member submitting an Activity Summary to complete columns 3, 4, 5 & 6 for every category in which PDHs are being reported or claimed.
