Q: I have had a request from an outside organization who wishes to offer CEU’s through Hawkeye Community College – I am hesitant to do this due to no real involvement of Hawkeye, other than the actual Logo on the CEU. Does LERN have guidelines for issuing CEUs? I know the upcoming ILUs address some of these issues, but I don’t think we are quite ready for that shift. Basically, keeping the integrity of the CEUs issued by HCC is my concern.
A: Your concern is well-founded. Here is what I can tell you about CEUs and guidelines.
There is no universally accepted standard for the CEU. There are guidelines set by the International Association of Education and Training (IACET); however, these are not universally required and are not universally followed. In fact, the majority of providers are not members of IACET and do not necessarily follow their guidelines.
The guideline that is most universally followed is the “seat time” requirement. That is, one CEU is granted for every 10 hours of training. Our introduction of the ILU was an effort to address the issue of quality and actual learning, since it requires demonstration of learning, not just seat time.
Individual professional associations offer their own CEUs and/or approve CEUs offered by other providers. These entities have their own requirements and guidelines which any provider must meet in order for the CEU to be recognized.
In your case, if your organization has specific standards for CEUs, as long as the outside provider meets them, and you have some way to hold them accountable for meeting these standards, you might feel comfortable in allowing them to offer these in conjunction with your organization. If your standards are not clearly defined and/or you have no mechanism for establishing the accountability of the provider, you might well want to reject their proposal.
Further, you would want to establish some kind of “official” relationship with the organization in order to insure the quality of their content and delivery. I am assuming that there would be a contract of some kind with financial contribution to your organization as part of this relationship.
I hope this is helpful. Let me know if I can provide further information