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Continuing Education

Striving for Lifelong Learning and Professional Development

The purpose of mandatory continuing education is to reinforce the need for lifelong learning in order to stay current with ever-changing technology, equipment, procedures, processes, tools, and established standards. Qualifying activities must have a clear purpose and objective that will maintain, improve, or expand the skills and knowledge relevant to the registrant’s field of practice. Registrants are encouraged to select meaningful activities that will be of benefit in the pursuit of their chosen fields.

General Requirements

All individual registrants must complete thirty professional development hours every two years to renew their license.

  1. At least twenty professional development hours must be in technical subjects that directly safeguard the public’s health, safety, and welfare, including technical professional management subjects such as total quality process or technical engineering or land surveying software training.

  2. A maximum of ten professional development hours may be in nontechnical professional-related subjects. At least one nontechnical professional development hour must be in an ethics-oriented class.

  3. If chosen for audit, registrants will be required to submit a list of continuing professional development activities and associated certificates/documents.
    Registrants holding both professional engineering and surveying registrations must earn a minimum of one-third, or ten professional development hours in each profession with a total of thirty professional development hours every two years. A dual registrant is not required to obtain more than thirty professional development hours per biennial renewal period because of dual registrations.

  4. A maximum of fifteen qualifying professional development hours may be forwarded to the subsequent biennial renewal period.

  5. Comity for continuing professional development is allowed if the registrant is currently licensed in a jurisdiction or state that requires mandatory continuing professional competency and meets the minimum requirements as established by the North Dakota state board of registration for professional engineers and land surveyors.

  6. New registrants shall comply with continuing education requirements as follows: registrants who receive their license prior to the fourth quarter in an odd-numbered year shall report the full biennial requirement of thirty professional development hours at the time of next renewal; and registrants who receive their license prior to the fourth quarter in an even-numbered year shall report one-half of the biennial requirement, i.e., fifteen professional development hours, at the time of next renewal.

*For more information about North Dakota’s audit process and continuing education, please see North Dakota Administrative Code (NDAC) Title 28-04-01

Recordkeeping

Recordkeeping is the responsibility of the registrant. Adequate records must be maintained for a minimum of four years from the date of last biennial renewal for auditing purposes. Records may be maintained on an automated platform that allows the data to be exported to a commonly used and readable file type. Records required include:

  1. A log showing the type of activity claimed, sponsoring organization, location, duration, date, instructor’s or speaker’s name, and professional development hour credits claimed. Specific information on each activity is required. Simply stating “attending education activities at ABC Company” is not acceptable.

    CPC Logs

  2. Attendance verification records in the form of certificates, attendance electronic mails, or other documents supporting evidence of attendance. The registrant must have sufficient verification for all credits claimed. Registration alone does not constitute attendance.

Qualifying Activities

The board does not preapprove courses, providers, or activities. It is the responsibility of the registrant to determine whether the activity meets the requirements of this board. During the audit process, the board will make the final determination of professional development hour credit. All professional development hour allowances stated in this section are biennial requirements.

Best Practices and Qualifying Activities

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Continuing Education