Continuing education credits (CEUs)

The most common misunderstanding I hear about CE credit is that the course platform provides it. It doesn't. Credit comes from an approved provider, which is a person or organization an approving body has reviewed. The platform issues the certificate and keeps the records. The approval is yours.

CEU, CE credit, contact hour: what's the difference?

These terms get used interchangeably, but they aren't the same:

• Contact hour. Roughly an hour of instruction. Many boards count CE this way; check yours.
• CEU. A specific unit defined by IACET, the International Association for Continuing Education and Training. IACET defines one CEU as ten contact hours, delivered by a provider it has reviewed against its standard.
• CE credit. The general term for whatever unit a licensing board accepts.
• CPD. Continuing professional development, the term more common in the UK and other Commonwealth countries.

Who grants continuing education credits?

Each profession has its own approvers, and a licensed professional can only use credit from one their board accepts. A few examples:

• Social workers. The Association of Social Work Boards runs ACE, which approves providers and individual courses. Most US states and all Canadian provinces accept it; ASWB notes that New York does not.
• Psychologists. The American Psychological Association approves organizations as CE sponsors.
• Nurses. The American Nurses Credentialing Center accredits providers of nursing continuing professional development.

Counselors, coaches, massage therapists and other professions each have their own bodies and rules. Check the approver your students' licenses depend on before you design anything.

Can you offer CE credit for your own course?

Yes, in one of two ways. You can apply to become an approved provider yourself, or you can partner with an organization that already is one and co-sponsor the course.

Kay Adams took the first route. She runs Journalversity, her journal therapy school, on Ruzuku, and became an NBCC-approved provider so her courses award CE credit to counselors. That approval is what made the credit count. The platform's job was delivering the courses and issuing the certificates.

Approvers typically ask for things like stated learning objectives, a posttest with a passing score, a course evaluation, specific wording on the certificate, and records you keep for several years. The details vary by approver, so read their handbook first. The guide to certificates and CE credit sets out what platforms handle natively and what stays with you.

Where does a course platform fit?

A platform can lock lessons in order, run the quiz, track who finished, and issue a certificate. Ruzuku's certificate shows the approval text you type plus each learner's name and completion date. It can't print each learner's license number. On Ruzuku, certificates are part of the Pro plan; the panel below has the details. It can't grant credit or make a course approved. If a vendor implies otherwise, ask which approving body has reviewed them, because the answer is usually none. For the difference between a CE certificate and your own credential, see course certification.