Professional Development Hours (PDHs)

Professional Development Hours (PDHs) is the term applied to training taken as part of continuing certification or licensing.  In most cases, a PDH represents the "contact" hours, meaning the hours spent in training.

There are numerous organizations that require PDHs, and the requirements can range from 4-30 hours annually (sometimes more, sometimes less).  Each organization will have different specifications for approval of certain types of training for credit toward PDH requirements.  We do not seek approval of our courses for credit with professional or certifying organizations.  However, if you do receive credit for our course with your specific organization, we will list the specific organization's approval on our web.

The following general summary can be used in determining whether or not our materials can be used for credit toward your PDH requirements:

1. Contact your professional or certifying organization to determine their specific annual, biennial, or other PDH training requirements.
2. Ask your professional or certifying organization for pre-approval of our courses, if applicable.
3. Make sure that the course is relevant to your field of practice (this can include both current and future job requirements).
4. Ensure that the PDH hours you wish to obtain are consistent with those provided by our organization (we award the lower end of the range of hours listed in our course synopses, regardless of how long it takes a student to complete the course).
5. Maintain documentation.  You may be required to provide any or all of the following information summarized below in order to obtain approval, to document course completion, and to receive PDH credit.

Once you take the course, it is your responsibility to ensure that you provide your professional or certifying organization with the appropriate information to receive credit.  Some of the information that may be required include:

1. Course Synopsis:  This contains a brief description of the course, the learning objectives, and the content of the course. You can link to our list of course synopses for more information.  Print off a copy of the course synopsis for your records.
2. Certificate of Completion:  This is provided by our organization to students that successfully complete the course.  An example of our Certificate of Completion is provided for your information.  When you complete the course and we provide you with a Certificate of Completion, maintain it with your course records.
3. Course Developers Credentials:  From each course synopsis, you can link to a copy of the credentials of our course developer(s).  Print off a copy of the course developer's resume and keep it with your course records.  This will help to demonstrate that the course developer is qualified and experienced to teach in the subject matter.
4. Course Agenda:  This is the beginning page of the course and it contains a summary of each of the assignments and the range of hours that it takes students to complete each assignment as well as the entire course.  Note that for PDHs, we only award the lower end of the range regardless of how long it takes you to complete the course.  We provide a link to the course agenda from our course synopsis.  Print off a copy of the course agenda for your course records.
5. Course Materials:  You have the option of printing off the course materials and your exercise responses in order to have documentation of the course materials, as well as for later reference.  We also maintain a copy of your assignment responses for a period of 5 years.