Online PDH Courses and Webinars for Professional Engineers

PDH refers to Professional Development Hours, educational units used to fulfill continuing education requirements for licensure. 1 PDH hour means that an activity that the trainee is undertaking lasts for one hour. Most of state engineering boards define 1 PDH hour as a 50 minute minimum learning activity

Continuing Education typically refers to additional learning activities as means to stay on top of latest developments and trends in an industry. For Professional Engineers, Continuing Education is required by most state Engineering Boards with varying minimum annual requirements. You can see the state by state requirements on our State Requirements page.

CEUs are Continuing Education Units created in the 1970 after IACET (International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training) and the U.S. Department of Education task force studied the measurement of non-credit continuing education activities. The continuing education unit (CEU) was designed to:

• Provide a standard unit of measurement for continuing education and training,
• Quantify continuing education and training (CE/T) activities, and
• Accommodate for the diversity of providers, activities, and purposes in adult education.

1 CEU is equivalent to 10 PDH hours, so a 2 PDH course would equal 0.2 CEUs.

Yes and no. CPD, or Continuous Professional Development is a term some engineering Boards used interchangeably with PDH. However, CPD refers to a professional’s development while PDH is the duration of that Continuous Professional Development, or CPD. CPD Hours or CPD Credits are generally the same as PDHs, and are terms used by some engineering licensing Boards.

According to NCEES (National Council of Examiners for Engineering), CPC or Continuing Professional Competency is any qualifying course or activity with a clear purpose and objective which will maintain, improve, or expand the skills and knowledge relevant to the licensee’s field of practice. So, while PDH refers to Professional Development Hours, CPC refers to a competency, or an activity that will help develop a competency.

Yes. All states allow online courses, although to a varying degree. Most states allow on-demand online courses and educational activities, as long as they contribute to the professional practice of professional engineering or land surveying. The course topic must be related to professional practice and contribute to the development or maintenance of professional knowledge. PDH STAR on-demand online PDH courses satisfy this requirement. Some state, like New York, require that part of the required PDHs be obtained through live or interactive learning activities, with access to the instructor. PDH STAR live and interactive webinars satisfy this requirement.

State of Ohio requires part of the PDHs to be obtained through “timed and monitored” activities, where ongoing trainee participation is required. PDH STAR Timed and Monitored courses and On-Demand Webinars meet these requirements.