Wed, 09 October, 2024
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is often perceived as an onerous task that has no relevance or importance in our working lives, however, this could not be further from the truth. CPD that is undertaken in a structured manner can be incredibly beneficial to your career development and even if you have reached your career goals, it can help you maintain your knowledge and competence.
For those who are CSWIP or BGAS-CSWIP certificate holders, CPD also plays an important part in maintaining your certification as it is required to successfully complete your renewal and/or recertification. We get many questions from our certificate holders, from what is CPD and what does recording CPD entail, to what is an example of good (or bad!) CPD?
Everything you need to know about CPD can be found on its dedicated page here. Below are snippets from “Good” and “Bad” CPD submissions, and why they are considered such.
Good CPD Record
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DATE
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DETAILS OF YOUR CPD ACTIVITY
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HOURS SPENT
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01 Sept 2023
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Attended a Structural Integrity and NDT Technical Group Meeting on Optimising Inspection Techniques for Weld Flaw Assessments.
Provided further knowledge on: how to identify cost saving through efficient structural design and inspection; how current inspection methods can be used to advantage to set flaw tolerance limits and be aware of limitations; and learnt about recent and potential future improvements to inspection and flaw assessment methods
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8
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11 – 15 Sept 2023
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Attended a CSWIP Senior Welding Inspector Course and Examination.
Learned about: QA and QC as well as destructive testing, heat treatments, welding procedures, residual stress and distortion, weldability, weld fractures, weld repairs, welding consumables, and welding symbols, non-destructive testing, specifications, joint design, HSLA and quenched tempered steels, arc energy, and heat input
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35
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27 Sept 2023
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Provided training course to apprentices on MIG/MAG/TIG welding
Gained further teaching experience, and learnt what works and what doesn’t. Feedback received from apprentices also ensures that my approach is correct and providing the guidance/information required.
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8
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10 October 2023
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Reading Welding and Joining Matters – x1
Read articles covering “an overview of composites”; “basics of polymers and composite testing” and “Adhesive Bonding”
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2
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Bad CPD Record
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DATE
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DETAILS OF YOUR CPD ACTIVITY
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HOURS SPENT
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Nov
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Webinar on Management Skills
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Sept 2023
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Studying for Senior Welding Inspector
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100
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Present
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Research on the internet
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4 years
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Examples explained:
- Clear dates of when the CPD occurs – when you are applying for your renewal/recertification your CPD must cover four years and be a minimum of 35 hours per year
- Accurate name of activity – it tells the reviewer exactly what the activity was so it is easy for them to identify what it is
- Details of what you learned/gained from the activity – it enables the reviewer to see how it may be relevant to your professional development/the certification you are looking to renew
- Accurate hours – hours must be an accurate representation of the time spent on the course, not over inflated and only covering the time spent at that activity.
- Activities should all be relevant, and consist of multiple types of activities, not just “on the job training” or “reading technical documents”.
We appreciate that during COVID-19 access to CPD activities was not always possible and, as such, TWI Cert took a pragmatic approach to the review of CPD from that period (2020 to 2022); however, restrictions have been removed across the world for some time now and therefore, TWI Cert will be expecting the CPD information included in application forms to reflect those that were received prior to 2020, and the “good” example provided above.