For many sponsors, cancellations of live and in-person CPE offerings began in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently and for a limited time, the National Registry of CPE is allowing sponsors who are approved for Group Live and have submitted an application to the National Registry for approval for the Group Internet Based delivery method, the ability to provide their programs online until they are officially approved for Group Internet Based delivery method.

Once officially approved for the Group Internet Based delivery method, sponsors have the ability and choice to provide their programs with either delivery method or use them simultaneously. There is not a separate delivery method called hybrid training.

The Statement on Standards for CPE Program Sponsors (Standards), specifically Paragraph S23-02, explains how sponsors can offer simultaneous delivery of the same course for both Group Live and Group Internet Based instructional methods. While Paragraph 23-02 allows a sponsor at its discretion to issue the certificates of completion for the program under the delivery method of the majority in attendance, this provision was intended to assist with the administrative burden for those sponsors that have a manual certificate generation process. However, it doesn’t impact the delivery method and attendance monitoring requirements of each respective delivery method.

The sponsor must implement the delivery method and attendance monitoring requirements for Group Live and Group Internet Based during the simultaneous presentation. So, there must be an element of engagement for each 50-minutes of content for Group Live participants and participants must be monitored in accordance with the policies established for the Group Live event in order to award the appropriate amount of CPE credit.

For the Group Internet Based participants of the simultaneous presentation, the sponsor must employ at least three attendance monitoring mechanisms per one CPE credit and record the responses of each monitoring mechanism by participant in order to award the appropriate amount of CPE credit.

A best practice for simultaneous programs is the use of polling questions. As long as the polling questions are content related, polling questions are an easy way to satisfy the requirements of attendance monitoring for Group Internet Based participants as well as satisfy the requirements for an element of engagement for Group Live participants.

Reminder: The sponsor must be approved on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors for the Group Live and Group Internet Based delivery methods in order to award NASBA-approved CPE credits for a simultaneous delivery presentation.