Cosponsorship Requirements
Organizations wishing to have their events cosponsored will need to meet certain standards in order to offer CE credits. Each session of your event will be reviewed as part of the process to ensure those requirements are met. When planning a cosponsored event, it will be important to make sure you are meeting the following requirements for each session.
Educational Content Requirements
When setting up an event in your CE-Go account, there are several ways to collect or add your educational content. Cosponsored organizations work directly with an account manager to receive onboarding and make sure your content is entered where it needs to be. Whether you are manually adding session details, or using our Call for Presentations feature to collect session information from your presenters and import those details into your event, your account manager will ensure you have the tools you need to collect the required information.
Abstract or Description
Each session should include a narrative description at least 3-5 sentences long that describes what will be presented and what attendees can expect to learn. Your description should also make sense with your proposed learning objectives and supported by your references.
đź’ˇ Remember that the session description is also what your prospective attendees are going to see when deciding whether or not to attend your event, so make sure it is informative and useful.
Learning Objectives
A good general guideline is that there should be about 1 learning objective for each hour of educational content, with a minimum of 3 learning objectives. Learning objectives should be consistent with the session description and relevant to the needs of clinically licensed behavioral health professionals.
Each session should include learning objectives that are measurable and observable, and complete the sentence "After attending this session attendees will be able to..."
For more guidance on writing learning objectives, see the American Psychological Association's Guidance for Writing Behavioral Learning Objectives.
💡 A common mistake in writing learning objectives, is that they state what the presenter intends to teach, rather than telling the attendee what skills they can expect to leave with. Instead of “Presenter will discuss therapeutic interventions,” consider trying “Participants will be able to list three therapeutic interventions.”
💡Avoid verbs such as “learn,” and “understand,” since these are hard to measure and observe. Using verbs like “list,” “assess,” and “define,” for example, make the overall learning objective easy to observe and measure.
References
Each session should have at least 5 references to support the proposed educational content. Of those 5 references, 3 must be from peer reviewed journal articles published within the last 10 years. References should be relevant to your proposed session description and learning objectives.
đź’ˇ While books, chapters from edited anthologies, and other references can be useful, they do not fulfill the requirements for 3 peer reviewed journal articles. Make sure you are including current peer-reviewed journal articles as part of your reference list, to demonstrate that your educational content is contemporary and evidence-based.
Presenter Qualifications and CV
In addition to submitting a bio statement, your session presenter will need to submit full curriculum vitae (CV) or resumé that demonstrates their expertise in the subject matter being taught. The presenter CV should be a complete record of your presenters expertise and include the following:
- Name & relevant professional and contact details.
- Relevant certifications, licenses, and training. Make sure to include the dates acquired and/or expiration dates if relevant.
- Sufficient relevant and established expertise. This can include publications, job experience, field work, and prior courses or presentations taught.
For more details, see the America Psychological Association's CV Guidance for Establishing Expertise.
đź’ˇ While longer doesn't always mean better, it can help to have all of your presenters research, accomplishments, and certifications available for review. So, don't hesitate to submit something with many pages!
đź’ˇOrganizations often ask if its ok to have a presenter who is not a clinically licensed behavioral health professional. While a clinical license does help establish expertise, it isn't always necessary. So long as your presenter CV demonstrates expertise in the subject matter being taught, and that the content of the session is relevant for clinically licensed behavioral health professionals, you are meeting the standards.
Additional Requirements
In addition to collecting the required session information, there are additional forms that may be required from your event planners and presenters.
Disclosure Forms
All persons involved with the planning of your event will need to complete a disclosure form. Depending on the nature of your event, this may include any of the following types of participants:
- Presenter/Speaker
- Abstract Reviewer
- Planner
- Session Chair
- Co-Author
- Moderator
- Planning Committee
- CE Coordinator
If your presenter submitted their proposed session information for a cosponsored event via the Call For Presentations feature, they will be required to complete their disclosure form as part of their proposal.
Any additional planners or presenters who did not submit information and disclosures using the Call for Presentations form will receive an email with a link to complete the required disclosure forms.
Commercial Support
As part of your disclosure forms, you will agree and attest that your educational content is free from commercial bias. If there is a concern or any relationships with ineligible companies that are reported on your disclosure forms, additional information may be requested to ensure compliance.
Self-Paced Course Requirements
Exam
If you are submitting a self-paced course for co-sponsorship approval, in addition to the above listed requirements you will also be required to submit an exam. Exams for your self-paced course are an important part of learner assessment. The questions should be important, have learning value and be related to learning objectives and important information in your course.
- In general exams should offer 10 questions for the first CE credit hour, and an additional 5 questions for each additional hour after that. for example, an hour long CE course will require 10 questions, but a two hour long CE course will require 15 questions.
- Questions should be multiple choice with four alternatives. For such questions, answers may include "both/all of the above," or "none of the above," but not both of those options in the same set of answers for any questions.
- There should be no more than one True/False question per CE credit offered.
- Exam questions should follow the order in which the material was presented.
- The exam should be written by the course presenter or another subject matter expert. It is not acceptable for quizzes to be authored by administrative staff or others who are not experts in the topic presented. For recorded webinars, we suggest having the presenter author the required exam.
Once your educational content for a session has been submitted and your disclosure forms have been completed, your account manager will assign your session for review by an expert reviewer who will verify the requirements are met.