Textbook CE Activities to Count by Chapter Only
Effective Jan. 1, 2023, ARRT will change our policies concerning continuing education (CE) activities based on textbooks or e-books. This change will affect you if you earn CE credits by reading textbooks or e-books.
We’ll require CE sponsors and approvers to evaluate and award CE credits based on individual chapters, rather than on full books or multichapter sections.
Why the Change?
By approving only one chapter at a time, we hope to help R.T.s better meet their specific CE needs. Sometimes R.T.s read entire textbooks when only sections apply to them. The change allows R.T.s to customize their learning plans.
In addition, to meet Continuing Qualifications Requirements (CQR) and structured education requirements, activities must focus on one or more of four topics: patient care, image production, safety, and procedures. Single chapters are more likely to meet those requirements.
Because we’ll consider each chapter a separate CE activity, CE sponsors will have to give unique post-tests for each chapter. CE approvers—i.e., recognized continuing education evaluation mechanisms (RCEEMS) and state licensing agencies—will assign reference numbers for each chapter-based activity.
Activities Approved Before Jan. 1, 2023
R.T.s can still complete CE activities based on whole, or parts of, textbooks if:
- A CE approver evaluates and approves the activity before Jan. 1, 2023.
- And the activity hasn’t expired.
Although we originally planned to make the change in 2022, we decided to allow additional time for CE sponsors to comply with this policy change. CE approvers who've already updated their practices to approve individual chapters only won't need to make further changes to their processes.