CEA Tutorial Section 4: Course Development Stages & Infusing the Transparency Requirement

This section provides guidelines that you should follow to plan, promote, and conduct a course for ASHA CEUs. 

Course Development

The ASHA CE Administrator must:

1. Conduct a needs assessment
2. Analyze the needs assessment data.
3. Identify the learning gaps and determine if the gaps can be addressed by continuing education.
4. Decide to conduct a continuing education course to address the identified needs of potential participants. 
5. Determine the learning outcomes of the course based on the identified needs of potential participants.
6. Finalize planners and instructors.
7. Finalize course content.
8. Determine course delivery method.
9. Ensure that appropriate facilities are selected for the learning course.
10. Decide how to assess participant learning outcomes.

Transparency Tasks Prior to Course Delivery

1. Determine whether the content will discuss product(s) or service(s). If there is to be discussion of products or services, the CE Administrator must
1. ensure that the course does not promote or encourage the sale of the product(s) or service(s),
2. disclose in the promotional materials that there will be limited or no information about other products or services if only one product or service is to be discussed.
2. Identify qualified individuals who will be involved in planning and conducting the course.
3. Provide disclosure forms to speakers and planners together with resources explaining what needs to be disclosed.
4. Document that each person planning and delivering the course has returned a completed disclosure form concerning relevant financial and nonfinancial relationships. Disqualify those individuals who refuse to disclose. 
5. Review the disclosure information received from program planners and instructors together with the course content and speaker bio. Use the speaker bio in conjunction with the speaker disclosure form to decide with the speaker what relationships are relevant to disclose. Here are some sample speaker disclosure statements.
6. Determine if
1. relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships have been properly disclosed,
2. relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships may be resolved through disclosure,
3. relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships disqualify the individual from participation in course planning and/or delivery.
7. If any gaps or questions exist in the speaker/planner disclosures, contact the speaker/planner to discuss what relevant relationships apply to their course content.
8. Establish a method to conduct a program evaluation of the continuing education course. You may want to add a question to your evaluation form concerning whether disclosures were made by the speaker(s).
9. When other organizations provide financial and in-kind support that is used to fund the costs of the CE course and/or expenses for learners, the Provider must:
1. make all decisions regarding allocations and disbursement of funds or in-kind support,
2. keep written documentation,
3. disclose in promotional materials the names of other organizations contributing financial or in-kind support .
10. When the event includes exhibits, the Provider must:
1. make all decision regarding the placement of exhibits,
2. prohibit exhibits in the instructional portion of the course .
11. When the event includes paid advertisements, the Provider must:
1. make all decision regarding the placement of the advertisements,
2. prohibit advertising in the instructional portion of the course.
12. Develop a marketing plan for your course. If you intend to purchase a mailing list from ASHA, note that a final draft of the promotional piece is required for review. See the guidelines in the resource section for further information.
13. Develop instructional personnel disclosure statements for promotional material. These statements will also be used at the start of the course, unless they need to be modified to reflect changes in relevant relationships.
14. Produce promotional materials and learner communications [PDF], according to CEB requirements, to advertise the continuing education course. Items of information that must be included in promotional materials are instructional personnel disclosure, financial and in-kind support disclosure (if applicable), and that the course is focused on a specific product or service (if applicable).  The Provider's Brand Block and course information (instructional level and ASHA CEU amount) are required on promotional materials. See Requirements for Promoting ASHA Continuing Education Courses. 
15. Complete and submit the Course and Offering Registration Form and accompanying required materials so that the information is received by the ASHA CE Registry no fewer than 15 days before the start date of the course or 30 days for cooperative offerings and courses requiring peer reviews or a pilot study.
16. Upon receipt of the Course and Offering Registration Form and accompanying materials. See section 5 of this tutorial.
17. Two weeks prior to offering the course,the ASHA CE Administrator should request instructional personnel to update their disclosure information. They should review this information to determine if any new relevant financial and nonfinancial relationships have developed since initial disclosure. If new relationships have developed, the ASHA CE Administrator should determine if
1. relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships may be resolved through disclosure,
2. relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships disqualify the individual from participation in course planning and/or delivery. 
3. instructional personnel disclosure statements need to be updated.

Transparency During the Course

The ASHA CE Administrator should:

1. Ensure speakers are providing the following information at the beginning of their presentations:
• the name of the instructional personnel
• relevant financial relationship(s)-list the name of the organization and the type of financial relationship,
• relevant nonfinancial relationship(s)-list the name of the organization and the type of nonfinancial relationship,
• a statement that no relevant financial or nonfinancial relationship(s) exists.
2. Ensure that exhibits, product sales, and book signings are conducted in an area separate from course content presentations. 

Transparency After the Course

Retain a copy of the Course and Offering Registration Confirmation Letter and accompanying required materials including: speaker disclosure forms, in-kind contributions, and funding in for your files for 7 years.

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