4 Ways to Level Up Your Continuing Education Experience
Continuing education is a necessity in many industries—even for those who are already well established in their chosen professions. Completing additional coursework or attending workshops allows participants to stay up to date with the latest developments in their profession, while ensuring their skills stay sharp. Earning certified continuing education credits (CEUs) shows participants have chosen coursework that complies with the recognized standards in their industry, and a certain number of CEUs are typically required on an annual basis to maintain professional certificates or licenses.
But the continuing education process can become cumbersome if you use separate platforms for the course itself, payment processing, online portal access, and more. As an all-in-one registration software platform, Learning Stream can help you smooth out the kinks and provide a seamless and streamlined continuing education experience for participants and instructors alike.
1. Implement a Learning Plan
A learning plan can give your participants a clear path through their continuing education requirements. You can set requirements for the amount or type of CEU credits needed, whether each course needs to be made up of basic or advanced content and if participants need to complete
a certain number of courses within a particular category. You can also set a certain number of credits that need to be completed within a given timeframe, plus target start and completion dates for participants to adhere to.
2. Introduce a Student Portal
Don’t get bogged down in back-and-forth emails seeking basic information. A student portal allows participants to immediately access the information they need, saving you from answering the same questions about credits, certificates and course information over and over again. Learning Stream’s Registrant Access Module gives participants secure login credentials to access their course history, payments, CE transcripts, certificates as well as any additional downloadable course materials they may need.
3. Keep Track of Important Data
In some industries, continuing education needs to be reported to a particular governing body. In others, participants may be required to hand in a printed certificate to show they have completed the coursework. CEUs are also named differently in different industries—a medical doctor and a nurse will receive different types of credits even if they complete the same course. The key is using registration software to track all of this data up front, right when participants register for each course. Once they complete the course, Learning Stream will issue the appropriate credits, the completion certificate and access to the CE transcript if needed.
4. Collect Online Payments Securely
While many continuing education programs or providers require you to use a specific payment processing platform (which may or may not be easily integrated into the registration software you’re already using) Learning Stream gives you the benefit of choice. Learning Stream integrates with the most popular payment processors—like Stripe, Payflow Pro and Authorize.net—and is PCI compliant, meaning credit card information is never stored within the software.
Level up your continuing education program with an all-in-one registration software. Schedule a quick tour of Learning Stream today.