IEEE Continuing Education Bulletin Board Focus Group: 2007

This research was conducted through two online bulletin board focus groups to explore issues related to continuing education interests and requirements including Expert Now and IEEE’s Education Partnership. Group 1 was comprised of IEEE members age 40 and younger while Group 2 was comprised of IEEE members older than age 40.

The participants agreed that continuing education is critical for today’s engineer, as knowledge and skills quickly become obsolete with the rapid pace of technological development. However, many participants said that continuing education is not necessarily the same as formal education. While classes, seminars and workshops are all education, many of the participants said continuing education is also on-the-job learning, reading or any other method of increasing their knowledge and skills.

In addition to “continuing education,” participants referred to post-education learning as “continuing professional development.” Many of the younger participants in Group 1 expressed a preference for the phrase “lifelong learning” over continuing education because it suggests that learning never stops.

Some of the attributes that help to define continuing education are:

Continuing education is not just knowledge for knowledge sake, but is focused and has a specific, applied purpose.

Continuing education is systematic and builds on previous skills and knowledge.

Continuing education is a sustained effort.

Materials used in continuing education serve as a future reference source.

Continuing education is usually self-directed and self-motivated.

• Those developing new products and services for IEEE, specifically continuing education products;
• Entire IEEE Staff;
• Volunteers in Educational Activities, Publications, Conferences and online services.

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