Virginia Law

A. Review courses set out in this chapter shall be approved by the board, except those provided by institutions, schools and universities approved by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, for which continuing education units are awarded. Training courses requiring board approval shall be approved by the board prior to commencing in accordance with subsection B of this section.

B. Training activities for which experience credit may be granted must be conducted in general conformance with the International Association for Continuing Education and Training's "Criteria and Guidelines for Quality Continuing Education and Training Programs: the CEU and Other Measurement Units," 1998. The board reserves the right to waive any of the requirements of the association's guidelines on a case-by-case basis. Only classroom, laboratory and field trip contact time will be used to compute training credits. No credit will be given for breaks, meals, or receptions.

1. Organization. The board will only approve training offered by a sponsor who is an identifiable organization with a mission statement outlining its functions, structure, process and philosophy, and that has a staff of one or more persons with the authority to administer training.

2. Training records. The board will only approve training offered by a sponsor who maintains training records for all participants for a minimum of five years, and who has a written policy on retention and release of training records.

3. Instructors. The board will only approve training conducted by personnel who have demonstrated competence in the subject being taught, an understanding of the learning objective, a knowledge of the learning process to be used, and a proven ability to communicate.

4. Objectives. The board will only approve courses that have a series of stated objectives that are consistent with the job requirements of an optician. The training content must be consistent with those objectives.

5. Course completion requirements. For successful completion of a training program, participants must attend 90% or more of the class contact time and must demonstrate their learning through written examinations, completion of a project, self-assessment, oral examination, or other assessment technique.

C. The board shall consider the following information, to be submitted by the instructor, institution, school or university on forms provided by the board, at least 45 days prior to the scheduled training activity:

1. Course information.

a. Course title;

b. Planned audience;

c. Name of sponsor;

d. Name, address, phone number of contact person;

e. Schedule presentation dates;

f. Detailed course schedule, hour-by-hour;

g. List of planned breaks;

h. Scheduled presentation location(s); and

i. Relevancy of course to opticianry licensing.

2. Instructor qualifications.

a. Name of instructor;

b. Title of instructor; and

c. Summary of qualifications to teach this course.

3. Training materials.

a. Course objectives -- A listing of the course objectives stated in terms of the skills, knowledge, or attitude the participant will be able to demonstrate as a result of the training;

b. Course outline -- A detailed outline showing the planned activities that will occur during the training program, including major topics, planned presentation sequence, laboratory and field activities, audio-visual presentations, and other major activities;

c. Course reference materials -- A list of the name, publisher and publication date for commercially available publications; for reference materials developed by the course sponsor or available exclusively through the course, a copy of the reference materials;

d. Audio-visual support materials -- A listing of any commercially available audio-visual support material that will be used in the program; a brief description of any sponsor or instructor generated audio-visual material that will be used; and

e. Handouts -- Identification of all commercially available handout material that will be used; copies of all other planned handouts.

4. Determination of successful completion. A description of the means that will be used to determine the successful completion of the training program by individual attendees, such as examinations, projects, personal evaluations by the instructor, or other recognized evaluation techniques.

D. Recurring training programs. If there are plans to present the same course of instruction routinely at multiple locations with only minor modifications and changes, the board may approve the overall program rather than individual presentations if so requested by the sponsor.

1. The board shall consider all of the information listed above except those items related to specific offerings of the course.

2. Board approval may be granted for a specific period of time or for an indefinite period.

3. Board approval will apply only to those specific offerings certified by the sponsoring organization as having been conducted by instructors meeting the established criteria and in accordance with the board-approved courses, outlines and objectives.

4. To maintain approval of the program, changes made to the program since initial approval must be submitted to the board for review and approval. Changes must be approved by the board prior to any training subsequent to the changes.