I attended a two-day CPE program September 21-22, 2016 and was denied five CPE credits because their server would not properly record the responses to attendance questions. The sponsor and presenters were aware of the problem in real time via chat communications in the side bar accompanying the live broadcast. The CPE issuer apparently had no access to that data. The sponsor then suggested an alternate method of verifying attendance (which I followed minutes after completion of the program) but ultimately Woodard chose to refuse to issue CPE credits.
The sponsor wrote: “I looked into the CPE for those three sessions. There were polling questions that were missed and NASBA regulations state that all of the polling questions must be answered during the session and the time requirement met. I know that you did have to log in multiple times based on the attendance reports, but unfortunately, we cannot issue the CPE due to the missing polling questions”.
The issue here that I most object to is that the CPE verification system was apparently different from the webinar delivery system and therefore its ability to fulfill the intended purpose should have been suspect from the start. This is a copy of the email I sent in response to the denial of CPE credits:
“Thank you for looking into this. I know that I wasn’t the only person who did not receive CPE credit based on the widely fluctuating numbers logged on the site that day. These screenshots below were taken only seconds apart showing more than 1000 attendees disconnected. The issue continued through the whole two days. It was inevitable that some questions would be missed with this repeated disconnect problem.
I will request that the state CPA society take up some discussion of the issue of CPE providers who advertise credits and are then technically unable to fulfill their requirements”.
Meanwhile, I suppose it is ‘buyer beware’ when it comes to the promise of CPE credits in a webinar setting.
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