Community use and CPD logging

I have never recorded time on these communities as CPD.  I tend to reserve that for more specific learning opportunities - training, webinars, even E&T magazine.  For me, it's mostly general interest.  There's little here that's actually relevant to my work.

I'm not sure that the people who run the web site even realise that software engineering exists.  It certainly isn't represented in their list of topics.

Thanks for your reply, Simon. That's good to understand, both in terms of your direct response to the question and your feedback concerning your engineering specialism's level of representation here. I'll ask about it. Thanks again. 

Hi,

Exactly the same as Simon, my use of this site (over 15+ years and 1500+ posts) could best be described as a mixture of voluntary activities and hobby. I would love to be able to use it as a forum for discussions on my professional activities, but there simply isn't a critical mass of engineers here (except on Wiring and Regs) such that this is practical. Chicken and Egg situation.

There are also commercial and other confidentiality issues to bear in mind, both in asking and answering questions, which actually means there aren't that many work related questions I would feel comfortable asking or answering here - at least not without loads of disclaimers, and often with having to give so little information away that it becomes hard to answer them! And indeed credibility - as I've posted here a few times, any conversation on these forums has the same status as a conversation with someone you happen to have met in a pub. Even if someone looks me up and finds I'm CEng FIET that still doesn't mean I have any expertise at all in their area of technology (the best they can hope is that it might mean I'd be honest in admitting when I didn't know!) Any answers given here have to just be taken as clues and hints and thoroughly checked out. 

So actually using these forums for CPD is pretty challenging. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be great if they could be used like that, but it needs some serious thought as to how to make it work. So a really good question to ask!

Thanks,

Andy

Thanks Andy, that's really great to know. Very insightful. Cheers! 

Similarly I have never recorded time here against CPD.  I look at the site regularly (most every day), and I have picked up a lot of information that could be described as learning, just not what I would expect as CPD, unless I consolidate it into one general CPD report.

Now that I am retired, my CPD activity is almost exclusively volunteering, both at the IET and elsewhere, with some local meetings, and webinars since Covid.

David

I must admit David you've made me think of a point there, if I stay CEng after retiring I might be more tempted to count time on here towards CPD. Mind you, if I stay CEng after retiring it probably means I'm still doing (or hoping to do) odd bits of consultancy anyway, which would probably cover the CPD in itself! 

Thanks for your feedback, David.