SPDP Frequently asked questions

The course is 100% online via RACP Online Learning.

There are no set time slots to login and join the course. The course materials are released week by week, and you will receive an email notification each Monday letting you know that week's content is now available. You can then access the material at a time that is convenient to you.

After the course ends, you will have read-only access to the course for 12 months if you wish to revisit and review the content and discussions.

No. You may complete the courses in whatever order suits you best.

All requirements must be completed within the 5 weeks of the course. If the requirements are not met, or finished in time, this SPDP course will be noted as ‘not yet attended’ on your record. You will need to participate in this SPDP course, in its entirety, again at a later date for it to be noted as ‘completed’.

For minimum requirements, refer to FAQ below 'What are the completion requirements and will I receive a certificate?'.

To meet the minimum requirements for the SPDP online course, access the content and complete the 2 steps below:

1. Participate in at least 80% of the discussion forums by posting your reply.
2. Complete the practice activity(s) with a colleague and post your reflection.

If you have met the above criteria, your certificate will be emailed to you within four weeks of completing the course. Or, if you have posted in 100% of the discussion forums, you will be able to automatically generate your certificate online.

Online participation can be counted towards your MyCPD program under "Category 2".  If you successfully meet the minimum requirements of the course, your MyCPD record will be updated automatically once the course has closed based on the average amount of a time a participant spends on the course. It is recommended you keep a log of your hours, as you can manually amend the MyCPD entry once it has been logged if the time you have spent differs from this average.

If you do not meet the minimum requirements, you may still claim the time you did spend on the course, but you will need to update your MyCPD record yourself.

In the navigation menu on the left hand side of the course, required sections of the course show an empty circle which will shade green once you've completed the activity. More detail is also shown on the home page or videos and discussions pages. 'To do' tags in grey indicate an incomplete activity while 'Done' tags in green indicate a completed activity.

In order for the activity to be fully completed and course progress circle to turn green you must have:

• Accessed a content page (e.g. the videos and discussions); and
• Posted at least one comment in the discussion forum for that page (required)

If you are not keeping pace with the course, we will send you a reminder halfway through the course to let you know what you still need to complete.

You can join the discussions at any time, but we recommend that you participate in the current weeks' discussions to get the most out of the course. We urge everyone to get involved and add to the discussion, as the more opinions and thoughts that are shared, the greater the learning is for everyone.

The course has been designed so that typically participants will log into the course area for short periods of time (15-20mins) a day, to gradually watch the videos and complete the weekly activities.

Each week varies, but the overall recommended weekly commitment is approximately 1-2 hours per week, depending on how involved you decide to get in the forum discussions.

Yes – the course is compatible with PC, Mac, iPad and smartphone devices.

Like you, the facilitator logs in several times throughout the week to read your discussion forums and to comment where they see fit. If you would like to ask the facilitator a specific question, you can do so by sending them a direct message. Or post your question in the discussion forum so others can also benefit from the answer.

Moderators work to ensure that participants have a seamless journey through the program and to deal with any technical difficulties that may arise.

Past participants have noted the online course to be a good refresher to the face-to-face workshop. The online course provides you the opportunity to reinforce your understanding of the topics covered and to gain additional insights from your peers in the discussion forums. However, it is worth noting that there will be quite a lot of content overlap.

If you would like to volunteer to facilitate one of our SPDP courses, please email online.facilitation@racp.edu.au to express your interest. You'll receive support from College staff and other facilitators throughout, and you can claim Category 2 CPD hours. Check out this short video about the Online Facilitation Course which we ask facilitators to complete prior.