The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association’s Continuing Competency Review (CCR) program is administered by the Practice Review Board (PRB).
The purpose of the program is to ensure that practitioners remain competent to practice while licensed.
The CCR program is robust, educational, fair, timely, and focused on ensuring Alberta Land Surveyors meet the regulator’s standards. Feedback provided to Alberta Land Surveyors leads to improvements in practice.
Each Alberta Land Surveyor will be reviewed at least once every four years.
The Continuing Competency Review Program Phase 4 Program Manual is available
here.
A flowchart showing the entire process is available
here.
For any further inquires:
Director of Practice Review - Kurt Popadynetz, ALS
popadynetz@alsa.ab.ca The review will be conducted as follows:
• The land surveyor selected for review will be contacted by the Director of Practice Review (DPR) and will be directed to complete a web-based questionnaire.
• The land surveyor will be given a deadline for completion and submission. The questionnaire is designed to help the PRB evaluate the competence of an Alberta Land Surveyor and contains questions about their practice, education and training, and allows the land surveyor to identify any improvements they have made to their practice since their previous review.
• If the land surveyor authors products, the questionnaire also includes a request to provide ten recent products, one of which will be examined.
• If the land surveyor does not author products, the DPR will provide the land surveyor a secondary questionnaire containing additional questions about their practice.
If the land surveyor authors products, they will be asked to provide ten PDFs or TIFFs of registered or non-registered products of substantial complexity that are representative of the surveyor’s practice.
These products should be products that have been completed in the past two years. The DPR will choose one product and will request that the land surveyor submit the accompanying field notes and other pertinent documents or plans for examination.
The DPR may direct that field inspections be conducted as part of the review.
There are checklists available for different types of survey products:
2022 Checklists
All land surveyors will be asked to respond to questions relating to their practice, supervisory responsibilities, and policies and procedures.
All land surveyors will indicate the number of hours they spent attending/presenting at formal professional development courses or seminars and the number of hours they spent on informal educational activities.
The land surveyor will be asked to summarize any changes they have made to improve their professional practice since their previous review. They will be asked to specifically refer to any items mentioned in the PRB’s recommendations from their previous reviews.
The responses to the questions on the web-based questionnaire and the responses to the supplementary questions (for those ALSs who do not author products) will be assessed by the DPR and one member of the PRB. The product review will be conducted under the direction of the DPR. Upon completion of these assessments, the results and recommendations will be presented to the PRB. If the PRB believes that further review is required, the PRB may direct that a comprehensive review be conducted.
Based on the assessment by the DPR and the member of the PRB (or an independent assessor), the PRB may direct that a comprehensive review be conducted.
The comprehensive review will be conducted on the previously submitted product (or a different product) and may consist of the following:
a) An interview with the land surveyor conducted by the DPR.
b) A field inspection completed under the direction of the DPR.
c) A report prepared by the DPR that is provided to the land surveyor.
d) A report prepared by the DPR that is presented to the PRB. This report includes an analysis of the land surveyor’s responses to the issues identified in the report provided to the land surveyor.
e) A decision by the PRB on further action.
The land surveyor shall have the right to attend the meeting where their comprehensive review is considered.
The land surveyor will receive a letter from the PRB containing recommendations the PRB believes might improve the land surveyor’s practice. These recommendations are intended to be educational in nature.
The identity of the Alberta Land Surveyor being reviewed is only known to the Director of Practice Review and the independent assessor who is a member of the Practice Review Board.
The PRB does not know the identity of the Alberta Land Surveyor unless the Alberta Land Surveyor attends the PRB meeting when their file is being considered.
The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association does not charge practitioners for the cost of a continuing competency review.
While the length of time to complete a review (from the date the file is opened to the date it is first reviewed by the PRB) may vary depending on the complexity of the file, the average length of time is 90 days.
As the focus of the Continuing Competency Review program is educational, results of individual reviews are not made public.
The Practice Review Board will:
1. Publish articles and Interpretative Bulletins as appropriate.
2. Present a recommendation to the Director of Education regarding general CCR findings and potential seminar topics.
3. Identify common areas of non-compliance for Council and make recommendations to Council suggesting corrective actions.
4. Present a recommendation to the Chair of the Registration Committee regarding general CCR findings and potential examination questions.