By the IPEd Accreditation Board
The AB has now set the date of the next accreditation exam as Monday 12 August 2024. We encourage potential candidates to start planning early. As a first step, check the information and resources on the Accreditation Exam page of the IPEd website. We will update this page throughout the year, so please check back regularly.
This year heralds some changes in personnel and roles on the AB. Our illustrious (and industrious) chair, Dr Linda Nix AE, has stepped down after four years in the role, although she will continue as the NSW delegate and AB budget officer until April. The board thanks Linda for her valuable and exhaustive dedication to the chair’s role, which included managing an accreditation exam through Covid lockdowns.
Charlotte Cottier AE (Qld) is our new chair, and Dr Catherine Macdonald AE (WA) is the new deputy chair. We also welcome Dr Liz Beattie AE as the new Aotearoa New Zealand delegate.
Best wishes to all for a profitable, happy and productive 2023!
The value of renewing your accreditation
By the IPEd Accreditation Board
Accredited Editors (AEs) who sat the exam in 2008 and 2018 are due to renew their accreditation this year. Applications for renewal will be open between 1 May and 31 July 2023. Before the renewal period opens, eligible AEs in those cohorts will be notified directly via email and invited to renew.
The renewal application fee is A$220 (including GST). As many businesses suffered financially during the Covid years, you may wonder what value there is in renewing your accreditation. From the 2008 cohort, who sat the exam in its inaugural year, 66 AEs are still eligible for renewal. Given that renewal occurs every five years, these 66 have already renewed twice. They obviously have felt there was some benefit in renewing!
For freelance editors, accreditation not only adds lustre to your business profile but also acts as a legitimiser to clients who may not have worked with an editor before. For employee editors, accreditation could make the difference to your case for promotion, a pay rise or a job change. In any case, it confirms your competence in applying the skills and knowledge set out in the IPEd standards for editing practice.
To be re-accredited, you need to demonstrate that you have continued working as a professional editor in the five years since your accreditation or last renewal and that you have undertaken at least three different types of professional development (PD) activities during this time. (If you have not done any PD in the last five years, now is the time to book into some IPEd sessions.) Examples of PD activity types include serving on an IPEd committee (branch or IPEd-wide), which has the added benefit of engaging with like-minded professionals and expanding your network; courses that you’ve completed; attending or presenting at conferences; delivering workshops; mentoring; contributing to other relevant professional organisations (e.g. writing, indexing or publishing) – if it’s related to editing, it’s likely to count for renewal. Just be ready to provide evidence to back up any claims you make in your application.
And if your situation over the past five years doesn’t fit the renewal requirements, you can make an alternative case for having your accreditation renewed. Just talk to the Accreditation Board (AB) chair or your AB branch delegate before submitting your application.
More information about renewal requirements – including the membership requirement introduced in 2021 – is available on the Renewal of Accreditation page of the IPEd website.