Distance Learning

The Emergency Management Institute (EMI) offers self-paced courses designed for people who have emergency management responsibilities and the general public. All are offered free-of-charge to those who qualify for enrollment. To get a complete listing of courses, click on on the course link below.

These courses offer exceptional opportunities to meet the training requirements for Associate Emergency Manager (AEM) or Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) certification.

• The FEMA Independent Study (IS) Program offers courses that support the nine mission areas identified by the National Preparedness Goal.
  • Incident Management
  • Operational Planning
  • Disaster Logistics
  • Emergency Communications
  • Service to Disaster Victims
  • Continuity Programs
  • Public Disaster Communications
  • Integrated Preparedness
  • Hazard Mitigation
• Independent Study Program course certificates never expire. If a candidate wishes to refresh their skills, you may retake the exam; however, FEMA’s system will not re-score the exam and the original date of completion will remain on the candidate's certificate of completion.
• If a candidate is trying to submit an exam for a course that is required to be taken each year, please see the IS course list and look for courses with a yearly suffix. Example: IS-19.14 where .14 indicates 2014.

On Apr. 1, 2015, the FEMA Emergency Management Institute (EMI) began to use the FEMA Student Identification (SID) number when submitting Independent Study (IS) final exams. All individuals (U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries) may register for a FEMA SID at https://cdp.dhs.gov/femasid.

AEM^® and CEM^® are registered trademarks of the International Association of Emergency Managers.