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. Visit the FEMA Independent Study (IS) Program for a list of courses. 

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

• If an applicant wishes to refresh their skills, they may retake the exam; however, FEMA’s system will not re-score the exam and the original date of completion will remain on the applicant's certificate of completion.
• If an applicant is trying to submit credit 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-29.23 where .23 indicates 2023.

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.