Fema EMI Question

Hi all,

Does anyone know how many, if any, of these course will be accepted by TESC? I know that I have seen reference to these courses posted here so please provide feedback. Thanks!!

Mike

AA Burlington College (RA Brick & Mortar)
BA TESC (RA D/L)
MS SMSU (RA B&M/D-L)
JD Chapman Univ (Holding Pattern...maybe 2006) Or I will quit and start a PhD. at Union Inst.

 

Hille wrote in the "Cheap College Credits" thread:

"While sorting paperwork I found the listing of FEMA courses that have been evaluated by TESC. These begin with the letters (IS) Courses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 195, 275, 279, 288, 301, 324, 330, 336, 346, 393, 513, 534, 600, and 630. Note that at the time of this list 2002 IS 9 was valued at 2 credits. As stated before these courses are free so for the TESC student it is a bonus."

Here's the Web page for the EMI FEMA course list:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/crslist.asp

 

Hmm, am I missing something, or is this too easy?

Each course has one, invariant, multiple-choice exam that is publicly accessible on the Web? (In fact, they encourage you to download the exam in advance "to save connect time".) And if you score at least 75% (why would anyone do that poorly?), you can get college credit?

What would Prof. Kennedy say?

 

Nope. You are not missing anything.

Yes. It is too easy.

I've done about five of these. (Just for fun, have not applied them for college credit.) You can download the test, download the reading material, and then look up the answers. For me, the average completion time has been 1-2 hours. For that, you earn 1 semester credit hour of college credit, which is, theoretically, equivalent to 16 hours in the classroom, plus outside study time. If you don't pass (which would be fairly difficult), you simply take the test again. Online. Unproctered. Open book. Way too easy, as far as I am concerned.

Oh, and you also get a nice little certificate in the mail for each class you pass. And it doesn't cost a dime. Except to the taxpayers.

If you are looking for easy, cheap credits this is hard to beat. (Not that I'm advocating that.) You could learn a lot from these classes, but it is certainly not required.

 

Forgot to address this..

He will be shocked and appalled, I would guess. There are not even feable attempts made to insure that the person completing the exams is the person earning the credit.

It would be very easy for someone to set up a service offering "30 (or however many they have) semester credit hours of regionally accredited credited" for a price. They figure out the answers to the exams, and then complete the exams for the "student" free of charge. And it would be easy to defeat any safeguards that FEMA has in place, but I won't get into that.

 

1-2 hours? I hope that includes the time spent stretching, checking your mail, and taking a leisurely walk to the kitchen for the drink.

I've taken a number of independent study modules as well as a number of "live" FEMA courses. The in-the-seat courses, with proctored closed-book exams, don't seem to be accepted for college credit anywhere. Yet, the independent study modules are.

If you're puzzled by this, you clearly haven't spent enough years in the service of my favorite Uncle.

 

Dennis is not exaggerating. I was being a bit generous. For me, one hour is sufficient for most of the courses. Except for things like nuclear disasters, in which I have little or no knowledge. And really, wouldn't you want someone who is a "professional" in handling nuclear disasters to have spent at least nearly 2 hours per course?

 

What am I missing? I read that it's $60 for a transcript, per course, with additional copies to "other institutions" being free.

 

TESC doesn't require that the courses be transcripted by Frederick Community College; an EMI transcript (free) will do.

Courses: $0.
Transfer cost to TESC: $0.

 

Okay. This is not to argue but to determine if we know that it's free. The site doesn't (to me) indicate so. $60 a credit would be $180 a standard course so I'm trying to be certain.

 

If you search the forum for "FEMA", you'll see that Hille has helped several people do this. If the course is one of those that have been evaluated by TESC (listed above), you can take it free and transfer it to TESC free. If the course has not been evaluated by TESC, or if you want to transfer it somewhere other than TESC (say, Excelsior College), then you will have to go through Frederick Community College at a cost of $60 per credit.

 

Thanks. Wouldn't want to see anyone take the time for these courses to find they had a hefty fee coming for college credit.

 

No argument taken.

I occurs to me that unless one is looking for a degree in Emergency Management, the EMI credits wouldn't be useful as anything other than "free electives." If a GPA boost is needed, they're not even useful for that.

But the price appears "right."

 

I've done several of the courses and have found them to be very easy. Nonetheless, they are useful for those seeking a basic introduction to the subject.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has actually applied more than a few FEMA credits towards a degree. Even for an Emergency Management degee they would probably be limited, since they are mostly lower-division. And degree plans generally require only a few free electives.

Alex

 

Jeff Hampton raises an interesting point: "National Emergency Training Center (EMI)" is listed as an ACE-Reviewed TrainingCourse Provider: http://www.acenet.edu/calec/corporate/participating_orgs.cfm

Given that, could one perhaps use the ACE Transcript Service http://www.acenet.edu/calec/corporate/transcript.cfm to transfer FEMA credits to Excelsior College for a grand total of $45, rather than use Frederick Community College http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/downloads/ccrdtapp.pdf at $60 per credit?

 

Transfering the FEMA's via the Acenet transcript is probably a better way to go, and I don't see any reason why they would need a middle man (like Frederick) to get involved.

P.S. has anyone ever transferred these FEMA's over to Excelsior, if so, how many, and were they counted as applied professional? If they were I might use a few.

 

Aren't ACE approvals on a course by course basis. Are the distance courses approved??

 

I've sent e-mail to [email protected] asking if the courses listed at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/cc.asp are ACE-reviewed. I'll post the response here.

 

this program is really an easy way to get credit on the cheap.

however aspiring candidate do take note that this program is only open to US resident only.

 

Here is the response from [email protected]:

"I am enclosing a .pdf file of the course display for NETC/EMI. The fee ACE charges to establish a record of your courses in our database is $35. This is a one time fee and includes the first transcript. If the course that you took is one that we evaluated and is worth 3 semester hours of college credit, you have saved however much 3 credits cost if they are transferred into your degree program."

I tried to zip the .pdf file and upload it here as an attachment, but it's too big. The course IDs all begin with "E" or "G", not with "IS"; so apparently there's no overlap with the Independent Study modules that we've been talking about (http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/cc.asp). But, we have a correction to Dennis Madarang's impression that "The in-the-seat courses, with proctored closed-book exams, don't seem to be accepted for college credit anywhere."