Online Options for Ohio PDH (Timed & Monitored? LEED?)

[KootK]

So... I don't even want to admit to how much trouble I'm in on the PDH front as the year comes to a close.

Ohio is my bottle neck jurisdiction because I'm stuck up in Canada and really have no realistic short term options other than non-live webinar type stuff. For Ohio, online courses:

1) have to be tracked and timed to verify attendance.

2) can be LEED stuff apparently.

Complicating factors:

3) I have to do 30 HRS of LEED this month anyhow which I'll do through the USGBC online curriculum: Link

4) Ohio will not pre-approve any particular vendor. And they're good at sticking to that on the phone.

5) Other than the "PDH Factory" places, the vendors and OH seem to be pretty unaware of one another and bad at answering questions about whether or not they are tracked and timed in a compliant manner. I do have calls into everybody that I'll mention below.

So my questions are these:

Q1) Has anybody successfully used the LEED online coursework through USGBC as timed and tracked PDH content for Ohio? If I could use the 30 HRS LEED for Ohio as well, that would be a huge win.

Q2) Does anybody know if anything from HILTI, Simpson, ASCE, AISC, or AWC comes in a format satisfying Ohio's timed and tracked requirement?

Q3) Is there such a thing as a "timed and monitored" course that takes the form of some reference material that you download and read, followed by a quiz? Some of the PDH vendors seem to suggest this although, to me, it would seem as though this would be the opposite of "timed and monitored" and would very much fall into the "correspondence" category.

Q4) Does anybody know of a good "PDH factory" option for this? I've found some but, within that space, meaningful structural offerings are sparse. And some seem kind of sketchy. Some places that I've discovered, partially through searching past Eng-Tips threads:

a) [link ]ez-pdh.com[/url]
b) [link ]pdhengineer.com[/url]
c) [link ]discountpdh.com[/url]
d) [link ]pdh-pro.com[/url]
e) [link ]pdhonline.com[/url]
f) [link ]titance.com[/url]
g) [link ]pdhstar.com[/url]
h) [link ]www.pdhdirect.com[/url]

So yeah, there are plenty of options. I guess my real struggle here is in somehow separating the wheat from the chaff in this space. I greatly fear neglecting my family and my business over the next three weeks to get this done only to find out that what I've done doesn't count or, to a lesser degree, that there was a much better route than the one that I chose. If someone were to chime in and tell me "this is what I did, OH accepted it, and it wasn't too aweful", that would hold a lot of water with me.

 

[RWW0002]

You should submit participation in this forum as a qualifying activity.. The content is undeniably relevant to the practice of engineering. The "provider" (i.e. other active participants) are reputable and can count among their numbers some of the leaders in our field. Participation is verifiable as long as they believe you are the one behind all your posts. The time involved less so, but I know you have >>30 hrs in the fly brace thread alone.

While I do not think this will fly, I get way more out of this forum than any of the CEd that I take part in.

 

[jayrod12]

In my jurisdiction there's a portion of our required PDH hours that are called self study. I max that out based on the amount of time I spend on this site.

 

[Thoughtclaw]

I got my PE in Ohio in December 2018 and thus haven't had to submit my documentation yet for my PDH's, but if it's true that it has to be live, I've got problems. Most of the PDH's I earned this year were on-demand webinars.

 

[dauwerda]

Most jurisdictions (not all) wave the continuing education requirement for your first renewal - not sure about Wisconsin

 

[PDHNow]

One clarification, which we received directly from the state of Ohio. You may apply 6, non-timed PDH to your Ohio renewal. A detailed response from our inquiry with Ohio can be found here: Link



Ryan Malone, PE
PDHNow.com

 

[kipfoot]

I've been renewing for years in OHIO and, though I've never been audited, I typically use live and recorded webinars to fulfill my continuing ed requirements. These are timed and tracked with the issuance of a PDF certificate. My reading of the OHIO site doesn't change my view of this. They even provide a list of things that don't count. (Because I looked in response to your question, I learned that 2 hours of ethics are required.)

I've used the pdh factory type sites in the past in desperation, but always felt dirty afterward because the content is elementary and the quiz questions are directly from the text. These were always in the format read-the-article/take-a-quiz. Now I use AISC, ACI, and APA webinars, either live or with quizzes.

 

[KootK]

Thank you all, for the additional advice since I last posted.

You should submit participation in this forum as a qualifying activity..

I agree a 100% and have heard many, many people here express a similar view. I wonder if it actually might be something that could be made to happen somehow. Ideally that would be here at Eng-Tips of course. Alternately, I've been toying with getting into the development of online software and have always intended to add some kind of basic, structural only forum to that: KootWare. I've not got a clear picture of how I could make this PDH via forum participation thing a reality but I sure would like to. Just imagine the synergy. Having PDH on offer in exchange for participation would amp up quality participation massively, I'm sure.

In my jurisdiction there's a portion of our required PDH hours that are called self study. I max that out based on the amount of time I spend on this site.

Some of my jurisdictions are identical as you know. It drives me nuts that there's a "formal" category that includes things that are basically "contribution to knowledge" and I can't claim a single hour of the work that we do here for that. Nope, we don't mentor anybody or push the knowledge envelope forward.

Consider playing chess with me on the Social Chess app at iTunes. Same handle. Fear not, I suck.

 

[ldeem]

I am in Ohio and was audited in 2017 with a mix of in person seminars and online classes. I used online classes from Ron Blank and Associates and AEC Daily and passed the audit.

 

[NOLAscience]

I'm using

http://engineeringcontinuingeducationpdh.com/

to finish up my PDH needs for 2019, mostly because I can get a year's worth of as many courses as I want to take for only $99. So I can take three or four courses to complete my 2019 PDH log and then take 5 more in 2020, as long as I finish those courses before December 26, 2020. My cost may go as low as $3.67 per PDH!

Having said that, I feel that I am losing knowledge as I work through these courses. They are not challenging at all. The questions are generally taken directly from the provided text.