PDHengineer

What PDHengineer is

PDHengineer sells Professional Development Hours (PDH) to licensed professional engineers who need continuing education to renew a license. The site opens with a direct pitch, "Engineers: Get Your PDH Credits Online", and backs it with a few numbers: 5,444 hours of courses, created by 214 expert instructors, and 104,053 course reviews. It says it has awarded "1 Million+ PDH" since 2003 and has "NEVER had a PDH credit rejected". The name is a registered service mark of Decatur Professional Development, LLC.

The reader is the individual PE working through a renewal cycle, though the menu also carries Corporate Solutions pages for engineering firms and industrial manufacturers, so a company can put its engineers through the same catalog.

The course catalog

The About PDH Online Courses page describes "a huge library of board-approved PDH online courses," covering every engineering discipline as well as professional ethics, project management and business skills. The catalog search is organized into top-level areas, each with its own subtopics:

• Building Design, from ADA compliance and building envelope to flood zone design, historical buildings, indoor air quality and mold remediation
• Civil, Geotechnical and Structural, including concrete, stormwater, retaining walls, pile design, seismic design and finite element analysis
• Electrical and Control Systems, including the National Electrical Code, power distribution, PLCs, PID controllers and fiber optics
• Mechanical and HVAC, from heat transfer and piping systems to psychrometrics and refrigeration
• Environmental, Health and Safety, Materials (welding, corrosion, NDE / NDT) and Industrial
• Oil/Gas/Hydrocarbons and Renewable Energy, covering pipelines, drilling, solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear
• Transportation, from pavement and roundabouts to self-driving vehicles and tunnels
• Business Skills, Firm Management, Project Management and Personal Development
• Ethics, Engineering Disasters and Failure Investigation, with case studies on bridges, dams, explosions, nuclear meltdown and plane crashes
• Laws and Rules for Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, Texas and Vermont, plus a State-Specific section with courses grouped by state code from AK to WY

The site describes the courses as "Original self-paced courses authored by 214 subject matter experts". Engineers can find courses with the catalog's filter, search and sort features, and the menu also lists Special Value Packages.

Formats and how a course works

The site offers four formats:

• Text-based: PDFs that can be viewed online or downloaded to read offline
• Interactive: multimedia presentations viewed on a computer
• Video on Demand: streaming video presentations with audio narration
• Timed and Monitored: courses designed to meet the Ohio Board's requirement for timed courses

Courses can be taken "anywhere, anytime 24/7/365 on your computer or tablet." The process has three steps. The engineer selects courses, adds them to the shopping cart "and checkout using a secure SSL encrypted transaction." The course is self-paced and ends with an online quiz, and the site says: "You may retake the quiz as many times as needed for a period of one year to achieve a passing score of 70%." On passing, the certificate is available at once: "Download and print a PDF copy of your certificate of completion. You can also access your certificate online anytime in the future by clicking on My Account at the top of any page."

Live webinars

Webinars are the second half of the product. The home page pitches them as a way to "Earn hassle-free PDH credits at your desk or on the go" and adds that this works "without having to take a quiz." It explains that "PDHengineer webinars allow you to interact with the instructor and the other participants in real time", says they are accepted for engineering PDH credit in all states, and states that "Our webinars meet the live course requirements for WI, OH and IA." The menu has a dedicated page for engineers in WI, OH, NE and IA.

The schedule on the home page showed upcoming sessions on Variable Frequency Drives, Forensic Structural Inspections (Examination, Diagnosis, and Remedy for Building Structures), Introduction to Product Safety and The Future of Energy. Webinars can be browsed by discipline or on a calendar, and a How It Works page covers them separately from courses.

Guarantees, rewards and pricing

Board acceptance is the claim PDHengineer leans on hardest. The home page says "Accepted nationwide" and "guaranteed", and the courses page repeats it under Peace of Mind: "Guaranteed board acceptance" and "Over one million PDH issued; 100.0% acceptance rate." A separate PDHengineer Triple Guarantee is promoted "When you need to be absolutely certain your PDH credits will be accepted", with its terms on its own page. For engineers who are unsure of their state's rules, the menu links to a View State Requirements page.

Repeat buyers earn Reward Tokens with every purchase, credited to their account automatically: "Earn 10 Reward Tokens and get a free 1 PDH course." The site lists discount options for individuals, groups and volume pricing. The overview pages list no per-course prices, so the cost per hour is something to check course by course.

Partners and support

The site invites engineers to work with it as well as learn from it. Its Partner with Us section offers an affiliate program, a route to write a course or present a webinar, and a login for subject matter experts. Help comes through FAQs, how-it-works pages, a contact page and a Live Support Chat link in the main menu. A Resource Center carries a blog, a list of new online PDH courses and a short guide called "4 Facts You Must Know", and engineers can leave comments on a Wall of Love.

Who it suits

PDHengineer suits a licensed PE who wants to clear renewal hours from one catalog, at their own pace, with a certificate on screen as soon as the quiz is passed. The breadth helps engineers outside the big civil and mechanical groups too: there are courses for control systems specialists, oil and gas engineers, transportation engineers and firm owners who need ethics or business hours. Engineers in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa get webinars that meet their live course requirements, Ohio engineers get a timed format built for their board, and firms can buy for their staff through group and volume pricing. The year-long quiz window and permanent certificate access in My Account make record-keeping easy.

The caveat is that state rules differ, and the guarantee is the company's promise rather than a substitute for checking the requirements page for your own board.