Continuing Education

Yes! Membership in IIDA requires 10 hours of IDCEC approved continuing education courses every two years. The current compliance period for Professional and Associate members is January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023. If you became a member after January 1, 2022, you are exempt from CEU requirements until the next compliance period.

No. Industry and Student Members do not need CEUs to maintain their membership.

As an IIDA member, you have free access to an account with the International Design Continuing Education Council and have been assigned a unique IDCEC number. Your IDCEC account is the best resource for keeping track of your CEU credits.

Be sure to check that the CEU you are planning to attend is IDCEC-approved and that you understand how your attendance will be reported. Some CEU providers will report attendance directly to IDCEC; some require you to self-report your attendance on the IDCEC website using a certificate distributed by the CEU provider. 

AIA/CES and USG/GBCI approved courses (that are not also IDCEC approved) may be self-reported and will count towards the IIDA compliance requirement. You may self-report other CEU courses that are not IDCEC-approved, but there is no guarantee that IIDA will count those credits toward your compliance quota without prior approval. IIDA may request your CEU records from IDCEC to confirm CEU compliance. 

IIDA Alabama always provides IDCEC-approved courses as a benefit to its membership. However, CEU compliance and tracking is ultimately the responsibility of the designer, not IIDA Alabama.

If you are a Registered Interior Designer through the Alabama Board for Registered Interior Designers, you are also required to attend 10 CEU courses per compliance period. However, the compliance period for ABRID is every year from October 1 through September 30.

ABRID has stipulations regarding the type of CEU and its content, namely that all CEUs are classified as HSW, at least 4 CEUs are live (not self directed), and at least 4 CEUs address Codes & Standards topics. IIDA will accept HSW or General courses (e.g. courses about professional or business development), and IIDA does not have restrictions on format or topic as long as they are IDCEC-approved or an approved equivalent.

The details of the CEU requirements to maintain state registration can be found on our Advocacy & Legislation page. If you are both a RID and IIDA Professional member, then meeting your CEU requirements for ABRID will guarantee you are meeting the requirements for IIDA as well.

They can. Starting April 1, 2024, CIDQ is requiring CEUs for those who have passed the NCIDQ and want to remain active. Certificate holders must complete 5 hours of approved Health, Safety, Welfare focused Continuing Education every year and attest to this at the time of annual renewal to remain active and keep the "NCIDQ" appellation. If you are a registered interior designer in the state of Alabama, this does not apply to you. However, if you have passed the NCIDQ but have not become a RID with the state, then be sure to get 5 HSW CEUs every year to maintain your NCIDQ status!

IIDA Alabama posts all events, including CEU courses, on the Events page in the Calendar. Be sure to create an account on our website so you can register to attend our events and CEU courses. We will also email invitations and newsletters advertising these events as well.

A Forum is a CEU offered through IIDA Alabama that is in the form of a project tour instead of a lecture. We like to offer these to our members as a different method of learning. IIDA Alabama always registers Forums for IDCEC approval prior to the tour.

Our Vice President and Director of Professional Development can answer your questions! You can find their contact information on the Board of Directors page.

One of our best tips is to set aside a day each month to be sure that your CEUs from the previous month have all been successfully reported. CEU providers may need a couple of weeks to report attendance, but waiting until the end of the compliance period before checking that all of your attendance has been accurately reported can cause issues. If you wait until the end and discover you are missing a credit, a CEU provider may not be able to correct the mistake before the end of the compliance period.

If you attended a CEU hosted through IIDA Alabama but you do not see credit on your IDCEC account, please reach out to the Vice President and Director of Professional Development for help correcting this issue. You can find their contact information on the Board of Directors page. 

IDCEC has an app to help you manage your CEUs. You can find the app in the App Store or Google Play Store. When you create an account and login, you can easily see how many CEUs you have and find your IDCEC number. We highly recommend downloading the app for easy CEU management!

If you are an IIDA member, IIDA Alabama is happy to offer CEU courses to you for free as a member benefit. If you are not an IIDA member, you are still allowed to attend but with a charge for attendance. All CEU details will be provided on the Events page in the Calendar.

Our CEU courses are generously provided by our IIDA Alabama sponsors. We ask that you register by the deadline and make every effort to attend if you registered. Our sponsors are purchasing lunch for you, and we want to avoid unnecessary costs for them if there are no-shows.

We realize that sometimes things happen - meetings run late or there’s a wreck on the interstate - but if you are more than 15 minutes late, you may not be eligible to receive CEU credit. Even if you register to attend, if you do not check-in at the event, you may not receive credit. We want to be sure that this process is fair and accurate for everyone!

We would love to have you sponsor and present a CEU! We give first priority to sponsors of IIDA Alabama. This is a sponsor benefit, and the cost to the sponsor is the lunch cost of those attending (possibly a venue fee if the CEU is not hosted at a local dealership). If there is availability, non-sponsors are able to host a CEU for a fee in addition to the cost of lunch and possible venue cost. You can find mind information about sponsorship on our Sponsorship page.

Your CEU presentation must meet certain criteria. Please double-check that your CEU:

• Is classified as Health, Safety & Welfare (HSW).

• Is IDCEC-approved.

• Is presented live, not self-directed.

While not required, if your CEU course addresses Codes & Standards topics (ADA, LEED, Fire Code, Testing), please let us know. Your CEU may be moved to the top of the priority list, since those are difficult to find. You may be eligible to participate in our Codes CEU event.

Please email the Vice President and Director of Professional Development to discuss potential CEU hosting opportunities! You can find their contact information on the Board of Directors page. 

Board Member Contact:

Vice President of Professional Development: Andrea Simpson

Director of Professional Development: Mary Whitney Evins