May 12, 2011 – An important change in the competition stream of the new National Coaching Certification Program’s (NCCP) Introduction to Competition portion is the need for the coach to successfully complete an evaluation to achieve Certified status. Therefore, CCA is launching an on-line evaluation program for the NCCP Ready to Race Introduction to Competition Context. This is an important milestone in order to increase our capacity to assess coach competence without all the logistics and the additional cost of a live evaluation.

About Evaluation for Certification:
All coaches, to be certified in NCCP competition-stream contexts (e.g. Introduction to Competition) are required to successfully complete an evaluation process. Evaluation in Ready to Race Introduction to Competition has three parts:

(a) Successful completion of the Make Ethical Decisions (MED) on-line evaluation at the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC) website here
(b) Completion of a Portfolio of written work based on the content of the Ready to Race Introduction to Competition learning workshops, which is then reviewed by an Evaluator.
(c) Completion of a final evaluation. This may be done at a competition, or by completing an on-line evaluation developed by CCA.

Process for On-line Evaluation
The following is the process to register:
1. The coach applies for evaluation by completing on-line registration at the CCA web site, including paying the evaluation fee. Click here.

2. CCA will send the coach a password to permit access to the evaluation web site. This will give the coach access to an on-line Portfolio template as well as the on-line exam questions.

3. The CCA will appoint an approved Evaluator and provide his/her contact information to the coach. The coach sends his/her completed Portfolio in electronic form to the designated Evaluator. The Evaluator may either rate the Portfolio complete and return it with comments (successful result) or rate it incomplete and return it for revisions. In this case the coach has 30 days to make the changes and have the Evaluator rate the Portfolio “complete”.

4. When the Portfolio work is rated “complete” by the Evaluator, and when the coach has achieved a successful MED result, he/she may proceed to final on-line evaluation. In the final on-line evaluation, the coach completes a skills analysis exam and a coach behavior exam. Both involve the coach viewing video or pictures and answering a series of multiple choice questions.

5. If the coach scores less than 60% on the on-line exam, he/she will be informed of an unsuccessful result by the Evaluator, who will recommend specific areas for improvement (action plan). The coach will be required to re-register and attempt evaluation again. If the coach successfully completes the on-line evaluation with score between 60% and 80%, the Evaluator will hold a debriefing with the coach and develop an action plan. The debriefing may be done by conference call or using a to-be-developed on-line debriefing survey. If the coach scores over 80% the Evaluator simply gives the coach a memo of successful completion.

6. The Evaluator now marks the successful coach as “passed” and completes a Course Register Form (CRF) for the evaluation and sends this electronically to the NCCP database and copies it to the CCA office and the PSO office in the province the coach resides in.

7. Upon certification, all Ready to Race! Introduction to Competition coaches have five years to complete prescribed professional development tasks and activities to maintain certification.

What is the Fee?
The evaluation fee is $150 for each evaluation. This covers the work of the Evaluator in assessing the Portfolio and in conducting the on-line evaluation and debriefing, as well as administrative costs.

Evaluators are expected to complete Portfolio assessment and provide comments on a template document within 10 business days (2 weeks) of receiving it from the coach.

Evaluators will review the on-line exam results, and generate a letter of unsuccessful result, or successful result with an action plan if required, and complete and submit the CRF within 10 business days (2 weeks) if no action plan is required, or 15 business days (3 weeks) if an action plan is required.

Mathieu Boucher Mathieu.boucher@canadian-cycling.com
Paul Jurbala pjurbala@rogers.com
613-248-1353 ext : 2607 (647) 272-4191