February 17, 2007 – Cross Country Canada is pleased to announce the official launch of our “Officials Training and Certification Registry” website. This is a new addition to CCC’s online environment and it represents the first of three planned “learning resource” initiatives which will eventually include a Coaches Forum and Resource Centre and a third similar Forum for Athletes. The website service and support which make this possible is provided by one of CCC’s newest corporate suppliers: SENCIA CANADA Ltd.

“I am thrilled to have the resources of Sencia Canada aligned with our online learning initiatives” states Al Maddox, CCC’s executive director, “they are an award winning learning management system provider who offer secure, intuitive online platforms. The Sencia staff have been excellent in customizing our learning centre and their reporting and communication tools will definitely enhance our ability to work with all officials coast to coast far beyond our previous capacities.”

This Officials Training and Certification Registry has been piloted over the past two months with a number of selected Level 1 Officials courses in Ontario and Alberta. It is now ready to provide information to any person interested in becoming a certified official for cross-country skiing. This site also provides an opportunity to all previously certified CCC officials to register and request to have their prior certifications recorded into this online registry.

“Sencia is proud to be a corporate sponsor of Cross Country Canada as they prepare for the 2010 Olympics” explains Irene Kozlowski, Sencia’s managing director, “through the use of Sencia’s platform, CCC Officials throughout Canada can gain access to consistent delivery of training materials as well as information-rich articles and tools for sharing ideas and collaboration. Sencia looks forward to providing Cross County Canada with many years of sponsorship to further strengthen the growth and success of this program.” For more information about Sencia, go to: www.sencia.ca

Like any new online learning environment this will remain a work in progress as we add the next levels of officials training courses. All future CCC officials’ courses will be expected to include some online pre-seminar learning activities and an online post-seminar evaluation component. All officials are given their own personal log book where they can record the many experiences and tasks they have completed over the years.

Over this past summer and fall the Event’s sub-committee for Officials Course Development, under the leadership of Cal Benson, produced a new curriculum and standardized power point instruction tool for the Level 1 course. The instructors of these new courses are now able to review their students’ results online and approve them for their new certification level with a click of their mouse button. This action immediately updates that official’s personal log book indicating their changed status and an email is automatically sent to them with a congratulatory message.

As you can imagine, there are endless possibilities for such an environment to assist in linking officials from across the country together to share best practices and ideas. Our hope is that each CCC Division will have a designated person to assist their region’s officials to become comfortable in this online system. We also hope that some keen officials out there will volunteer to produce interesting articles or course learning materials to help improve the content that exists to date. This site will be largely volunteer driven but CCC has assigned our Assistant Administrator, Brian Edey in the Canmore office, to provide support to the Event sub-committees responsible for course development and for scheduling courses. Brian will be at the receiving end of the “help messages” that get sent from this site by the users seeking information and assistance.

nyone interested in visiting this Officials Training website is encouraged to do so by following this link: http://cccski.sencia.ca , remember to bookmark it for future reference.

From the introductory screen you will need to register as a first time user. Please note that your email address will be used to form your login name for future visits and as well it will be key to our efforts and those of your Division Officials Rep to communicate with you about your certification status and training course offerings. Once you have logged in for the first time it is very important that you read through the “Getting Started” information so that you become oriented to the site and able to find your way around the various features. http://cccski.sencia.ca

Within this environment we have already set up two discussion groups, one for Technical Delegates and another for Course Instructors. If you are active in these functions in your division you can request to be added to these groups.

Over the next 2-3 months CCC will transform this site into a bilingual resource with volunteer support.

Again a big thanks to Sencia.ca for their support in making this project possible. See you online!