Executive+Summary+070

The Equestrian Federation of Australia (EFA) is the peak body representing equestrian sports in Australia. The EFA is responsible for training coaches and officials for local and international competition and provides courses for its members in horse management, personal riding skills and coaching. EFA Coach Educators are the preferred providers of the coursework; often working in conjunction with a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) for general coaching units of competency.

In order to maintain standards of animal welfare and rider safety the EFA incorporated the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) National Coaching Accreditation Scheme (NCAS) to provide a consistent standard of coaching from introductory to Olympic performance levels. The EFA coach training and assessment scheme is called the EFA NCAS.

There are over 100 EFA Coach Educators/Assessors across Australia who operate freelance Performance Horse Training small businesses. The 2007 outbreak of Equine Influenza (EI) in NSW and Queensland caused a National Stand Still, so even in areas where EI was not present coaching was restricted because of the prohibitive quarantine requirements. These restrictions impacted heavily on the business viability for many Coaches as well as the training programs for Candidate Coaches (the learners).

The focus of this project is to test e-learning strategies to:
 * Improve the income stream for EFA Coach Educators by investigating and trialling the incorporation of a range of e-learning tools and processes into their training and coaching business practices. Elite riders rely on coaching as their primary source of income. However, the tyranny of distance means that coaches have to be away from home for long periods in order to provide the face-to-face rider instruction. This time away impacts on their ability to prepare their own horses for competition and complete their own training competition preparation.


 * Provide Candidate Coaches with improved flexible and cost effective options to develop their riding and coaching skills. This will include using remote assessment methods and receiving more timely feedback during skill development in preparation for their coach accreditation assessments.


 * Develop an exemplar professional development model to demonstrate the value of business-provider partnerships and empowering learner strategies for promotion to other EFA Coach Educators and to demonstrate alternate methods for conducting EFA judge/coach re-accreditation programs.

Apart from the costs associated with distance, isolation limits opportunities for discussion and clarification on two levels – between the coach/riding pupil and between coach educator/candidate coach. Opportunities are also limited for collaboration between coach candidates.

By embedding e-learning technologies coaches could have more regular contact with their students in a more cost effective way to supplement face-to-face instruction. E-learning tools and processes to be investigated will include:
 * identifying methods to assess remotely to provide more consistent rider instruction and coaching skills development
 * establishing collaborative forums using social networking tools and blog/wiki
 * introducing ‘best practice’ coaching techniques using video demonstration and analysis.