09-21

=**Cotton Online Skills Audit**= toc

**RTO**
Tocal College

**Contact**
Charlie Bell Education Officer Ph: 02 4939 8875 charlie.bell@industry.nsw.gov.au

**Category**
RTO-Business Partnership

**Business Partner**
Cotton Research and Development Corporation

Executive summary
 The Cotton Online Skills Audit is a joint project between the Australian Cotton Industry, and NSW DPI (Tocal College). While this is a discrete project, it integrates closely with another Framework funded E-learning project in Queensland between the Australian Cotton Industry and the Australian Agricultural College Corporation. The Cotton Online Skills Audit project will develop a self directed skills identification platform to sit within the currently piloted Cotton online Best Management Practice (BMP) program. The Queensland project is complimentary to Cotton Online Skills Audit through the development of E-learning modules within the cotton industry’s new online BMP system (myBMP). The cotton industry’s BMP system certifies environmental best practice and has been in operation for approximately 10 years. This system has assisted the cotton industry to dramatically improve environmental performance in the areas of pesticide usage, water use efficiency and soil management. Further development of BMP is aimed at addressing enterprise and management performance in addition to environmental performance. All Australian cotton producers are targeted as users of this new system. The Cotton Industry does not have a culture for delivery of knowledge through E-learning and this project will pilot how industry would create and enhance that experience among stakeholders. Feedback from E-learning will allow producers to request targeted skill suited to their personal and operational needs. This will allow industry to efficiently target its resources towards the creation of the knowledge assets required to support specific demands for skills.

The Cotton Industry’s new online BMP system (myBMP) has a module in which users undertake a self-assessment of skills and knowledge needs based on industry-wide agreed performance targets. The skill audit module is integrated within business performance measures embedded in myBMP. Surveys of producers across NSW and Qld conducted in January and February 2009 indicate a strong willingness to adopt the BMP system through myBMP. The existing paper-based system is not designed to capture and aggregate information on the skills needed to embrace best practice production, and this is addressed in myBMP

Cotton Online Skills Audit will contribute to the development of a culture of lifelong learning and progressive skills and knowledge acquisition for the broader cotton industry – managers, farmers, consultants and other service providers.