1. Recreational Boating Standards Harmonization Update
National Boating Education Standards Panel (ESP)
National On-Water Standards Team (NOWS)
NBSAC Prevention Through People Subcommittee Meeting
Friday, March 24, 2017
Arlington, VA

2. Agenda Purpose—Joint RBS harmonization standards presentation
National RBS Program— Strategic Plan
Current status recreational boating standards—Knowledge & Skills
Standards harmonization—Progress and impact
Approach to creating harmony—ANSI Essential Requirements & USCG National System of Standards
How we will know harmony is working—Measures
Looking ahead—Next steps

3. National RBS Program 2017-2021 Strategic Plan
Initiative 1: Improve and expand recreational boating education, training, and outreach
CoA 3: Systemic approach to align and maintain national recreational boating education standards
Milestone 7
Publish and distribute ANSI accredited standards for boating knowledge and skills for all recreational boating domains
Milestone 8
Align and implement the American National Standards and other standards for boating knowledge and skills within the National System

4. Status—American National Standards (ANS)
POWER Basic Boating Knowledge—Power On-Water Skills-based Standard—Power HUMAN On-Water Skills-based Standard—Human SAIL Basic Boating Knowledge—Sail

5. Status—ANS in process
HUMAN Basic Boating Knowledge—Human-Propelled SAIL On-Water Skills-based Standard—Sailing SAIL POWER HUMAN On-Water Instructional Approach Standard (IAS)—(Skills, Knowledge, Attitude, Judgement)
Additional Knowledge Standards
Water-Jet Propelled (Supplement to Power Standard)
Trailering (Launching and Retrieving)
Passenger Safety

6. Standards development status

7. Harmonization activities
Sharing Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): members operating across Knowledge and Skills development bodies
National On-Water Standards (NOWS) SME Team
National Boating Education Standards Panel (ESP)
Aligning Standards:
Working within ANSI framework/USCG Strategic Plan
Organizing standards within the National System of Standards
Developed Skills & Knowledge Standards Alignment Matrices for POWER and HUMAN domains (SAIL in process)

8. Harmonization activities (Cont.)
Developing tools & materials: that include both Knowledge and Skills standards for easy access by the public
Skills Technical Support Documents (TSDs)—POWER & HUMAN complete (SAIL in process)
Knowledge Technical Reports for each discipline—in process (Power, Human-propelled, and Sail)
Conducting field research: exploring relationships between knowledge and skills in recreational boating
Conducted SAIL and HUMAN Knowledge Standard research during NOWS National Validation field-testing Programs

9. Harmonization activities (Cont.)
Aligning Standards format: developed SAIL Knowledge Standard as an outcome standard vs. the prescriptive standard format used in Knowledge POWER and HUMAN-propelled Standards.
Providing joint standards presentations: enhancing public awareness of the menu of standards available

10. Approach to harmonization
Goal: stimulate a culture shift towards safety—requires harmony across the recreational boating community
increasing the effectiveness and impact of everyone’s work
Approach: facilitate standards harmony using a systemic approach
Adhere to ANSI essential requirements for harmonizing standards
Adopt and use the USCG’s National System of Standards for Recreational Boat Operation
Provide guidance documents (Technical Reports and Technical Support Documents) linking the standards

11. Approach to harmonization (Cont.)
ANSI Essential Requirements: Due Process Requirements for American National Standards
Openness to all directly and materially affected
Lack of dominance by any single interest category, individual, or organization
Balance of interests
Coordination and harmonization between existing and candidate standards
Notification of standards development
Consideration of views and objections
Consensus vote
Appeals process
Written procedures
Compliance with normative American National Standards Policies and administrative procedures

12. Approach to harmonization (Cont.)
STAKEHOLDER ADOPTION OF
U.S. Coast Guard’s National System of Standards (NSS)
for Recreational Boat Operation
Bringing the recreational boating community together using one organizing framework that
Complements • Incorporates • Integrates • Creates
Adapted from The Creative Problem Solving Group, Inc.

13. Application of the system
Examples: using the ANSI Essential Requirement for coordination and harmonization and the National System of Standards to organize new and existing boating safety activities for synergistic and harmonious alignment
Development of Skills & Knowledge Standards Alignment Matrices
Development of Instructional Approach Standard (IAS)
Development of guidance documents which cross-reference each standard
Implementation of standards verification approach

14. Harmonization Example 1: Standards
KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS Standards Matrix
Adapted from The Creative Problem Solving Group, Inc.

15. Harmonization Example 2: Standards
NOWS On-Water Instructional Approach Standard
(descriptive)
NOWS Outcome Skills Standards (descriptive)
Adapted from The Creative Problem Solving Group, Inc.

16. Harmonization Example 3: Guidance
POWER
Knowledge – Technical Report in draft form/ previous documents published
Skills – Technical Support Document published
HUMAN
SAIL
Knowledge – Technical Report being drafted
Skills – Technical Support Document being drafted

17. Harmonization Example 4: Verification
Verification/ Conformity Assessment: 
Level 3
Level 2
Level 1
People:  
Objective—
3rd party
Customer—
2nd party
Provider—
1st party
Product/
Outcome:
Consistent content at each level
Process:
Some similar steps; Some unique steps
Press/
Environment:
Off-site/On-site
On-site

18. Harmonization Example 4: Verification
Verification system: NOWS awarded a USCG grant including consensus standards configuration management in the form of alignment across all three levels of On-Water Skills conformity assessment (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
NASBLA–Awarded USCG grant to perform voluntary 3rd party conformity assessment of courses meeting skills standards due to extensive experience with Knowledge 3rd party conformity assessments and ANSI accreditation body status
NOWS–Developing voluntary 1st and 2nd party verification programs using its SME Team and extensive network of On-Water experts to enable wide-scale application in the field
Coordinated development: working together to build one comprehensive, aligned approach that includes the three levels of verification

19. Measures
Goal: to align efforts, in order to increase harmony, so that we “Improve and expand recreational boating education, training, and outreach” (Strategic Plan Initiative 1)
Strategy: to enable effective application of insights from RBS SP Initiative #3 by coordinating implementation of the Plan’s education, enforcement, and data collection initiatives
Approach: designing evidence-based assessment measures using a comprehensive assessment framework such as Kirkpatrick levels of assessment, generic model*
Reaction (customer satisfaction, engagement, relevance)
Learning (knowledge, skill, attitude)
Behavior (application)
Results (outcomes, impact)
Implementation: coordination of data collection to gather, analyze, and produce meaningful information/understanding
employ methods and tools at each level
incorporate feedback for continuous improvement of boating safety programs
*Source: Kirkpatrick Partners (

20. Looking ahead…
Harmonization: continue to take systemic approach to harmonizing standards activities
Standards development
Guidance documents
Verification programs
Data collection and assessment
Safety Culture: continue to coordinate and integrate boating safety activities within and across the three Initiatives of the RBS Strategic Plan aimed at stimulating a culture shift towards boating safety