Avalanche Institute FAQs
In recent years it has become increasingly common for all kinds of avalanche safety programs to claim to offer some recognized certification. Unfortunately there has been no basis for this - there is no organization backing any certification, students are not assessed to any standard, and while there has been progress towards common or standard curriculums these are often not implemented in a uniform fashion.
One benefit of an online course is that we can offer a certification and stand behind it. Upon completion of the course you are certified, and we can guarantee that this means you covered all the material in our curriculum. The objectives are publicly posted, so anyone who wants to know what you learned can find out easily enough. Since you completed all the material online at whatever pace you chose there is no question of whether or not compromises were made in the interest of time. Since there are simple assessments throughout the course there is no question of whether or not you were paying attention, asleep, or preoccupied doing something else.
This is the first true certification of this kind in recreational avalanche education. Benefits of certification include eligibility for advanced material and for free attendance at AlpenPro field days.
In a nutshell, no.
We have no basis for accepting that any other certificate means you successfully covered a particular set of information. There are some curriculums we feel are solid, but others that we have doubts about. Even in the case of solid curriculums we have seen cases where they were used by questionable instructors. And even with good instructors we don't know what compromises may have been made in the interest of time.
In addition to the problems with curriculums, instructors, and compromises we have no way of knowing whether you actually succeeded in learning the material that was covered. Perhaps you were too tired. Or preparing a meal. Or maybe, like the concession "guide" we once had, you were doing your school work and passing time just to get to the end and receive this "certificate".
Aside from the quality issues in the previous two paragraphs there is the matter of what material is selected to be covered. Even if the instruction is good and time is not an issue other programs may not choose to cover quite the same topics. Since our programs are based on a learning progression this can cause problems if we accept other programs as prerequisites for our advanced topics. However, you are welcome to challenge any of our modules as appropriate. If you really are prepared and succeed this will constitute a significant savings over taking the entire program from scratch.
You must have credit for the modules listed as required for the field day you wish to attend. Students taking a complete Level 1 (or the shorter Awareness version) will reach the field days as part of the course progression. Others wishing to attend a Level 1 field day must challenge the modules, enroll in them individually, or use a combination of those approaches.
Our plan at this time is to get away from a single "Level 2" class. The ones currently offered are oriented towards aspiring professionals - guides, technicians, etc - and are lengthy and expensive. Often they spend an inordinate amount of time on material that is not important in recreation. In some cases this material can give students a false sense of empowerment or cause them to lose sight of the important fundamentals.
Rather than a single Level 2 class which is long and expensive we plan to offer stand-alone modules on advanced topics. Some of these may include field assignments, some may be field based, and some will be strictly "classroom" in nature. The idea is to provide a source of continuing education for those with a Level 1 certificate. Advanced modules can be taken at times convenient to the student, and no individual module will be cost prohibitive. Students will also be able to choose topics of interest.
There may also be some advanced modules that are technical and cover such topics such as extreme event analysis and avalanche dynamics.
We would like to have the first advanced modules ready late in the 2009-2010 season. However, we must first establish the basic modules so that students can complete that material and be prepared to go further. The timing of advanced module availability will depend on the completion of Level 1 modules by enough students.
Advanced modules will be run much like the basic ones, except there is no current plan to have a single set of material for a Level 2 "certification". The approach will still assume a learning progression, with some modules being prerequisites for others. Beyond Level 1 the progression may be less linear, since a wide variety of topics will ultimately be offered and each will depend on its own set of prerequisites.
Since the advanced modules are run in much the same way as the basic ones the same guidelines for meeting prerequisites apply. In many cases a current Level 1 certificate will serve as an adequate qualification for the advanced topic. However, it will not always be necessary to have completed the entire Level 1 sequence - there may be a particular set of modules required. In this case you may also attempt to challenge those modules, or enroll in them on a stand-alone basis. Note that those modules you need as prerequisites for advanced material may have prerequisites of their own in some cases.
There will be a few advanced topics or courses which have unique requirements, particularly those that are technical in an engineering or science sense. In this case the requirements will be clearly listed in the course description.
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