Course Guide

1. Welcome

Welcome! As a participant in this course, you probably have a vested interest in providing high quality marine services and a desire to improve those services by adhering to the WMO's Marine Services guidelines and regulations. With an increased focus on Impact Based Forecasting and recent updates to the WMO's regulations and guides for marine services by the WMO's Marine Services division (MAR), this course provides an opportunity to assess your current services and identify improvements. 

Much of your time on this course will be spent reviewing several WMO publications and assessing how your current organization's services compare to the WMO's guidelines and regulations. With the push to integrate Impact Based Forecasting across meteorology services, you will also become familiar with the WMO Strategy for Service Delivery. You will take a close look at your marine customers' needs and assess how to best address those needs with the proper information, forecast products, and communication tools. 

This course calls for active engagement on your part together with your organization's key stakeholders. You will collect data for several internal service reviews, interview customers and staff, and assess your forecasting products and communication tools. With that information, you will compile a Marine Service Delivery Context Analysis to share with your organization and your PR. 

A Context Analysis is an examination of the current situation of an organization, team, strategy, program or project. In this case, you are asked to examine some aspects of their organization’s delivery of marine services. Your analysis will inform your organization on how to best meet your customer's needs and to improve delivery of your marine services.

2. Course Outline

The course consists of the following topics and lessons:

Course Overview and Introductions

• Become acquainted with the course outcomes and familiarize yourself with the course site
• Introduce yourself and learn about the facilitators and fellow participants

Lesson 1: The WMO Strategy for Service Delivery

• Review the WMO Strategy for Service Delivery for potential service improvements for your organization
• Develop an organizational chart of your marine services
• Assess your organization using the Service Delivery Progress Model

Lesson 2: General Functions and Organization of Marine Meteorological Services

• Use selected portions of WMO-No. 471: Guide to Marine Meteorological Services and WMO-No. 558: Manual on Marine Meteorological Services to evaluate your implementation of the organizational elements prescribed by WMO

Lesson 3: Marine Services Design Considerations and User Requirements

• Assess the processes of multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS), impact-based forecasting systems, and the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)
• Analyze the dissemination options and communication tools of your organization

Lesson 4: Requirements for Each Service Element and Requirements for Specific Users and Applications

• Analyze your customer needs through a survey and interviews
• Conduct a marine forecast products inventory for your organization

Lesson 5: International Coordinating Arrangements and Worldwide Met-Ocean Information and Warning Service

• Gather information about interactions with your regional METAREA and NAVAREA Coordinators and international coordination arrangements

Capstone Project: Marine Service Delivery Context Analysis

• Use the information gathered through the various assignments to produce a Marine Service Delivery Context Analysis for specific marine service sectors

3. WMO Marine Forecaster Competencies

This course touches upon many of the WMO Marine Forecaster competencies. However, it primarily addresses the following competencies and performance criteria:

ENSURE THE QUALITY OF METEOROLOGICAL INFORMATION AND SERVICES

• Knowledge of stakeholder needs
• Knowledge of stakeholder communication and security systems, if required.

COMMUNICATE METEOROLOGICAL INFORMATION TO INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL USERS

• Knowledge of primary users and operations and weather sensitivities
• Knowledge of available communication systems, techniques and methodologies
• Ability to ask users the appropriate questions so as to better understand their needs

4. Course Assignments

You will be asked to complete several types of required assignments throughout the course: 

 Reading assignments: There are several WMO documents that provide the foundation of the content addressed in the course. You will be asked to read all or parts of these documents. 

Writing and service assessment assignments: The primary outcome of the course is the development of a Marine Service Delivery Context Analysis. This capstone project is made up of various assessments and documents that you will be creating as part of each lesson. 

Forum posts, questionaires, case studies and other activities: There are a variety of activities to engage in:

• There are 10-12 discussion forums in which you are asked to either contribute an original post or to respond to the post of another participant. These forums are important opportunities for you to engage with your fellow participants and facilitators and to relate the course to your local situation. 
• There are several questionnaires to share information about the current status of your forecasting skills and marine services offerings.
• There are several case studies for review and analysis. 
• There are various marine forecast related resources and training sites you'll be asked to interact with.

Individual versus Group Assignments

If you are attending the course together with colleagues from your organization, you may be asked to work as a group to develop your Marine Service Delivery Context Analysis documents.  

5. Assessment in the WMO Marine Services Course

The primary goal for the course is that you take away useful skills and knowledge to apply to your work. This will require more than just visiting the Course site occasionally and reading the resources and posts in the forums. It also requires that you regularly contribute to activities and complete assignments related to the learning objectives. We expect that you can complete the course with 5-8 dedicated hours each week.

There are two levels of assessment and two ways of indicating your successful completion: Badges and a Certificate of Completion.

Badges

Badges are awarded for completion of each lesson in the course. The lessons correspond to key learning outcomes related to the provision of marine services, so badges provide an indication of your developing competency. A total of 5 badges can be earned for lesson completion in the Course.

A Badge for a lesson is granted once you have completed the activities and viewed the resources required. What determines completion for activities can vary:

• For some Discussion Forums, you must make one post or begin a discussion and for others you may also be requirred to reply to someone elses post.
• Questionnaires need to be completed and submitted.
• Some content resources must simply be read.
• Assignments must be submitted, either individually or by the Country Group (this is indicated in each assignment).

Submission of an assignment does not guarantee its successful completion. The Facilitator will assess each assignment, assign a grade, and provide feedback. If the assignment is graded not satisfactory, you will be offered the opportunity to make improvements and resubmit.

Certificate of Completion

A Certificate of Completion is awarded to participants who successfully complete the Course. Successful completion requires two conditions to be met:

1. You collect the Badges for each lesson (5 Badges in total).
2. You submit and receive a Satisfactory grade on the Capstone Project (in the final section).

If you do not qualify for Completion, the Facilitators will evaluate your assignments and forums, and at their discretion, you may instead receive a Certificate of Participation.

Kindly note that only participants who have received the Certificate of Completion will be invited to attend Phase 2 of the Course, which includes a face-to-face component. Further details regarding Phase 2 will be shared during the course.

6. Checking Your Grades

To receive a Certificate of Completion, you must complete and submit all of the required activities and assignments. These activities are assigned grades of either:

0 - Not Satisfactory

1 – Satisfactory

2 - Outstanding

A score of 1 is required for completion.

You can track your grades in the ‘Grades’ area, which can be accessed at the top of the course page. Each required and graded activity will be listed and a grade shown if completed. Use the link for each assignment to see more details and feedback.

Finally, all participants are also invited to participate in the Live Sessions, which will be offered in various stages of the course (see dates and time in the Schedule). Live Sessions will be recorded, so watching the recordings will be possible in case you are not available at the date and time of live presentations. While these are not a requirement for course completion, they are valuable opportunities to interact with fellow participants, learn about new topics, and ask questions and clarifications.

We hope you enjoy the course and the opportunity it provides to reflect about your service and to learn about those of your colleagues in the region!