NIRSA Officiating Flag Football Online Course

1. NIRSA Officiating Flag Football Online Course

2. Why an Online Course? Officiating Flag Football online course lets you • quickly teach officiating to students who have never been officials before. • allow students to work at their own pace, any time, day or night. • provide students with interactive, interesting materials that they can review over and over again. • ensure consistent training for all applicants.

3. What’s in the Online Course? Course teaches • Philosophy of officiating and communication and decision-making on the field • Basic structure of flag football and its rules • Officials’ pre-game responsibilities and duties • Application of signals and procedures for downs, scoring plays, fouls, and the 4 enforcement principles • Starting positions and responsibilities for each official in a 2-, 3- or 4-person crew

4. Course has 5 units: • Basics of Officiating • Game Essentials and Rules Review • Game Responsibilities • Game Mechanics and Penalty Enforcement • Officiating Mechanics It ends with a final test.

5. Unit 1:Basics of Officiating This unit teaches • Essential objectives of officiating • Importance of verbal and nonverbal communication and listening • Decision-making skills • Conflict-resolution skills

13. Unit 2:Game Essentials and Rules Review In this unit students learn • the basics of the game of flag football, and • how to apply their knowledge of flag football rules. Before working through each unit, students read the relevant portions of the NIRSA Flag Football rules book, which is online.

16. Unit 3:Game Responsibilities Here learners are taught • the general responsibilities of a flag football official; • the steps to take in conducting pregame meetings with officials and coaches or captains; • how to identify legal and illegal equipment; and • the procedures for the coin toss, timing, and overtime.

21. Unit 4:Game Mechanics & Penalty Enforcement Here is where students learn to • signal downs or scoring plays and determine punts correctly; • distinguish among dead ball fouls, fouls simultaneous with the snap, and live-ball fouls; • explain the four enforcement principles and special enforcements; • call a foul by signaling correctly and whistling, reporting the foul to the referee, and asking the captain for his choice (live-ball foul); and • note special rules for corec and 4-on-4 games.

24. Unit 5:Officiating Mechanics In this final unit, students practice, for a 2-person, 3-person, and 4-person crew: • identifying each official’s starting position before and during a pass, run, or punt play, and in scoring situations; • determining the responsibilities of each official before and during a pass, run or punt play, and in scoring situations; and • reacting appropriately to play scenarios.

25. A special note: Two-person crew procedures are not part of the final course test, so students aren’t required to complete that section. If your school uses two-person crews, however, a quiz appears at the end of the section. Students can print out their quiz results to confirm that they completed that section.

29. The Course Test This test has 138 questions, which include the NIRSA rules test questions. Students can access the course and test for 1 year after first accessing the course. Students can retake test once without a fee. Subsequent tries cost $10 each. After students pass the test, they no longer can access it.

30. Course as Part of Existing Training Use the online course in one of several ways: • Preparation for pre-season rules clinic • Supplement following pre-season rules clinic • Introduction to flag football principles for applicants (in summer) • Midseason or pre-playoff training

31. Sample Training Week Mon. – Tell students how to access and complete course. Give deadline for completion. Tues. – Cover material in first half of course. Wed. – Cover material in second half of course. Thurs. – Do field training, using NIRSA Training Stations. Fri. – Offer work session for those who need help with online course.

32. Course Access for Students Call ASEP at 1-800-747-5698 to purchase the number of courses you need (phone orders only for bulk course purchases). After order has been processed, ASEP e-mails you a spreadsheet with key codes and distribution instructions.

33. Assign a key code to each student by e-mail or letter. Tell students to access the course through the ASEP website at www.ASEP.com

34. Once the student has logged in and the course comes up, the introduction explains how to navigate the course and general course information.

35. A drop-down menu can be opened from each screen, allowing students to navigate easily between units and within units. Students can also move backward and forward by clicking on the arrows at the bottom of each screen.

36. Within each unit, a progress bar at the bottom of each screen shows the student how much of the unit has been completed. The student may stop, then return and continue, at any place in the course.

37. Once a student has taken the test, you can check whether he or she has passed by accessing the ASEP National Officials Registry on the ASEP website. Students can print a certificate of course completion from the website and e-mail their course transcript to you to document course completion.

38. Accessing Course from NIRSA Website The course also can be accessed from the NIRSA website. A link on that site goes directly to a NIRSA portal page on the ASEP site. From that page, simply click on either “Take Course” to begin the course or “Continue Course” if already registered.

39. A New Tool for Training Officials The NIRSA Officiating Flag Football online course – a new way you can train student officials quickly and easily.