BOATING COURSE ASSISTANT PROGRAM
Boating Course Assistant
Program by: P/D/C J. Kenneth Guscott, ITCOM Notice: 06/06/09 BCA 6.7.3
The Educational Department has made major changes to the public boating course. The new course, "America's Boating Course 3rd edition" is available in 8 hour and 12 hour variants. It replaces the old America's Boating Course, the Boat-Smart Course and the Squadron Boating Course.
There have been some early release problems with BCA 6.7.0 which have been corrected. It is important that BCA be updated to the latest version.Version 6.7.0 of BCA is compatible with the new courses and, because the old courses may continue to be taught in the short term to use up course inventory, it remains compatible with the old courses.
While upgrading BCA, it was decided to do a long needed restructure of the database eliminating duplicate information that could have lead to errors. To this end it was also decided to install into a new folder leaving any previous version operational. There is no need to uninstall your existing version prior to installing version 6.7.0.
Important Note: The Education Department continues to add more seminar subjects and will continue to do so. To avoid having to make frequent updates to BCA, it is designed so that the user can add seminars as they become available. To do this follow these steps.
1. Start a new class and open the class setup dialog.
2. Select any existing seminar and click the button "New / Edit Course"
3. In the resulting dialog, click the "First" button. Clicking the "Next" button will scroll through the list to see if the new seminar was pre-loaded without a catalog number.
4. If found then click the "Edit" button and type in the catalog number. Go to step 6.
5. If not found then click "New" button and type in the seminar name and catalog number.
6. Click "Save" button then "Close" button. The seminar will now be listed and may be selected for a class.Be sure to get the catalog number correct or the students may not get credit when the class is uploaded to HQ.
BCA is a program designed to help with the management of the USPS public boating courses and seminars.
Major Features:
Include any State examination as part of course.
Print certificates and wallet cards.
Print ED-26 headers
Print a correct answer overlay on the ED-26.
Print PWC endorsement labels
Print Membership Application Form partially filled.
Keep database of student information by course (ED-46)
Calculate student examination score.
Perform a missed question analysis
Compile course statistics.
Make course reports using course statistics:
Upload ED-26 data electronically.
Upload ED-27 data electronically.
Upload USPS seminar class data electronically.
Keep attending staff in the database.
Make merit mark recommendations for attending staff.
DB2000 compatibility to simplify squadron data entry.
Export / import class data between computers.
Export student data as Excel® compatible CSV file
This program is for USPS use only. It is not at all useful for the general public.
Version 6.7.0 is compatible with the Windows Vista® OS and previous versions of Windows. Files are stored in the "My Documents" path on the hard drive in a folder named "BCA670". The application itself is in "C:\Program Files\BCA670\" or in a user defined folder.
Download the file and locate it in an empty folder, e.g. C:\Downloads. Do not download the program to your desk top. The file is best run using Windows Start\Run.
The usual requirement to uninstall the previous version is optional in this case. You may wish to continue using the old version if conducting any old courses while using up inventories of course material.
IMPORTANT: If the update revision is higher than the install revision, download both files, install first and the run the update file.
Download Install_BCA_670.EXE(14 MB)
Last updated: April 27, 2009For those that have a previous version of BCA installed or those that have DB2000 installed, it is only necessary to install as an update. Since BCA 6.7.0 uses a unique folder any previous version of BCA remains intact.
Download Update_BCA_673.EXE(2 MB)
Last updated: June 6, 2009Updates will replace any BCA 6.7.0 or later versions with latest version.
Recent changes made to BCA in response to HQ changes in reporting:
Due to recent Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) between USPS and various state regulatory agencies and NASBLA. We now have to advise them of classes being given prior to the date of the class. Also, after the class, we are required to provide class statistics. To assist in this, a USPS web page has been set up to for squadrons to post the class dates and for students to pre-register for these classes. The pre-registration information, if any, is emailed to the affected squadron. BCA can import this data from the Windows clipboard.
To be in compliance with all 50 states, course wallet cards must now include sex, date of birth, eye color, hair color and height in feet and inches. After the class, ED-26 and ED-27 Form data must posted to the web site where it will be processed and the required statistics forwarded to the regulatory agencies. The DEO will also be advised automatically so there is no need to do this directly from BCA.
04/30/09: After first introduction some early bugs have emerged. The changes from BCA 6.5.4 to 6.7.0 were large, but problems will be addressed as they become known.
BCA 6.7.1
1. Problem printing wallet card when using "Print Selected" option.
2. Problem entering student data for seminars.
BCA 6.7.2
Due to a misunderstanding, the wrong number of questions were assigned to the ABC3 12 hour course.
BCA 6.7.3
1. Course Completion Certification report would not print.
2. New users continued to misunderstand the need to pre-register classes on the USPS web site. This led to problems submitting the ED-27 report. A reminder message has been added when defining a new class.
From time to time, we conduct workshops on the use of BCA. The handout notes may be useful as an adjunct to the help files or to conduct workshops in other districts.
Download Workshop Notes(40 KB)
Update: March 2008
Sometimes at workshops an overview of BCA as a PowerPoint® presentation is useful. This version has been updated to BCA 6.5.4. While having differences with BCA 6.7.0 it is sufficiently similar to be useful as an instruction tool.
Download BCA_PPT.zip(2.3 MB)
Date March 16, 2008Using BCA with DB2000 will greatly improve it's squadron data capabilities including personnel data. It requires a password to download a roster file. This may be obtained from your squadron commander.
Download DB2000 from the linked website.
Other News: Due to the continuing misunderstanding of class pre-registration, the web site will be modified to accept ED-27 data without pre-registration. This will happen at an unannounced future date and should require no changes to BCA.
