WADA launches ALPHA 2.0 Anti-Doping eLearning course for athletes

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is pleased to launch an updated version of the Athlete Learning Program about Health and Anti-Doping (ALPHA) course on its Anti-Doping e-Learning Platform (ADeL).

Initially launched in 2014 – and developed with the help of athletes, leading psychologists, behavioral scientists, education technologists, e-learning specialists and prevention specialists – ALPHA represents a holistic, values-based approach and offers a pragmatic and positive alternative to the traditional approach to the prevention of doping. The course has already been successfully completed by over 22,500 of ADeL’s 35,000 subscribers.

The new ALPHA 2.0 preserves the course’s original content but adopts a fresh new look and feel, along with improved interactive activities. The updated course also includes athlete testimonial videos, which provide a point of reference and are proven to be an effective means of peer learning. The course is initially being launched in English with the other 5 ALPHA languages (French, Croatian, Japanese, Spanish and Slovenian) to follow this year. ALPHA 1.0 remains available for everyone in all languages.
 
The updated ALPHA 2.0 has been broken down into eight digestible lessons, taking approximately 10 minutes to complete each one. The course aims to improve retention and meet the needs of the modern learner for bite-size courses. ALPHA 2.0 is also mobile-friendly so athletes will be able to easily access the course through their smart phones or tablets.

The course’s first six lessons address the World Anti-Doping Code’s requirement for athletes to be educated on the following:

1. Doping control
2. Whereabouts
3. Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs)
4. Results management processes
5. Medical reasons not to dope, and
6. Ethical reasons not to dope

Lessons seven and eight offer practical help on how to stay clean and how to resist the pressure to dope, which encourages athletes to develop positive and proactive plans to avoid doping in a way that is particularly meaningful for them.

The end of the course features The Play True Pledge, which allows athletes to demonstrate publicly their commitment to clean sport by sharing The Pledge on their social media accounts. There is also a post-course test to assess the knowledge of the athletes – a score of 80% or higher is required for certification.

To access the ALPHA 2.0 course, simply register on ADeL or log in to your existing account. If you register as an athlete, ALPHA 2.0 will be featured automatically on your home page. For other roles, you can find the course in the Library section. In order to help users navigate through the platform, WADA has also created an ADeL User Guide, which should help users fully benefit from the ADeL platform.

For any questions or to provide feedback on ALPHA 2.0 or other ADeL resources, please direct your emails to adel@wada-ama.org.