My question is when more advanced courses have a minimum requirement of dives, where is the credibility to logging online dives that a buddy/instructor cannot endorse? Am I better to solely keep a paper logbook of all my dives, or alongside an electronic one?
It is an electronic age. And, more and more divers prefer to go 'paperless'. It really isn't an issue, as long as you have some form of accessible record of dives. I personally still keep a paper log book. I have students sign my paper log book, where I have stated that all performance requirements for 'whatever' course were met, and i list the dive dates, times, depths, and conditions. Is that essential? Probably not. But, if - knock on wood - a situation ever arises where a students - after the fact - claims that I failed to teach / tell / show them something that was a requirement oif the course, I have a record, with their signature, showing that the requirements were met. Fool proof? Possibly not. Fail safe? Possibly not. But, better than nothing.
Electronic records are just like paper records - their value is heavily dependent on personal integrity. The issue of having them co-signed by a buddy / instructor is not critical. An unscrupulous individual could easily fabricate a bunch of dives in a paper log book, and have a dozen friends affix various 'buddy' signatures, and the person reviewing the log would never know the difference. The same person could add fictitious lines to an Excel spreadsheet, or log fictitious dives in ScubaEarth.
I have signed paper pages for divers, I have electronically signed pages for divers, I have issued certifications for divers who did not keep paper logs. Going forward, they have a record of the certification - their card. They don't
require my signature on their logbook pages, or my 'pretty' stamp on the page either.
The log, be it paper or electronic, has primary value for
you - it is a personal journal (and I use my paper logbook that way). Now, if I am teaching a course that requires a certain (minimum) number of dives (or types of dives) as a pre-requisite, I require the candidate to produce
some form of record documenting that the diver has met that eligibility requirement. It could be paper. It could be electronic. Saying, 'I have thousands of dives, but I just don't log them', doesn't cut it, for me at least. Maybe another instructor would allow it. Several years ago a fellow Instructor, someone whose IDC I had just recently staffed before he passed the IE, someone who is a friend, neighbor, and dive buddy, wanted to take a course (from me) that required a minimum of 100 logged dives. His logbook showed 97 dives. He said that he had made a lot of dives over the years that he just hadn't logged. BUT - and here is an example of the issue of personal integrity - he went out and made and logged three dives, with a mutual friend, who signed them, so he could provide logbook documentation of the 100 dives. Did he 'have' to do that? No. He could have faked it. But, he knew - as a fellow Instructor - that the integrity of a system of defining pre-requisites and eligibility requirements was predicated upon the integrity of the divers participating in the system. So, he went out and did it.
To answer your particular question: ScubaEarth as one example provides a great platform for electronically logging dives. You do not need to keep a parallel paper log, to show proof of diving experience for future training. If you need to show 'proof' of a number of dives, all you have to do is log onto the system and let the Instructor view your 'logbook' on the screen. I would readily accept that. The same is true for other diver logbook software, or dive computer software (e.g. Suunto Dive Manager). If someone shows me an Excel spreadsheet with dates, depths, times, locales, and says that is a
true representation of their diving log, I will accept it. But, I always ask to see some form of documentation for any / every course that has a minimum number of dives as a pre-requisite. I may know the diver, have seen them regularly in the shop, etc. I will still ask to see their documentation, because I am being held to a standard - that I have personally verified that they meet the pre-requisite / eligibility requirements. That is a matter of individual integrity for me.
It is really hard to quantify the 'competence' of a diver. I wish there was a reliable, objective basis for assessing that diver dimension. Most agencies understandably default to accepting 'experience' as a surrogate marker for competence, and use a measurable parameter - number of dives - as a measure of 'experience'. Right or wrong, that is the way it is. One of the requirements that my agency places on me, as an Instructor teaching continuing education courses, is that before I begin actual course-related inwater training and determination of the student's ability to meet performance requirements, I must '
assess the diver’s skills and comfort level inwater and generally assess dive knowledge. If the diver exhibits lack of dive readiness, remediate before training progresses.' So, you may have documentation of the quantity of experience required as a pre-requisite for a course, but I have the final say as to whether we actually start the course, or spend time to 'remediate'. Now, the other side of that coin is equally important. You can tell me that you just don't log dives, but all I have to do to assess your ability is go diving with you. For a recreational buddy dive, that's fine. But, for purposes of a training course where there is a minimum experience level (# of logged dives) specified as a pre-requisite, that I am required to verify as part of determining the diver's eligibility to take the course, we won't ever get that far - i.e. into the water - if you can't document your required pre-requisite experience.
