Dear WCA Community,

In the first half of 2026, those of us in the WCA Quality Assurance Committee (WQAC) have been developing initiatives to improve the overall quality of the World Cube Association. Here are the main updates from our Committee since the beginning of 2026.

Summary

We organized our Committee into three subteams to improve our workflow, gained 13.5 new members, and made substantial progress on ongoing initiatives. We are in the process of developing a new Organizer Handbook, have made progress on the Learning Management System (LMS) project, conducted investigations, and updated the Delegate Reports Template, the Delegate Handbook, and the WCA Scramble Accountability Policy (WSAP).
Subteams

The WQAC is now structured into three subteams.

EduDocs

• The EduDocs Team is responsible for creating and maintaining educational resources for the WCA Community. These include the Competitor Tutorial, Judge Tutorial, Volunteer Crash Course, Organizer Guidelines (soon to be Organizer Handbook), and Delegate Handbook.

Investigations

• The Investigations Team handles concerns related to the quality of WCA competitions, Delegate conduct, adherence to the WCA Scramble Accountability Policy (WSAP), and other issues not directly overseen by other Teams or Committees.

Projects

• The Projects Team leads initiatives to improve the training of WCA Volunteers. The current largest project is the Learning Management System (LMS) Project, which includes a series of educational courses to support training WCA Volunteers. Members

We welcomed thirteen new members in 2026:

• Abby Newlander (EduDocs)
• Abhinav Khot (Projects, EduDocs)
• Addy Coolidge (EduDocs)
• Amanda Schmid (Investigations)
• Diogo Miguel Alves Guerreiro (Projects)
• Fatima Gulab (Investigations)
• Hao Chang (Investigations)
• Jiashun Wu (EduDocs)
• Juan Nicolás Pinzón Martínez (EduDocs)
• Mark Bennis (Investigations)
• Matija Vidiček (EduDocs)
• Shresth Shah (EduDocs)
• Yuvraj Agarwal (EduDocs, Investigations)

Amanda Schmid was appointed the Leader of Investigations as soon as she joined in January 2026.

Addy Coolidge was appointed the Leader of EduDocs in May 2026 after Sarah Strong stepped down as the leader of this subteam.

Sarah Strong stepped down as Leader of WQAC in June 2026 to spend more time on the LMS Project and ensure we meet our current timelines.

Dan Smith, one of our long-time members, stepped down from WQAC in March 2026 to pursue a new position in the WCA. Congratulations on becoming the Executive Director of the WCA! However, he rejoined the WQAC three months later to become an interim leader while we were looking for a long-term leader.

Roxana Johnson was appointed the next Leader of WQAC in July 2026. We wish her the best in her new position!

WCA Scramble Accountability Policy (WSAP)

We have updated point 3.2 in the WSAP to include formal recommendations to reduce the risk of competitors observing official attempts by other competitors in their group.

When a Competitor Waiting Area is used:

1. Use visual barriers between the solving stations and the Competitor Waiting Area.
2. If visual barriers are not possible, place the Competitor Waiting Area at least 3 meters (10 feet) from the Solving Stations.
3. If neither of the above is possible, arrange the Competitor Waiting Area so that competitors face away from the Solving Stations, such as by turning chairs around.

When competitors remain at their Solving Stations:

1. Delegates should appoint themselves or another trusted individual to supervise competitors and ensure they do not gain information about scrambles from other competitors’ attempts.

Delegate Report Template

We have updated the text explaining setup photos and have added a new template to the Remarks section. We encourage all Delegates to be mindful of these changes going forward, especially with the introduction of the Lead Delegate role and the revised promotion procedures.

Here is the old text that explained the setup photos:

You MUST include at least 2 images which illustrate the scrambling and competition areas (other images are also welcome). You can select multiple files at once. You can delete images only when enough other images have been uploaded (if you want to replace an image, you need to upload the new one first, and then delete the old one).

And here is the new text:

You MUST include at least 2 images which illustrate the scrambling and competition areas from this current competition, preferably during the competition (other images are also welcome). You can select multiple files at once. You can delete images only when enough other images have been uploaded (if you want to replace an image, you need to upload the new one first, and then delete the old one). If you do not have current pictures of the competition area and/or the scrambling area while in use, please explain why.

The template for the Remarks section was previously blank, and we have added the following text:

Remarks: [The Delegates at the competition should include a brief remark about their experience at the competition.]

Report primarily written by: [Indicate the main author(s) of this report. This is especially important when the author is a Junior Delegate seeking promotion to Full Delegate.]

We would like to remind Delegates that one of the purposes of the Remarks section is to provide accountability towards all listed Delegates to participate in post-competition responsibilities, even if it is a minor contribution.

Delegate Handbook

We made many improvements to the Delegate Handbook. Outdated information regarding the Age Policy, WRT Name Requirements, and WCA Regulations has been updated. The list of common incidents has been expanded. The new structure of the registration lists and the newcomer checks feature have been added and explained. The suggestions for generating scrambles and ensuring data protection during check-in have been improved.

We are in the process of moving all information on organizing competitions from the Delegate Handbook to the new Organizer Handbook, so each document focuses on its intended audience.

One major addition to the Delegate Handbook is the introduction of the Lead Delegate role. With support from the Delegate Probation Policy Working Group, this role has now been defined and explained in the handbook.

Other Teams and Committees have also made contributions to the Delegate Handbook.

• The WCA Regulations Committee (WRC) has provided updates regarding new Regulations.
• The WCA Results Team (WRT) has provided updates on administering registration data, double-checking registration data, and requesting changes to personal data.
• The WCA Competition Announcement Team (WCAT) has provided updates on making changes to existing competitions.

Organizer Guidelines

Before we started the Organizer Handbook, we added additional details and made corrections to the Organizer Guidelines. These include improved suggestions for finding venues, creating competition schedules, drafting competition budgets, volunteer rewards and incentives, running first-time competitor tutorials and judging tutorials, catching missing signatures, and holding awards ceremonies. All these changes will be reflected in the new Organizer Handbook.

**NEW** Organizer Handbook

The Organizer Handbook will be replacing the Organizer Guidelines. It will be a single PDF file that covers all the content that used to be distributed across the fourteen files and text on a webpage. This will allow organizers to find what they are looking for more easily by using CTRL-F and equivalent features. The Organizer Handbook will be structured in chronological order, similar to the Delegate Handbook, and applies to all types of competitions and to different regions with varying local practices. It is currently a work in progress.

Learning Management System (LMS) Project

We ran pilot testing for our first LMS course, the Trainee to Junior Delegate Training Course, from October 2025 to January 2026. There were 81 pilot testers who completed the course during this period, exceeding our goal of 52 testers. They provided over 200 pieces of feedback, all of which we are considering as we are preparing to launch the official version later this year. Most of the feedback pertained to wording or formatting issues, broken or incorrect links, outdated or incorrect information, incorrect answers to questions, and requests to add or remove content. At the time of this digest, we have addressed around 180 pieces of feedback and are working on the remaining, more complex ones.

Delegate Management Policy (WDMP)

The WDMP is the accompanying WCA policy that goes alongside the first official LMS course. We have received feedback from Senior Delegates and Team/Committee Leaders and have held meetings to discuss how to improve our first draft before sending a proposal to the Board. The policy will be published before we launch the first official LMS course.

Thank you for taking the time to read this digest! We will continue to work hard to improve the quality of the WCA.

Sincerely,
The WCA Quality Assurance Committee