Supplemental Supporting Statement

OMB Approval No. 1225-0059

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY AND CONFERENCE EVALUATION CLEARANCE FORM

A. SUPPLEMENTAL SUPPORTING STATEMENT

A.1. Title:	Employment Projections Program User Survey
A.2. Compliance with 5 CFR 1320.5: Yes ___X No _____		A.3. Assurances of confidentiality: The data will be held in confidence in accordance with the confidentiality pledge on the survey instrument.
A.4. Federal cost: $ 2,330 (20 hours of BLS employee work)		A.5. Requested expiration date (Month/Year): 10/2008
A.6. Burden Hour estimates: a. Number of Respondents: 400 a.1 % Received Electronically 100% b. Frequency: one-time c. Average Response Time: 3 mins d. Total Annual Burden Hours: 20		A7. Does the collection of information employ statistical methods? X __No _____Yes (Complete Section B and attach BLS review sheet).
A.8. Abstract: The BLS Employment Projections program produces a variety of outputs, ranging from technical materials to career information for kids. Its most widely used product is the Occupational Outlook Handbook, which accounts for about one-third of the BLS.gov website's traffic, or about half a million users each month. Specifically, their career information and projection products and websites are: the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the Occupational Outlook Quarterly, the Career Guide to Industries, Career Information for Kids, Occupational and industry projection data files and websites, and Occupational Projection and Training Data bulletin. Organizationally, the Employment Projections program includes two divisions, the Division of Industry Employment Projections and the Division of Occupational Outlook. The EPP program is at the very beginning stages of strategic planning. In preparation for a strategic planning session, tentatively scheduled for January 2008, the EPP program wants to gather input from its major customers, which include students (middle, high school, and college), educational and career counselors, teachers, state labor market information staff, academic and government researchers, career information developers, and the media. The purpose of this user survey is to obtain information about users of the above websites, specifically to gain an understanding of who the users are and how well the website is meeting their needs. The user survey will ask about their ratings of different quality dimensions, the readability of content on the site, the usefulness of the information provided, and how they find information on the site. Again, this information will only be used for internal planning purposes. We will not be using a random sample for the survey.

2. SURVEYS AND EVALUATIONS EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS

B.1.

Sampling Frame

The BLS website (www.bls.gov) served an average of 1.5 million users each month in 2005. There were over four million visits and over two million unique visitors to the website in June, 2007. Of these, about one-third accessed pages belonging to the Employment Projections program. We will invite users of those web pages to complete the user survey.

Expected Response Rates

One page of the BLS website, the Occupational Health Handbook (OOH), currently conducts a pop-up customer satisfaction survey of users. That survey, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey, is conducted by ForeSee Results, Inc. for BLS. Currently, the response rate for the ACSI survey is about 4%. This rate is similar to other user surveys conducted on websites, including a similar survey used by the Census Bureau which had a response rate of 2%.

Given this information, we anticipate a response rate of 1%. However, it will be difficult to calculate a response rate because we are not conducting a random sample. We are only placing a text link on the appropriate web pages and asking users to voluntarily complete the user survey. Since this is a convenience or opportunity sample, we will not be randomly selecting participants and will not deploy the survey via pop-up technology.

B.2. Describe the procedures for the collection of information including:

• Statistical methodology for stratification and sample selection,

• Estimation procedure,

• Degree of accuracy needed for the purpose described in the justification,

• Unusual problems requiring specialized sampling procedures, and

• Any use of periodic (less frequently than annual) data collection cycles to reduce burden.

Procedures

A link asking users if they would like to provide feedback about the website will be placed on the web pages containing Occupational Outlook Handbook and Employment Projections content. The link will be placed in two locations on the OOH home page: directly above the “Spotlight on Statistics” graphic and at the bottom of the right-hand navigation menu.

We will also ask professional organizations that use the web pages to place a link to the user survey on their own web pages. The professional organizations include the American School Counselors Association, the National Career Development Association, and the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals. As on the bls.gov website, the invitation to provide comments on these websites will be completely voluntary.

We hope to obtain about 400 responses and will keep the survey open until we achieve this goal.

Sampling

We will not use a random sample for the survey.

B.3. Describe methods to maximize response rates and to deal with issues of non‑response. The accuracy and reliability of information collected must be shown to be adequate for intended uses. For collections based on sampling, a special justification must be provided for any collection that will not yield "reliable" data that can be generalized to the universe studied.

Methods to Reduce Non-Response

As noted, we will be soliciting respondents through a text link on a web page. Since we won’t know the number of visitors to a website or the number of persons who read the invitation (text link), it is not possible to calculate a response rate. We hope to obtain about 400 responses. We will try though to reach as many different types of users as possible by getting professional organizations to link to our web survey from their websites.

B.4. Describe any tests of procedures or methods to be undertaken.

Questionnaire Testing

The questionnaires have already been informally reviewed by members of the Employment Projections program who gave feedback on the items. This review improved the text of the question items and the overall flow of the survey.

B.5. Provide the name, affiliation (company, agency, or organization) and telephone number of individuals consulted on statistical aspects of the design and the name of the agency unit, contractor(s), grantee(s), or other person(s) who will actually collect and/or analyze the information for the agency.

Name	Agency/Company/Organization	Number Telephone
Kathy Downey	BLS – OSMR	202-691-7382
Bill Mockovak	BLS – OSMR	202-691-7414