CIRCUMSTANCES MAKING COLLECTION OF INFORMATION NECESSARY
On September 11, 1993, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12862, “Setting Customer Service Standards,” which clearly defined his vision that the Federal agencies will put the public first. To accomplish this, President Clinton called for a “revolution within the Federal government to change the way it does business.” He expected this process to require continual reform of government practices and operations to the end that, “when dealing with the Federal agencies, all people receive service that matches or exceeds the best service available in the private sector.”
Section 1(b) of this E.O. requires agencies to “survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services” and Section 1(a) requires agencies to “survey front- line employees on barriers to, and ideas for, matching the best in business.” These Presidential requirements established an ongoing need for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to engage in an interactive process of collecting information and using it to improve program services and processes.
Consistent with E.O. 12862, the purpose of the NSF Survey of Outreach Attendees is to obtain information on the experiences and benefits obtained from attendance at NSF outreach events by members of the scientific and award management communities. The survey will collect information on how well the goals of outreach events are being met and feedback on how NSF outreach can be improved.
HOW, BY WHOM, AND PURPOSE FOR WHICH INFORMATION IS TO BE USED
Representatives from the Office of the Director; the Office of Budget, Finance, and Award Management, and the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs are charged with establishing the effectiveness of NSF outreach efforts (e.g. NSF Regional Grants Conferences and NSF Days). In carrying out this charge, members of the scientific and award management community who have previously attended an NSF outreach event will be surveyed to assess their experiences with NSF outreach, their perceived benefits, and their feedback on ways for improving outreach efforts. The information obtained from this survey will play a critical role in shaping the future of NSF outreach and dictating what, if any, changes are needed in how outreach is carried out and what information is communicated. The results of this survey will be incorporated in a report to the Director, which will include recommendations on the design and implementation of future outreach events.
USE OF AUTOMATION
There are no legal or technical obstacles to the use of technology in these information collection activities. The NSF Survey of Outreach Attendees will be administered via the Internet, which will allow for a more convenient and less costly survey administration than a paper survey.
EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY DUPLICATION
The information to be collected by the NSF Survey of Outreach Attendees does not duplicate any other information collection. After consulting with various NSF employees active in outreach efforts, representatives involved in this study have concluded that the information sought is not already available.
SMALL BUSINESS CONSIDERATIONS
Not applicable.
CONSEQUENCES OF LESS FREQUENT COLLECTION
Not applicable.
SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES FOR COLLECTION
Not applicable.
FEDERAL REGISTER NOTICE.
The agency’s notices, as required by 5 CFR 1320.8(d), were published in the Federal Register on January 22, 2008, at 73 FR 3756 and March 29, 2008 at 73 FR 16725 and no comments were received.
OUTSIDE CONSULTATION
Not applicable.
GIFTS OR REMUNERATION
Not applicable.
CONFIDENTIALITY PROVIDED TO RESPONDENTS
The NSF Survey of Outreach Attendees will be a confidential survey. The instructions to the survey will clearly assure participants that all responses will be held in confidence: “There will be no individually identifiable information collected in this survey; the confidentiality of all respondents will be maintained.”
QUESTIONS OF A SENSITIVE NATURE
No questions of a sensitive nature will be asked.
ESTIMATE OF BURDEN
Each respondent will complete the survey only once. It is anticipated that the average response time will be fifteen minutes. This estimate is based on the survey length and feedback from NSF staff who have reviewed and tested the survey. NSF estimates the number of responses to the survey to be 3,200 for an annual burden of 800 hours.
ANNUALIZED COST TO RESPONDENTS
In March 2010, The Chronicle of Higher Education published a table of average faculty salaries by field and rank at 4-year colleges and universities for the academic year of 2009-2010. This data was collected by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The salaries for professors, associate professors, and assistant professors were averaged together for the following fields: biological and biomedical sciences, education, engineering, engineering technologies/technicians, library science, mathematics and statistics, physical sciences, and science technologies/technicians.
Annualized Cost to Respondents
Average salary of Faculty as described above |
$70,086 |
Hourly Salary Based on 1,560 Annual Hours (40 hours per week for 39 weeks) |
$44.93 |
Estimate of Survey Burden |
800 hours |
Annualized Cost to Respondents |
$35,944 |
.
CAPITAL/STARTUP COSTS
Not applicable.
ANNUALIZED COST TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
The table below estimates the annualized cost to the government associated with the NSF Survey of Outreach Attendees. Costs include the participation of federal government employees. Federal employee hourly rate was calculated from OPM’s Table NO 2011-ES for salaries effective January 2011. The average of the SES for Agencies with a Certified SES Performance Appraisal System was used. The total annualized cost is estimated at $7,200.
Annualized Cost to the Federal Government
Hourly salary of federal government employee (SES Level IV) |
$72 |
Hours, federal government employee review and oversight |
100 |
Cost of federal government employee review and oversight |
$7,200 |
Annualized Cost to the Federal Government |
$7,200 |
CHANGES IN BURDEN
Not applicable.
PUBLICATION OF COLLECTION
Not applicable.
SEEKING APPROVAL TO NOT DISPLAY OMB EXPIRATION DATE
Not applicable.
EXCEPTION(S) TO THE CERTIFICATION STATEMENT (19) ON OMB 83-I
There are no exceptions.
STATISTICAL METHODS
UNIVERSE
The
NSF Survey of Outreach Attendees will request responses from all
attendees at NSF Regional Grants Conferences and NSF Days from
January 2008 through February 2011. This amounts to a sample of 8,000
individuals. NSF expects a response rate of 40% for a total of 3,200
responses.
Email addresses for the survey population are available from attendee registration lists. A small and as yet unknown percentage of attendee email data may be either inaccurate or out of date. The most likely reasons for such exceptions will be a move to new institutions or changing email addresses. To minimize the potential for undelivered surveys, the survey team will utilize and correct, as possible, information on members of the target population. The information from NSF outreach attendee databases will enable distribution of the online survey instrument to the entire target population. To minimize undelivered surveys, the survey team will closely monitor the delivery status of all surveys. For surveys that are not delivered, the survey team will make all reasonable efforts to identify and correct the information required for survey delivery (such as checking for typographical errors, verifying proper email syntax, or consulting academic institution websites), and will use this information to re-send the survey to the appropriate parties
SURVEY METHODOLOGY
The NSF seeks to address the following research questions:
Are the goals of NSF outreach activities being met?
What is the attendees experience at an NSF outreach event?
What alternative mechanisms might be used to communicate with the scientific and award administration communities?
The survey methodology was designed to address these goals through the following steps:
Identify the survey objectives. Confirm objectives for the survey, review technical and practical assumptions, and identify internal stakeholders to engage in the survey development process.
Design the survey. Create a survey that will address the research questions asked.
Administer the survey. Develop and implement a communications strategy that will maximize the survey response rate. Administer the survey between April 4 – April 25, 2011.
Analyze survey results. Conduct analyses to summarize the data and identify patterns and trends.
Report survey results. Provide a report to internal NSF stakeholders on the high-level survey findings and their implications.
This submission to OMB includes the survey instrument developed in accordance with the process just described. The intent of the survey instrument is to address the goals established by NSF listed above. To accomplish this, the instrument was vetted with NSF staff as well as other stakeholders and senior leaders within NSF.
The NSF Survey of Outreach Attendees will be distributed via email to each individual in the target population. The email will include an explanation of the purpose of the survey and will assure respondents their responses will contain no identifiable information and will remain confidential.
ATTACHMENTS
NSF Survey of Outreach Attendees: Survey Instrument (hard copy)
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Title | SUPPORTING STATEMENT |
| Author | JFELDMAN |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-02-04 |