Work Activities Journal

Form Approved

OMB No. 0920-xxxx

Expiration Date xx/xx/xxxx

Instructions: Work Activities Journal

NCRA / NPCR Workload Management Survey

The Work Activities Journal is an important component of the workload survey.

The purpose of this journal is to collect information on the time it takes to perform certain job activities.

The Work Activities Journal worksheet contains the journal and a glossary of terms used in journal. The journal worksheet and glossary should both be printed out for the purpose of data collection. Each staff person/registrar that collects data for the survey should complete his or her own journal worksheet.

Each staff person/registrar should have the following paper documents:

• These instructions

• The Work Activities Journal worksheet

• The survey glossary

Staff/Registrars should enter task activities in the journal for one (1) week.

At the end of the week, Work Activities Journal worksheets should be collected by the person who will fill out the online survey. The amount of time per activity should be totaled across all Work Activities Journal worksheets.

Public reporting burden of this collection of information is estimated to average 2 hours per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.  An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.  Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to CDC/ATSDR Reports Clearance Officer; 1600 Clifton Road NE, MS D-74, Atlanta, Georgia 30333; ATTN: PRA (0920-xxxx)

Cancer Registry Staff/Registrars, please note the following:

The researchers are aware that the activities contained in the journal do not represent all activities that are required for you to do your jobs. These job activities were chosen for this survey because they are the primary job activities of cancer registry staff/registrars, and they are the activities the researchers are most interested in. Please be assured that there is no expectation that the times recorded in the journal will sum to a full workday or work week.

How to measure & report time spent on work activities:

In the Work Activities Journal, job activities are categorized into 3 sections – weekly activities, monthly activities, and yearly activities. Each of the 3 sections has separate examples and instructions.

The researchers are aware that cancer registries may differ in how they manage death clearance activities. Some may designate a specific period of months towards the end of the year to conduct death clearance (yearly). Others do death clearance on an ongoing basis throughout the year, perhaps on a weekly or monthly basis.

For this survey, we are asking that death clearance be reported on a yearly basis. If this is not how death clearance is done in your registry, please sum your average hours per week, or hours per month, into a single, yearly estimate of time spent doing death clearance.

Time spent on work activities should be recorded in hours and minutes using hh:mm notation. In this notation style, hours and minutes are separated by a colon. For example, 1 hour and 13 minutes would be recorded as 1:13.

See below for examples and instructions on weekly, monthly, and yearly job activities.

Example 1: Weekly Job Activities

Weekly Job Activities: In this section, enter the actual amount of time you spent each day this week on the activities listed in column A (the first column). Then sum across the days and enter the weekly total in column G (the last column). For example: If you spent 1 hour and 25 minutes abstracting at the central registry on Day 1, you would enter 1:25 in row 9, column B of the journal. If you spent 6 hours and 40 minutes doing this activity on Day 3, you would enter 6:40 in row 9, column D of the journal. Your weekly total time of 8:05 spent doing this activity would be entered in row 9, column G of the journal.
A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Weekly Activities
Job Activities	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Weekly Total
Abstracting:
Abstracting at central registry	1:25	0	6:40	0	0	8:05

Example 2: Monthly Job Activities

Monthly Job Activities: In this section, we have listed activities that you may not have done in this week but may do periodically. For each activity, enter the estimated amount of time you would spend in an average month in column G of the journal. For example: If you spend about 10 days, at 7 hours per day, doing casefinding audits in an average month, you would enter 7:00 in row 22, column G of the journal.
A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Monthly Activities
Audits:						Total
Casefinding audits						70:00

Example 3: Yearly Job Activities

Yearly Job Activities: In this section, we have listed activities that you may not have done in this week or month, but may do periodically. For each activity, enter the estimated amount of time you spend in an average year in column G of the journal. For example: If you participate in training/development with central registry staff on a quarterly basis for 2 hours each session, you would enter 8:00 in row 28, column G of the journal.
A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Yearly Activities
Training/Development						Total
Central Registry Staff						8:00

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