Survey Planning and Design document

Survey Planning and Design Document

Survey of the Trade Data and Tariff Information Experiences of the Trade Community

The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) is implementing a survey to gather user feedback to aid in evaluating ways to modernize its Dataweb system, a web-based service that provided trade data and tariff information to the trade community.

A. The Survey Population

This will be a voluntary, web-based survey. The survey population likely will include groups alerted to the survey through several means. The principal avenue will be through a news release directing interested parties to the survey on the agency’s web page. The news release will appear on the agency’s web page and will be distributed via email to the agency’s pre-existing list of self-subscribing entities as well as a list of organizations that USITC staff thinks may have an interest in the report. In addition, regular users of the dataweb will be find the survey if they access that portion of the agency’s web site.

B. Field Testing

In March 2014, the USITC field tested the survey with regard to scope and clarity of questions. Individuals with the organizations presented in the table below were identified as participants for field testing of the survey.

Name	Organization	Email Address
Judith Dean	Brandeis University	[email protected]
Falan Yinug	Semiconductor Industry Association	[email protected]
C. Blaha	U.S. Department of Commerce	[email protected]
B. Gilbert	Bloomberg	[email protected]
N. Stewart	Stewart and Stewart	[email protected]
M. Johnson	Fanwood Chemical Company	[email protected]
M. Bolle	Congressional Research Services	[email protected]
B. Arnold	Congressional Budget Office	[email protected]
J. Engesser	State of Minnesota	[email protected]
M. Stuart	Jacobs Consultancy	[email protected]
L. Gonzaga	Brazilian Government	[email protected]
C. Terlera	American Chamber of Commerce	[email protected]

Below is a table providing comments from field test participants and actions taken in response to those comments. Comments on the survey were received only from Judith Dean.

Field Tester	Recommendation	Comment/Solution
Judith Dean	1. I could not tell if question #9 and #18 referred to obstacles on the ITC websites or just obstacles in general to getting such data. 2. Question #19 and #20 seem too broad. For example, question #20 makes me worry that you are somehow going to eliminate or change a whole bunch of existing functionality that I depend upon. Then I fear that if I don't think of it and list it clearly, a broad range of functionality might disappear. Can you be more specific on what you are looking for here?	1. Added wording to clarify reference. 2. Convert question 19 to two. More specific questions. Restructure question 20 into subquestions.

C. Reporting Burden and Projected Cost

The reporting burden is estimated to be:

Total number of survey respondents: (No.) Not to exceed 100

Frequency of response: (No.) 1

Average completion time per survey: (hours) 0.25

Total burden: (hours) 25 hours

Total cost: (dollars) $1,675 (25 hours X $67/per hour)

Note: The hourly cost estimate reflects the average USITC employee hourly cost.

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