Supplemental and Part B questions

1. SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONS

1. Explain who will be conducting this survey. What program office will be conducting the survey? What services does this program provide? Who are the customers? How are these services provided to the customers?

The survey will be conducted by the Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Tournament Registry in St. Petersburg, Florida. Fishing tournaments that award points or prizes for BAYS tunas (bigeye, albacore, yellowfin, and skipjack), sharks, billfish (sailfish, white marlin, blue marlin, and longbill spearfish, and roundscale spearfish), and swordfish, that are conducted along the United States (U.S.) Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, or Caribbean coasts, must register with the HMS Tournament Registry. The Registry provides outreach materials to tournaments upon request and communicates tournament information to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Science Centers so that they may contact tournaments for collection of catch and effort data. The customers are HMS tournament operators, who may obtain registration forms online (http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/Tournaments) or from the yearly reminder package sent in the mail. They may submit their completed forms by mail, e-mail, or fax.

The purpose of the survey is to receive feedback on these services and the modes of their transmission. The feedback will be used to improve the tournament registration and reporting processes for HMS tournaments by soliciting customer registration and reporting preferences, thereby improving registration and reporting compliance rates. HMS would like to hear customer opinions on: 1) program services already offered, 2) updates to the services that have occurred over the past year, and 3) potential modifications to the program such as online registration and reporting. For example, if the majority of the customers agree that changes such as the availability of e-mail registration reduce the paperwork burden of tournament registration, then HMS will continue to utilize, and potentially expand, e-mail communication with tournament operators. HMS is considering online registration to further lessen the burden of tournament registration and reporting, and if the customers support this goal in the survey, then the likelihood of HMS taking on the large expense of designing and implementing a tournament registration and reporting website will be greater. By gearing program administration toward the preferences of the customer, it is expected that a greater number of tournament operators will comply with tournament registration and reporting requirements. There is no other mechanism in place by which customer feedback is gained about these aspects of the processes.

2. Explain how this survey was developed. With whom did you consult during the development of this survey on the content? Statistics? What suggestions did you get about improving the survey?

The survey was developed by the HMS Tournament Registration Operator after several meetings to discuss improvements to the registration and reporting process with the HMS Southeast Branch Chief, operators of the Recreational Billfish Survey, operators of the Large Pelagic Survey, and through telephone conversations with tournament operators during regular registration activities. Several tournament operators have expressed interest in e-mail correspondence as a primary source of information, while operators of the Recreational Billfish Survey have expressed interest in obtaining all catch reports (landings data) via e-mail. Some tournament operators may prefer not to use such technologies, however. The questions in this survey were developed to assess the effectiveness, based on customer preference, of the current methods of tournament registration and reporting, the availability of reminders and e-mail correspondence, and the potential to expand the process to online registration and reporting. Summary statistics will be used to analyze the data.

The survey was sent to all HMS employees, who were asked for their input as “test subjects.” Suggestions for improving the survey included the addition of: (1) “N/A” as a response for several questions that may not apply to all tournament operators; (2) a “comments” box at the end of every question, in the event a tournament operator would like to elaborate on their response; (3) definition of the acronyms (NMFS, HMS, etc.); and (4) verbal clarification of what is meant by “registration” and “catch reporting” in the event that there is doubt among less experienced HMS tournament operators.

3. Explain how the survey will be conducted. How will the customers be sampled (if fewer than all customers will be surveyed)? What percentage of all customers asked to take the survey will respond? What actions are planned to increase the response rate? (Web-based surveys are not an acceptable method of sampling a broad population. Web-based surveys must be limited to services provided by the Web.)

There are two groups of operators that will be surveyed via census: (1) those that have already registered, and (2) those that have not yet registered in the 2012 fishing year. The survey, in PDF and hard copy, includes the mailing address and fax number for operator submission, as well as the survey web address for operators who prefer to enter and submit their responses online.

1. Tournament operators who have already registered their tournaments this year have done so either through e-mail or the United States Postal Service (USPS). Those who registered using e-mail will be e-mailed the survey PDF, and those who registered using USPS will be mailed a survey hard copy.

2. The HMS Tournament Registry sends, via USPS, reminders to register to tournaments operators. The reminders include an informational flyer and registration form, and are sent two months in advance of the tournament’s historical fishing dates if the tournament operator has not yet registered. The reminders will include a hard copy of the tournament operator survey.

A link to the survey will also be posted on the HMS tournaments webpage at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/Tournaments.

While the entire population of HMS operators who have registered in 2012 as well as those expected to register will be contacted, it is unknown how many responses will be received. Since the survey is optional, it may be appropriate to compare the history of tournament operator participation in other optional features of the registry. The only optional feature of the registration form is that tournament operators may request free HMS outreach materials for distribution at the tournament or other fishing events. Last year, 40% of the tournaments that registered with HMS requested such materials. It may be that a similar percent of tournament operators will choose to participate in this survey.

4. Describe how the results of this survey will be analyzed and used. If the customer population is sampled, what statistical techniques will be used to generalize the results to the entire customer population? Is this survey intended to measure a GPRA performance measure? (If so, please include a measure from the appropriate document.)

The results of the survey will be used to assess the effectiveness of the changes that have been made to the HMS tournament registration and reporting program over the past two years. Such changes include the addition of an HMS tournaments webpage with regulatory, registration, and reporting information and a list of registered tournaments; the mailing of a tournament registration reminder flyer two months in advance of the tournament’s historical occurrence; and the ability of tournament operators to e-mail (vs. mail or fax) their registration form to the HMS tournament registry. The survey will also be used to assess the potential effectiveness of an online registration and reporting system, which may be developed in the coming years. In addition, the survey will make available a means by which tournament operators may share ideas regarding aspects of the current HMS registration and reporting process that have not yet been considered by NMFS staff. Tournament operator feedback is a key ingredient to the successful development of future programs for HMS tournament registration and reporting. All HMS tournament registrants will be surveyed.

B. COLLECTIONS OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS

1. Describe (including a numerical estimate) the potential respondent universe and any sampling or other respondent selection method to be used. Data on the number of entities (e.g., establishments, State and local government units, households, or persons) in the universe and the corresponding sample are to be provided in tabular form. The tabulation must also include expected response rates for the collection as a whole. If the collection has been conducted before, provide the actual response rate achieved.

A census of the HMS tournament operators in 2012 will be performed. The potential respondent universe is, therefore, the number of HMS tournament operators that register in 2012. This number has been, in previous years (2003-2011), as low as 215 and as high as 270, with an average of 260.

It is unknown how many responses will be received, given that the survey is optional. Last year, 40% of HMS tournament operators selected to participate in an optional aspect (request of outreach materials) of the HMS tournament registry. Since the survey is also optional, it may be appropriate to deduce that an estimated 40% of the HMS tournament operators in 2012 will respond.

2. Describe the procedures for the collection, including: the statistical methodology for the stratification and sample selection; the estimation procedure; the degree of accuracy needed for the purpose described in the justification; any unusual problems requiring specialized sampling procedures; and any use of periodic (less frequent than annual) data collection cycles to reduce the burden.

The collection procedure will be a census of the entire 2012 population of HMS tournament operators. While an estimated 40% of the population will respond, and this amount may not be a true representation of the population as a whole, the results will be of value to the HMS tournament registration and reporting program. This is the first survey of its kind for this population, and collection of responses, at present, is not expected to be annual (i.e., we only expect to conduct the survey once).

3. Describe the methods used to maximize response rates and to deal with nonresponse. The accuracy and reliability of the information must be shown to be adequate for the intended uses. For collections based on sampling, a special

justification must be provided if they will not yield “reliable” data that can be generalized to the universe studied.

We expect approximately a 40% response rate for the following reasons:

The respondents are already engaged in tournament registration and are therefore stakeholders in making the HMS tournament registration and reporting process more streamlined and less burdensome.

There will be a choice of online or mail response, and NMFS’ contact method will be geared toward the tournament registrant’s choice of registration submission (email or mail).

The survey is very short, taking only 5 minutes to complete.

4. Describe any tests of the procedures or methods to be undertaken. Tests are encouraged as effective means to refine collections, but if ten or more test respondents are involved, OMB must give prior approval.

HMS staff took the text and provided suggestions for improvement.

The method of online surveying (via SurveyMonkey) was tested on the HMS Division employees. Comments, including usability, were solicited and addressed.

5. Provide the name and telephone number of individuals consulted on the 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.

Katie Davis, (727) 824-5338, and Randy Blankinship, (727) 824-5313, will collect the survey responses and apply summary statistics (e.g. number of responses, number of positive responses, and average positive response versus negative response) for analysis.