Four Questions - Supporting Statment

OMB Control No. 0693-0033 – NIST Generic Clearance for Program Evaluation Data Collections

NIST Reference Materials Survey

FOUR STANDARD SURVEY QUESTIONS

1. Explain who will be surveyed and why the group is appropriate to survey.

The Biomolecular Measurements Division, from the Materials Measurement Laboratory (MML), at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) proposes to survey scientists in the clinical virology field, which includes clinicians, researchers, manufacturers, and laboratory directors. This group of attendees is appropriate to survey, as they currently practice clinical virology, perform virology research, or make diagnostic assays for estimating viral load. Currently, two Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) undergoing production and characterization within the Applied Genetics Group at NIST are for cytomegalovirus (CMV) and BK virus, thus, surveying the virology community for feedback is appropriate.

2. Explain how the survey was developed including consultation with interested parties, pre-testing, and responses to suggestions for improvement.

The survey was developed by Jo Lynne Harenza following attendance at the 2014 CVS meeting. No consultation or pre-testing was performed. Suggestions for improvement were received from members of the Applied Genetics Group to improve questions.

3. Explain how the survey will be conducted, how customers will be sampled if fewer than all customers will be surveyed, expected response rate, and actions your agency plans to take to improve the response rate.

The survey link (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1BR7VCZzZYrLvRs0tveb83tigQRc9y9cOHN5rfb9vq00/viewform) will be distributed via email by either Dr. Jo Lynne Harenza or the Pan-American Society for Clinical Virology (PASCV). The expected response rate for an internal online survey is 30-50%, but we hope to improve this response rate by clearly communicating to the customers how this survey will benefit them as well as the entire clinical community. In addition to emailing the survey to this population, we will also post a link to the survey on our Clinical DNA Information Resource (http://www.nist.gov/mml/bmd/genetics/clinical_dna.cfm). In our email, on the website, and on our survey, we will use the following invitation to notifiy respondents: “The mission of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is to serve the clinical and industrial community by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology. One way we do so is by providing primary reference materials, which are defined as materials that are certified to be traceable to the international system of units (SI). In an effort to evaluate and prioritize which materials are needed within the clinical community, we have designed a reference materials survey. We value your input, so please take a few minutes to answer the questions below.”

4. Describe how the results of the survey will be analyzed and used to generalize the results to the entire customer population.

The results of the survey will be analyzed internally and used to assess and prioritize current and future standard reference materials needs. If survey responses reach 60%, we will feel confident generalizing the survey results to the entire customer population in the field of clinical virology. We will present the results of our survey at clinical reference materials meetings and/or post them to our Clinical DNA information resource website.

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