Mini Supporting Statement A
Assessing Progress Toward the Goals of the National Cancer Institute’s Provocative Questions Initiative
OMB No.0925-0046, Expiration Date: 5-31-16
January 14, 2016
Contact Information
Emily J. Greenspan Ph.D.
Program Director
Center for Strategic Scientific Initiatives
National Cancer Institute
Table of Contents
A.1 Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary 1
A.2 Purpose and Use of the Information Collection 1
A.3 Use of Information Technology to Reduce Burden 2
A.4 Efforts to Identify Duplication 2
A.5 Impact on Small Businesses or Other Small Entities 2
A.6 Consequences of Collecting the Information Less Frequently 2
A.7 Special Circumstances Relating to the Guidelines of 5 CFR 1320.5 2
A.8 Comments in Response to the Federal Register Notice and Efforts to Consult Outside Agency 2
A.9 Explanation of Any Payment of Gift to Respondents 2
A.10 Assurance of Confidentiality Provided to Respondents 2
A.11 Justification for Sensitive Questions 2
A.12.1 Estimated Annualized Burden Hours 3
A.12-2 Annualized Cost to Respondents 4
A.13 Estimate of Other Total Annual Cost Burden to Respondents or Record Keepers 5
A.14 Annualized Cost to the Federal Government 5
A.15 Explanation for Program Changes or Adjustments 5
A.16 Plans for Tabulation and Publication and Project Time Schedule 5
A.17 Reason(s) Display of OMB Expiration Date is Inappropriate 6
A.18 Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions 6
List of Attachments
Attachment A: |
Funded Applicants Customer Satisfaction Survey Consent Form Screenshot |
Attachment B: |
Funded Applicants Customer Satisfaction Survey Screenshots |
Attachment C: |
Unfunded Applicants Customer Satisfaction Survey Consent Form Screenshot |
Attachment D: |
Unfunded Applicants Customer Satisfaction Survey Screenshots |
Attachment E: |
Email Correspondence to Funded and Unfunded Applicants (Email Invitations to Participate in the Surveys, Follow-up Emails and Reminder Emails) |
Attachment F: |
Interview Protocol- Workshop Participants |
Attachment G: |
Interview Protocol- Grant Reviewers |
Attachment H: |
Email Correspondence to Workshop Participants and Grant Reviewers (Email invitation, Follow-Up, and Reminder) |
The National Cancer Institute (NCI), established under the National Cancer Act of 1937, is the Federal Government's principal agency for research on cancer cause, prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation, and for the dissemination of information for the control of cancer. Current authorization for NCI's education and information dissemination activities is contained in Section 410 of the Public Health Service Act (42 USC § 285).
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the Provocative Questions (PQ) initiative through the publication of two Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) with the goal of encouraging research in areas of cancer research determined to be under-studied, neglected, paradoxical, or difficult to address in the past due to lack of appropriate technology. Since one of the tenets of the PQ Initiative is to take into consideration the likelihood of progress in the foreseeable future (e.g. 5 to 10 years), now is an ideal time to assess progress. In order to assess progress toward achieving these goals, collection of information is necessary at this time under the main generic clearance Formative Research, Pretesting, and Customer Satisfaction of NCI’s Communication and Education Resources (NCI) (OMB No.0925-0046, Expiration date: 5-31-16). The scope of this generic clearance held by NCI’s Office of Communication and Education (OCE) includes conducting formative research, pretesting, and customer satisfaction activities such as those proposed here.
The Center for Strategic Scientific Initiatives (CSSI) within the NCI plans to conduct two online surveys and four sets of semi-structured telephone interviews to determine progress in the following areas:
Effectiveness of the PQs question development approach
Other aspects of the PQs grant process such as application, review, management, and reporting
Outcome resulting from the PQs Initiative
Public and scientific community attention/interest in the PQs Initiative
Attachments A and B are the Funded Applicant Consent Form and Survey Instrument. Attachments C and D are the Unfunded Applicant Consent Form and Survey Instrument. Attachment E contains the correspondence related to the two surveys (email invitations to participate in the survey, follow-up emails containing the username and password and a secure link to the survey, and reminder emails). Attachments F and G are the interview protocols for the PQ Workshop Participants and PQ Grant reviewers, respectively and Attachment H contains the correspondence related to the interviews (email invitations to participate in the interviews, follow-up emails to schedule the interviews, and reminder emails. The information collected from the surveys and interviews will be used by NCI to improve the PQ Initiative and by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a whole to inform the development of similar programs. The process of soliciting and developing the PQs is labor intensive, requiring convening workshops and collecting online submissions of suggestions for PQs. Information from this data collection effort will help to improve the process of determining PQs as well as the effectiveness of the PQ process as a whole. It will also help to inform the directions of future research.
Information collection will involve the use of email, one-on-one telephone interviews, and pre-existing web-based survey technology. Soliciting interview and survey participation via email and allowing electronic submission of survey responses has been found to be cost effective for NCI and NIH and least burdensome to survey respondents. A web-based survey application reduces the burden to respondents by allowing easy access to desktop and mobile device formats, and streamlined navigation where respondents can skip questions that don’t apply. A PIA has been submitted and is underway.
The PQ Initiative is a unique program within NCI. Telephone interviews with NCI Branch Chiefs, PQ Executive Board Members, PQ workshop participants and PQ grant reviewers and surveys of PQ investigators have not been conducted previously. Therefore this data collection effort is not duplicative.
No small businesses or small entities are impacted.
If this data collection is not conducted at this time, NCI will lack the information necessary to ascertain the effectiveness of the PQ Initiative and to implement changes to improve the structure and functioning of the process of developing PQs.
The telephone interviews and surveys will be implemented in a manner that fully complies with 5 C.F.R. 1320.5.
N/A
No payments or gifts will be provided to interview or survey respondents.
All information will be kept private to the extent allowable under the law. Individual responses will be kept secure as permitted by law and individual names will not be used. Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is not being collected. Since PII is not being collected, the Privacy Act does not apply. This information collection is not research and thus the Human Rights regulations are not applicable.
No questions of a sensitive nature are being asked.
The total annualized burden hours are 307. The total respondents are 1,738. The included types and numbers of respondents, frequencies of responses, and annual hour burdens are presented in Table A.12-1. The burden for the telephone interviews are based on extensive previous experience with interview protocols. Those for the online surveys were estimated by utilizing a component of the survey software.
A.12-1 Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
Form Name |
Type of Respondent |
Number of Respondents |
Number of Responses per Respondent |
Average Burden Per Response (in hours) |
Total Annual Burden Hours |
Customer Satisfaction Survey Consent Form (Attachment A) |
Funded Applicants |
120 |
1 |
2/60 |
4 |
Customer Satisfaction Survey (Attachment B) |
Funded Applicants |
120 |
1 |
13/60 |
26 |
Customer Satisfaction Survey Consent Form (Attachment C) |
Unfunded Applicants |
1,600 |
1 |
2/60 |
53 |
Customer Satisfaction Survey (Attachment D) |
Unfunded Applicants |
1,600 |
1 |
8/60 |
214 |
Interview Protocol (Attachment F) |
Workshop Participants |
9 |
1 |
30/60 |
5 |
Interview protocol (Attachment G) |
Grant Reviewers |
9 |
1 |
30/60 |
5 |
Total |
|
1,738 |
1,738 |
|
307 |
The estimate of annualized cost to respondents is $11,312. The data was calculated using a wage rate of $37.46 obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The occupation code is 19-1029 and the occupation title is Biological Scientist, http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes191029.htm. The estimates are provided below in A.12-2 following identification and use of the appropriate wage rate categories.
A.12-2 Annualized Cost to the Respondents
Form Name |
Type of Respondent |
Total Burden Hours |
Hourly Wage Rate* |
Respondent Cost |
Interview Protocol (Attachment F) |
Workshop Participants |
5 |
$37.46 |
$187 |
Interview protocol (Attachment G) |
Grant Reviewers |
5 |
$37.46 |
$187 |
Customer Satisfaction Survey Consent Form (Attachment A) |
Funded Applicants |
4 |
$37.46 |
$150 |
Customer Satisfaction Survey (Attachment B) |
Funded Applicants |
26 |
$37.46 |
$974 |
Customer Satisfaction Survey Consent Form (Attachment C) |
Unfunded Applicants |
53 |
$37.46 |
$1,985 |
Customer Satisfaction Survey (Attachment D) |
Unfunded Applicants |
214 |
$37.46 |
$8,016 |
Total |
307 |
|
$11,3125 |
|
There are no capital or start-up costs to the data collection efforts requested; nor are there any costs associated with the operation, maintenance or purchase of services.
The annualized cost to the federal government is $101,942.20. The federal personnel will be responsible for high-level oversight of the contractor’s work. The contractor is responsible for assisting in developing the interview protocols and survey instruments, conducting the interviews and cleaning, coding and analyzing the interview data and fielding the surveys and cleaning, coding and analyzing the survey data.
Staff |
Grade/Step |
Salary |
% of Effort |
Fringe (if applicable) |
Total Cost to Gov’t |
Federal Oversight |
|
|
|
|
|
Program Director |
14/4 |
$128,445 |
5% |
|
$6,422 |
Project Manager |
13/1 |
$90,823 |
5% |
|
$4,541 |
Contractor Cost |
|
|
|
|
|
Interview Protocol Creation and Implementation |
|
|
|
|
$90,979.20 |
Total |
|
|
|
|
$ 101,942.20 |
N/A
Plans for data tabulation include basic quantitative analyses including cross-tabulations and basic descriptive statistics as well as qualitative analysis including thematic analysis. The use of complex analytical techniques is not anticipated. Information collected will be compiled and presented in reports and briefings for CSSI and other staff within NCI. Reports will include information regarding respondent demographics, basic descriptive data, comparisons across demographic and respondent subgroups, and recommendations for improving the PQ program and process.
Activity |
Time Schedule |
Send invitation emails to Branch Chiefs, PQ Executive Board Members and Workshop Participants for semi-structured telephone interviews |
Early January 2016 [Note: since interviews with federal employees and with nine or fewer members of the public, OMB approval is not required to interview these groups] |
Conduct semi-structured telephone interviews with Branch Chiefs, PQ Executive Board Members and Workshop Participant |
January-March 2016 |
Begin preliminary analyses of interview data |
February-March 2016 |
Make any changes to the survey instruments and other documents required by OMB |
1 week after OMB approval |
Send invitation emails to PQ grant reviewers for semi-structured telephone interviews |
1-2 weeks after OMB approval |
Send email invitations to survey participants |
2 weeks after OMB approval |
Conduct semi-structured interviews with PQ grant reviewers |
2-6 weeks after OMB approval |
Launch surveys and collect survey data |
2-10 weeks after OMB approval |
Analyze interview and survey data |
11-16 weeks after OMB approval |
Prepare reports |
17-28 weeks after OMB approval |
No exemptions are requested to the display of the OMB Expiration date and the OMB control number and expiration date will be displayed on all data collection instruments.
This information collection is in full compliance with the requirements in 5 CFR 1320.9.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Sarah Ward |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-29 |