A.8. Abstract:
The
Office of Publications and Special Studies (OPUBSS) in BLS is
considering possible changes to the format and content of news
releases, and would like to obtain feedback from current users
before major changes are made.
Past,
small-scale research on news releases revealed that people used a
variety of approaches for handling news releases. Some highly
experienced users often did not read any of the explanatory text
at all, and would use automated routines to read table values that
could be immediately converted into other methods of
communication. Their straightforward message to BLS was “use
whatever format you prefer, but if you change any of the tables,
please let us know immediately.” Depending on their
technical background, other people used the explanatory text that
is provided with news releases, especially the first paragraph
that provides a summary of the release.
Since
BLS attempts to meet the needs of all its data users, both
experienced and inexperienced, we would like to tap opinions about
the format and content of news releases from a wider audience than
has been studied in the past before any substantive changes are
made. We propose doing this by asking visitors to our website who
access news releases to complete a brief survey about how they use
the releases. It is not possible to calculate a response rate for
visitors to the website since we don’t know how many
visitors will notice the survey invitation, or even consider
participating. In addition, we will send the survey invitation to
a group that we know uses the news releases. The website
invitation will be posted for about a month, and we anticipate
about 200 responses. BLS has about 105,000 subscribers to various
email notification lists, and we anticipate a 10 percent response
to a direct survey invitation, or about 10,500 responses.
All
responses will be captured using an online instrument (using
SurveyMonkey). The survey will take about three minutes to
complete, so an estimated 10,700 responses equates to 535 burden
hours.
We are
using the results of this survey internally for planning purposes
and to help direct possible changes to news releases. We are not
employing statistical methods because we don’t have a frame
of all news release users and, therefore, cannot extrapolate the
results to all users.
A copy
of the survey is attached.
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