OPUBSS News Release Survey Justification

OMB Approval No. 1225-0059

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY AND CONFERENCE EVALUATION CLEARANCE FORM

A. SUPPLEMENTAL SUPPORTING STATEMENT

A.1. Title:	News Release User’s Survey
A.2. Compliance with 5 CFR 1320.5: Yes ___X__ No _____				A.3. Assurances of confidentiality: No pledge of confidentiality will be given.
A.4. Federal cost: $ 2,330 (20 hours of BLS employee work)				A.5. Requested expiration date (Month/Year): 09/2015
A.6. Burden Hour estimates: a. Number of Respondents: 10,700 a.1. % Received Electronically 100% b. Frequency: One-time c. Average Response Time: 3 minutes d. Total Annual Burden Hours: 535 hours				A7. Does the collection of information employ statistical methods? ____X___ No Yes (Complete Section B and attach BLS review sheet).
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.
Program Official		Date	Departmental Clearance Officer		Date

B. SURVEYS AND EVALUATIONS EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS

B.1

Sample Frames:

Limitations of the Sample Frames:

Expected Response Rates:

B.2

Sample Size:

Sample Allocation:

Sample Selection:

Procedure for Sample Selection:

B.3

Methods to Reduce Non-Response:

Survey Distribution Procedures:

B.4

Test of Procedures:

B.5

Name	Agency/Company/Organization	Number Telephone
Bill Mockovak	DOL/BLS/OSMR	202-691-7414
Kathy Mele	DOL/BLS/OPUBSS	202-691-6102

Attachments

• News Release User’s survey