Form 1 Attachment A NCI Research Resources FINAL interview prot

NCI Research Resources

Extramural Investigator Telephone Interview Guide

DRAFT 02-28-16

Attachment A:

OMB No.: 0925-0046

Expiration Date: 05/31/16

Collection of this information is authorized by The Public Health Service Act, Section 411 (42 USC 285a). Rights of study participants are protected by The Privacy Act of 1974. Participation is voluntary, and there are no penalties for not participating or withdrawing from the study at any time. Refusal to participate will not affect your benefits in any way. The information collected in this study will be kept private to the extent provided by law. Names and other identifiers will not appear in any report of the study. Information provided will be combined for all study participants and reported as summaries. You are being contacted to complete this interview so that we can learn more about satisfaction with the research resources made available by NCI.

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 30 minutes per response, including the time for completing the interview. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to: NIH, Project Clearance Branch, 6705 Rockledge Drive, MSC 7974, Bethesda, MD 20892-7974, ATTN: PRA (0925-0046).

Interview Protocol—NCI Extramural Investigators

DATE OF INTERVIEW:

LENGTH OF INTERVIEW (MINUTES):

AFFILIATION (ORGANIZATION/INSTITUTION):

INTERVIEWER:

COMMENTS ON ANY UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES:

INTRODUCTION

Hello, _________________. My name is _________________ and I am a member of the assessment team working with the Center for Research Strategy (CRS) within the National Cancer Institute (NCI). We are working on a project that is assessing the need for an online NCI-curated centralized repository of research resources that can be obtained free or at minimal cost by the cancer research community.

As part of NCI’s dedication to fostering and supporting the research activities of cancer investigators, a group within NCI created a research resources website (https://resresources.nci.nih.gov/) several years ago. Data analytics on this existing site suggest use of this resource has been stagnant for some time, and NCI is re-examining whether such a resource is useful and beneficial to cancer investigators. To that end, we would like to hear your opinions and insights on the utility of a web-based research portal for your work as a cancer researcher.

I work for The Madrillon Group, a firm in the metropolitan Washington, DC region, which has been retained to assist CRS with this assessment.

We greatly appreciate your willingness to help us with this project. We understand that your participation in this interview is voluntary, and we want to assure you that the information we gather from this and other interviews will only be used in aggregate. Responses from individuals will not be identified by name or shared outside the assessment team.

In order to capture your valuable input, I’d like to record this interview. The recordings will only be used internally and will be destroyed when the project is completed.

Do I have your permission to record this interview?

[ ] YES Thank you.

[ ] NO This interview will not be recorded. Rather, I will take notes on our conversation.

The interview consists of 10 questions and will take no longer than 30 minutes of your time to complete. We are speaking to no more than 30 people like you, and the information we gather will be used – in aggregate--by NCI to help with decision making. Your opinions are important and there are no right or wrong answers.

Do you have any questions before we begin?

I. Background Information

1. First, please provide me with a brief overview of what type of cancer research you are involved in at [insert name of Organization/Institution]?

2. What research model systems do you currently use? For example, do you conduct research in silico (computers/algorithms), in vitro (cells; cellular/molecular biology), in vivo (animal models; mice, rats, non-human primates, etc.), or clinical (humans).

II. Finding Cancer Research Resources and Information

The next several questions ask about your experience with finding and using cancer research resources such as reagents, animal models, services, compounds, data, and information.

3. What types of resources and information do you find most valuable to your cancer research investigations?

___Reports (e.g., Congressional testimonies, NIH lectures and presentations)

___Databases (e.g., human and mouse molecular data, family registries, assessment instruments)

___Scientific computing resources (e.g., analysis tools, graphing software, gene expression data software, genomics and bioinformatics software)

___Chemicals and biologics (e.g., chemical libraries, natural products library)

___Animal resources (e.g., mouse repository)

___Genetic resources (e.g., mammalian gene collections)

___Vectors (e.g., RNA guide, viral)

___Others

About how often do you refer to such resource(s)?

4. What types of cancer research resources and information do you use when preparing grant applications?

What particular websites do you prefer to use?

5. How do you access this/these research resource(s)? (Examples: via Smartphone? Laptop? Tablet? Using a specific web browser such as Mozilla? IE? Google Chrome? Other?)

6. What are some examples of typical search terms or keywords (including search term combinations) you use when looking for cancer research resources on the Internet?

III. Needs

7. If NCI were to develop a new web-based research tool/portal, for what reasons would you access it? (Probe: Would you access such a portal to prepare grant applications?)

8. How might an NCI-sponsored web-based portal assist you with your research and in submitting more competitive grant applications? (Probe: What would you like a web-based research portal to be able to do? For example, provide robust search capability; easy access to the most current cancer research resources; access to relevant cancer information; access to datasets/repositories, etc.)

IV. Dissemination/Getting the Word Out

9. If NCI were to build a new web-based portal to make information on and links to cancer research resources more accessible, what would the best strategies be for making the cancer research community aware of it?

[Interviewer Note: if respondent struggles to come up with a list, use the following list of examples as prompts:

___ Ads in professional journals

___ Direct e-mail marketing

___ Direct mail, print advertisement

___ Announcements at professional meetings

___ Word-of-mouth

___ Referral from a colleague

___ Listservs

___ Other (Please specify: )

10. Those are all the questions I have for you. Is there anything else you would like to let us know?

Thank you for making time to provide your input. We appreciate it very much.

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