Supporting Statement

NATIONAL LABORATORY ACCREDITATION PROGRAM (NVLAP) INTERACTIVE WEB SYSTEM (NIWS) TRANSACTIONAL SURVEY

FOUR STANDARD SURVEY QUESTIONS

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

The National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) accredits testing and calibration laboratories that comply with the NVLAP Procedures and General Requirements

(15 CFR 285). Each laboratory that applies for initial or continuing accreditation using the NVLAP Interactive Web System (NIWS), a web-based application that enables laboratories to submit their applications for accreditation online, will be asked to complete the survey at the conclusion of the application process. (The collection of the information from the participating laboratories is covered under OMB Control Number 0693-0003, NVLAP Information Collection System.) The survey responses provide valuable information to the NIWS system development team for the identification, prioritization, and implementation of future software modifications and enhancements.

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

The staff member who developed the survey was trained in using survey design templates created at NIST with the assistance of a management consultant. Questions for the survey were developed based upon this training and experience with other NVLAP transactional surveys.

The survey instrument focuses upon measuring customer satisfaction with the specific transaction (i.e., applying for/renewing accreditation through the NIWS) and measuring the performance of key attributes such as clarity, ease of use, and responsiveness. This feedback will provide direction to the system development team and help NVLAP to better understand whether or not the NIWS is meeting the needs of the applicant laboratories. Respondents are a vital source of the information to be considered in the design of future software releases.

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.

All customer laboratories that submit an application for accreditation through the NIWS portal will have the opportunity to complete a survey. The ability to submit survey responses through the customer portal is still under development; the system will include a mechanism for tracking responses and sending follow-up requests to non-responders. The details of the survey methodology will be established by the NIWS project team as the team prepares for upcoming software releases.

Based upon actual response rates from previous usability evaluation surveys, the response rate is projected to be at least 20%. Users will be asked to complete the survey at the end of the application submission process while the experience is still fresh in their minds. Actions that NVLAP will take to improve the response rate include publishing the survey results in its newsletter, along with a description of how NVLAP uses those results.

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

Results will be used to identify opportunities for improvement in the web portal application and service delivery processes. Responses will be analyzed by NVLAP field of testing, using simple statistical techniques such as frequency distributions. A summary of results with comments will be reviewed annually as part of NVLAP’s management review processan integral part of its quality management system.

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