Research Determination

Print Date: 1/13/20

Usability Assessment of CRC SimPLER - Community Reception Center Simulation Program for Leveraging and Evaluating
Title:
Resources
Project Id:

0900f3eb81a63fad

Project Contact:

Finklea_Lauren (lna8)

Organization:

NCEH/ATSDR/DEHSP/EMRCB/RT

Status:

Project In Progress

Intended Use:

Project Determination

Estimated Start Date:

12/11/2019

Estimated Completion Date:

01/31/2020

CDC/ATSDR HRPO/IRB Protocol #:
0923-0047

OMB Control#:

Determinations
Determination

Justification

Completed

Entered By & Role

HSC:
Does NOT Require HRPO
Review

Not Research

12/19/19

Lawler_Tameka (giq3) CIO HSC

12/19/19

Lawler_Tameka (giq3) CIO OMB / PRA

PRA:
PRA Applies

ICRO:
Returned with No Decision

12/19/19

Zirger_Jeffrey (wtj5) ICRO Reviewer

Description & Funding
Description
Priority:

Standard

Date Needed:

12/09/2019

Determination Start Date:

11/26/19
We would like to engage radiation planning workers in assessing the usability of the CRC SimPLER modeling/simulation program
which is currently in development. CRC SimPLER is a throughput estimation calculator that will allow radiation emergency planners
to evaluate their current population monitoring resources and see what additional resources might be needed to achieve their

Description:

throughput goals during a radiation emergency. We are looking to engage partners at the federal and state level that either could use
the tool themselves or work with those who will use it. Feedback from partners will allow us to validate the current tool interface as
well as determine if other additions are needed prior to finalizing the tool and preparing it for clearance. Results of the assessment
will not be published and will only be used to improve or enhance the tool.
CRC SimPLER is a tool that has been developed with the intention to provide radiation emergency planners with a simple and easy
to use calculator to enter their current resources and evaluate their capacity and identify areas of improvement or in need of
additional resources. Since the tool is meant to be easy to use - it is important to perform usability assessment prior to deployment

Goals/Purpose

so that we can make sure it is truly intuitive to use and the calculator outputs make sense as well as provide the user with information
that they can use. The purpose of this project is to assess the ease of use of the interface. This is important because other currently
available tools that attempt to do similar tasks have been found by many to be difficult to use. The goal of this project is to make sure
that CRC SimPLER is truly as intuitive to use as possible and helpful to federal, state and local radiation planners.
CRC SimPLER is a tool developed to provide radiation planners with a mechanism that would allow them to evaluate their current
resources for population monitoring (contamination screening, decontamination, registering individuals) as well as determine if and

Objective:

where additional resources might be needed to enhance their ability to conduct population monitoring during a radiation emergency.
This project, the usability assessment project, will help make sure the tool will be useful and provide key information to planners so
that they can better plan for population monitoring in their locality.

Activities or Tasks:

New Collection of Information, Data, or Biospecimens

Target Populations to be Included/Represented:

Other

Tags/Keywords:

Software Validation, User-Computer Interface

Activity originated and designed by CDC staff, or conducted at the specific request of CDC, or CDC staff will approve study design
CDC's Role:

Method Categories:

and data collection as a condition of any funding provided
Individual Interviews (Qualitative)
To determine if the interface is intuitive, we will conduct up to 25 individual interviews through Skype where the user will be allowed
to interact with the tool. We developed a script that will guide the user through the use of the tool and ask questions throughout the
process to assess the tool interface. The interviewer will also observe the user during this process to determine if they seem to be

Methods:

struggling to find things on the interface or are unsure of the meaning of certain terms used in the tool. A sample script for the
usability assessment is attached (in supporting information). There will be no collection of PII such as name or email address in the
responses from the interview. Responses will be aggregated and summarized at the end of the interview process to evaluate the
usability of the tool.
Information will be collected by the interviewer following the designed script. Most questions are in the format of Yes/No or Difficulty
with task/achieved task. There will be no collection of PII such as name or email address in the responses from the interview.

Collection of Info, Data or Biospecimen:

Responses will be aggregated and summarized at the end of the interview process to evaluate the usability of the tool. (Sample
spreadsheet in supporting documents)
Findings from the interviews will provide insight on how intuitive the interface of the tool is and what might need to be added/clarified
/removed so that it will provide a clean and "easy to use" interface for radiation planners. This will have a great impact as the major

Expected Use of Findings/Results:

complaint from users of similar tools is that existing tools are difficult to use, and the outputs aren't useful. This process will ensure
that the tool will address those needs.

Will PII be captured?

Funding

Funding yet to be added .....

Review Attributes

Quality Assurance / Improvement

Institutions & Staff

No

Institutions & Staff
Institutions
Institutions yet to be added .....

Staff
Staff Member

Adela SalameAlfie

SIQT Exp.
Date

CITI Biomedical Exp.
Date

CITI Social & Behavioral
Exp. Date

CITI Good Clinical Practice
Exp. Date

12/04/2021

Staff Role

Email

Phone

Organization

Program
Official

yta1@cdc.
gov

770-4883677

RADIATION

Data
DMP
Proposed Data Collection Start Date:

12/11/19

Proposed Data Collection End Date:

1/24/20

Proposed Public Access Level:

Non-Public

Non-Public Details:
Other - Data is only going to be used internally to enhance the usability of the tool before it is cleared and available for public use.
Reason For Not Releasing Data:

(Public Use as in federal, state and local radiation planners)
Data does not need to be made public as it would not be beneficial to the public or cost effective to the CDC. The qualitative data
that will be collected in this effort is solely being used to make sure that the CRC SimPLER tool is usable, and the interface is

Public Access Justification:

achieving its goals of being intuitive and easy to use. The data is not intended to be published. Once all interviews are complete, the
answers to each question will be aggregated to evaluate the tool.
Personal Identifiers will not be kept in the data collection mechanism (excel file). Names and email of the participants will not be kept

How Access Will Be Provided for Data:

and will not be tied to the data. Data collected from each interview will be aggregated and summarized for a qualitative report that will

be used for the sole purpose of software tool development. Data from the interviews will not be shared outside CDC.
The final data will be aggregate interview answers kept in an excel spreadsheet. The long-term preservation of the data will be kept
by the software developer (Lauren Finklea) and her section, Radiation Studies. Should the data need to be made available for CDC
Plans for Archival and Long Term Preservation:

colleagues, it could be shared through email or a sharedrive link. The data is not intended for the public so at no time will it be
available to the public. The data can be shared internally within CDC at the end of the usability testing.

Spatiality

Spatiality (Geographic Locations) yet to be added .....

Dataset
Dataset Title

Dataset yet to be
added...

Data Publisher
/Owner

Public Access
Level

Public Access
Justification

External Access
URL

Download
URL

Type of Data
Released

Dataset Start
Date

Dataset End
Date