0648-ENAN Supporting Statement Part A

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

External Needs Assessment for NOAA Education Products and Programs

OMB CONTROL NO. 0648-xxxx

A. JUSTIFICATION

1. Explain the circumstances that make the collection of information necessary.

The NOAA Office of Education is sponsoring a voluntary multi-question survey to assess the needs of formal and informal educators pertaining to future NOAA multimedia products and programs. In developing multimedia materials that convey NOAA’s science, service and stewardship, the agency must ensure that these resources are of the highest quality and meet the needs of formal and informal educators across the United States. To achieve this goal, it will be necessary to conduct surveys identifying the types of multimedia educational programs and products of the highest interest and greatest need by formal and informal educators. By surveying external educators to gather this information, budget expenditures will be used optimally to develop appropriate products and programs most desired by educators to support and enhance ocean and Earth sciences, in addition to related STEM subject literacy throughout our nation.

2. Explain how, by whom, how frequently, and for what purpose the information will be used. If the information collected will be disseminated to the public or used to support information that will be disseminated to the public, then explain how the collection complies with all applicable Information Quality Guidelines.

The information collected will be used by NOAA education and communications staff as needed in the development of appropriate multimedia products and programs most desired by formal and informal educators to support and enhance ocean and Earth sciences, and related STEM subject literacy throughout our nation.

The information will be collected via voluntary survey through 2 mechanisms:

1. Through NOAA education listservs and formal NOAA education partners’ listservs. The surveys will be distributed via email not more than twice a year.

2. By NOAA staff and volunteers at conferences, workshops and other venues hosting formal and informal educators. These events typically occur on an annual basis.

The information collected will only be used for internal purposes. It will not be disseminated to the public.

3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use of automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological techniques or other forms of information technology.

The voluntary needs assessment mechanism will be distributed via email with a link to a Google form as part of the NOAA Google suite of resources. The voluntary needs assessment may also be distributed in person by providing a direct link to the Google form, or in paper format.

4. Describe efforts to identify duplication.

When using NOAA and partners education listservs, there will be a search for any duplicate email addresses. Duplication may occur on a small scale if an individual is registered under multiple email addresses. All attempts will be made to identify and remove duplicative information and from the database.

Through the NOAA Education Council, representatives from all major education programs across all Line Offices were asked whether they were conducting or had conducted the same or a similar type of survey of educators regarding NOAA multimedia products and programs. They all responded that they had not. 

5. If the collection of information involves small businesses or other small entities, describe the methods used to minimize burden.

No small businesses or other small entities will be involved.

6. Describe the consequences to the Federal program or policy activities if the collection is not conducted or is conducted less frequently.

If the survey information is not collected at least once a year, then human and financial expenditures will be not be used optimally in the development of appropriate products and programs most desired by educators to support and enhance ocean and Earth sciences, and related STEM education subject literacy throughout our nation.

7. Explain any special circumstances that require the collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with OMB guidelines.

The collection is consistent with OMB guidelines.

8. Provide information on the PRA Federal Register Notice that solicited public comments on the information collection prior to this submission. Summarize the public comments received in response to that notice and describe the actions taken by the agency in response to those comments. Describe the efforts to consult with persons outside the agency to obtain their views on the availability of data, frequency of collection, the clarity of instructions and recordkeeping, disclosure, or reporting format (if any), and on the data elements to be recorded, disclosed, or reported.

A PRA Federal Register Notice was published on November 28, 2018 (83 FR 61145) and solicited public comments. No pertinent comments were received.

Survey questions and process were developed and vetted in consultation with other Federal Agencies and nonfederal partners outside the agency. Information requested and collected included: feedback on the types of questions to be asked, clarity of survey instructions, availability of data, and recommended frequency of data collection, and other general comments.

9. Explain any decisions to provide payments or gifts to respondents, other than remuneration of contractors or grantees.

No payments or gifts to respondents will be provided.

10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents and the basis for assurance in statute, regulation, or agency policy.

Surveys are voluntary and anonymous. No personal identifying information will be collected. Only email addresses will be collected to identify and remove duplicative information. Any duplicative information found will be purged from all records.

11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature, such as sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are commonly considered private.

There are no questions of a sensitive nature.

12. Provide an estimate in hours of the burden of the collection of information.

There will be approximately 1000 respondents per year with one response each. The survey should take each respondent approximately 5 minutes to complete, totalling approximately 83 burden hours.

13. Provide an estimate of the total annual cost burden to the respondents or record-keepers resulting from the collection (excluding the value of the burden hours in Question 12 above).

There is no annual cost burden for respondents or record-keepers resulting from the collection of the information.

14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal government.

The total estimate of annualized costs to the Federal Government are $1,520.00.

The low annualized costs to the Federal government is because the vast majority of data distribution will be done using email and data collection and analysis will be done using the NOAA Google suite of products, i.e. Google Forms, Google Sheets. The Google suite of products automatically provide the basic statistical output needed for this effort.

The majority of estimated annualized costs will consist of one FTE’s time to distribute the voluntary needs assessment survey via email, review the data to determine trends and interest areas of the respondents, and search for and remove duplicative information. With the ubiquity of Internet access, it is estimated a maximum of 100 copies of the needs assessment survey will be distributed on paper per year, with the data manually transcribed into the database. Paper copies of the survey will be handed directly to and collected from educators at conferences or workshops - so no mailing costs will be incurred. Estimated annualized costs are as follows:

$ 65.00/hour - Hourly rate of one FTE

$ 65.00 - Distributing needs assessment via email (1 hour x $65.00/hour)

$650.00 - Preparing, distributing, collecting, transcribing data from paper needs assessment forms (10 hours x $65.00/hour)

$ 5.00 - Paper costs for 100 forms/year @ 3 pages/form (one ream of 8.5” x 11” paper)

$150.00 - Copying costs for 100 forms/year @ 3 pages/form (.5¢ per page b+w x 300 pages)

$650.00 - Data review, search and removal of duplicative information. (10 hours x $65/hour)

$1,520.00 - Total estimate of annualized costs to the Federal Government

15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments.

This is a new collection.

16. For collections whose results will be published, outline the plans for tabulation and publication.

Results from this information collection will not be published, it will only be used internally by NOAA staff.

17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection, explain the reasons why display would be inappropriate.

This request does not seek approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval.

18. Explain each exception to the certification statement.

There are no exceptions to this certification statement.

Supporting Statement Part B.

This collection does not employ statistical methods.