How to Contact Us
If you have questions or concerns about this survey, you have two ways to contact the Survey Operations Center:
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the QuickCompass Program?
- QuickCompass is a DoD personnel program that features web-based surveys sponsored by the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD[P&R]).
- These surveys enable DoD to regularly assess the attitudes and opinions of the DoD community, including active duty and Reserve component members on the full range of personnel issues.
How do I know this is an official, approved DoD survey?
- All multi-component data collection in the Department must be licensed and show that license as a Report Control Symbol (RCS) or an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number and expiration date. The license for this survey is {LICENSE NUMBER}, expiring {LICENSE DATE}.
How did you pick me?
- OPA uses well-established, scientific procedures to randomly select a sample that represents the Defense community based on combinations of demographic characteristics (e.g., location, paygrade).
Why should I participate?
- This is your chance to be heard on issues that directly affect you, including your experiences with the enrollment process, family support services, assignment coordination during a permanent change of station (PCS) move, and medical and educational services.
- Your responses on this survey make a difference.
Why are you using a .net instead of a .mil domain to field your survey?
- The survey is administered by our contractor, Data Recognition Corporation, an experienced survey operations company. The survey collection tool starts on a .mil site within OPA. Once you enter your ticket number, you are redirected to our contractor's site which uses a .net domain. This allows everyone to access the survey, even from a non-government computer.
Do I have to answer all questions?
- No, it is not necessary to answer every question. Within the survey screen, you have three control buttons: Next, Previous, and Save and Return Later. Use these buttons to navigate through the survey or skip questions. Use Save and Return Later to give yourself flexibility to complete the survey at a convenient time. When you return to the survey website, enter your Ticket Number to get to the place in the survey where you had stopped.
Why does the survey ask personal questions?
- OPA reports overall results, as well as by other characteristics, such as location and gender. To complete these analyses, we must ask respondents for these types of demographic information.
- Analyzing results in this way provides Defense leaders information about the attitudes and concerns of all subgroups of personnel so that no groups are overlooked.
- Sometimes sensitive questions are asked in order to improve personnel policies, programs, and practices.
Will my answers be kept private?
- Your response will be kept private to the extent permitted by law.
- If you answer any items in such a way that you indicate distress or being upset, you will not be contacted for follow-up purposes. However, if you indicate a direct threat to harm yourself or others within responses or communications about the survey, because of concern for your welfare, OPA may notify an office in your area for appropriate action.
- All data will be reported in the aggregate and no individual data will be reported.
- We encourage you to safeguard your Ticket Number to prevent unauthorized access to your survey. In addition, to ensure your privacy, be aware of the environment in which you take the survey (e.g., take the survey when no one else is home, take care to not leave the survey unattended).