supporting statement

OMB Control #0693-0033

Expiration Date: 09/30/2025

NIST Generic Clearance for Program Evaluation Data Collections

INSERT THE TITLE OF YOUR COLLECTION

NIST MML Institutional Knowledge Transfer (IKT) Program Survey

FOUR STANDARD SURVEY QUESTIONS

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

As part of NIST’s Material Measurement Laboratory’s continuing efforts to strengthen a sense of belonging in the workplace, the Material Measurement Laboratory (MML) leadership want to invest in leveling the playing field of institutional information for MML staff.

The Institutional Knowledge Transfer (IKT) Program was created to give staff access to essential knowledge to be successful in MML. The program needs input from staff to prioritize content topics centered around institutional knowledge and accommodate a variety of learning styles.

The IKT Program Manager will conduct a survey of MML Staff to capture their preferences regarding a variety of institutional topics of interest and communication methods to share knowledge.

This clearance is sought to appropriately cover PRA implications of surveying non-federal employees, which account for about a quarter of the entire MML workforce and are critical contributors to achieving MML goals needed to deliver the NIST mission.

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

The survey was prepared by the Material Measurement Laboratory) MML Deputy Director and the IKT Program Manager, both members of the MML Lab Office. The survey questions are the result of feedback received from staff over the past few months in response to the IKT Program’s introductory overview given to MML staff in August 2023.

The survey went through several iterations and reviews during the design and testing stage. In one of the reviews, for example, we noticed that one important communication style was not reflected in the questions (recorded videos) and two of the questions reflected communication styles that were redundant (sharing knowledge in groups with people of similar tenure and sharing knowledge in groups with people of different tenures).

In the revised version of the survey, we merged the redundant communication styles and added the missing communication style, recorded videos. The revised version of the survey is now easier to follow and looks much more complete and well thought out.

The survey was reviewed by some members of the MML Leadership Team. The IT Security Officer for MML was made aware that the survey is not collecting identifying information.

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.

The current MML workforce is approximately 832 staff, with 222 non-federal (as of FY23 Q3). The response rate is assumed to be 100%.

Burden, is therefore calculated to be:

222 respondents * 10 minutes / 60 = 37 burden hours

The survey will be conducted electronically using Google Forms and will be anonymous. The survey will not collect any identifying information. Information collected is not maintained in a Privacy Act System of Records, therefore SORNS and PIA do not apply.

The survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete and will be open for two weeks. A ‘coming soon” announcement will be sent a few weeks prior to the survey invitation email. An invitation email will be sent with the link on week 1. A reminder email will be sent on week 2. A final reminder will be sent the day before closing day.

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

No identifying information will be collected. No demographics being asked.

The only data to be collected are preferences over institutional topics, ranking of communication methods to share knowledge, and how many years the person has worked in the organization. Data collected under this survey will be used to prioritize efforts in the IKT Program.

The survey will include both “select all that apply” and “ranking” questions. Responses will be aggregated to determine the most popular institutional topics. For “select all that apply,” frequencies in response options will be used to select the top K services.

For ranking questions, response options with the most favorable responses will be used to select the top K services (Typically K = 5). As discussed in response to Q1, the top K topics will be used to prioritize content topics to further develop in the IKT program.