RRC Conference Survey - Description

DOCUMENTATION FOR THE GENERIC CLEARANCE

OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEYS

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

Retirement Research Consortium (RRC) Annual Meeting Evaluation

SSA SUB-NUMBER: E-01

DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITY (give purpose of activity, provide specific information; i.e., date(s) of survey, number of focus groups, locations, etc.):

Background

The Retirement Research Consortium (RRC) consists of three multidisciplinary centers housed in three separate institutions (Boston College, the University of Michigan, and the National Bureau of Economic Research) and is funded through cooperative agreements with the Social Security Administration. SSA awarded approximately $7.5 million to the RRC in FY2009, when the current 5-year award was made. Funding is expected to continue at that level for each of the remaining years of the award.

RRC’s three main goals are to:

• Conduct research and evaluation on a wide array of topics related to Social Security and retirement policy,

• Disseminate information on Social Security and retirement issues relevant to policy makers, researchers, and the general public, and

• Train scholars and practitioners in research areas relevant to Social Security and retirement issues.

As a cooperative agreement, the centers should be providing a public benefit by providing research to policy makers, other researchers, the general public, etc. The annual conference is a dissemination activity, and persons attending the annual conference represent a portion of the RRC’s overall audience. Feedback would be useful for planning future conferences and provide input for future research priorities. In a recent audit of the University of Michigan RRC, SSA’s OIG tasked the program office with gathering additional evidence of the public benefit of the RRCs; this survey would be responsive to that finding.

Survey Details

Who will conduct the survey? The center responsible for coordinating the annual conference will conduct the survey; in 2010, the University of Michigan’s RRC will conduct the survey.

Where will we conduct the survey? The survey will be made available at the conference location (in 2010, the National Press Club).

Where will we conduct the survey? The survey will be made available during the conference August 5 and 6, 2010.

Who will we select to be participants? Conference attendees will be asked to respond to the survey. Conference registration opened in early June 2010; the conference is open to the public.

How will we conduct the survey? A survey sheet will be provided with conference materials and a box available for completed surveys to be returned.

What questions will we ask? Please see the attached instrument for exact questions, but broadly speaking, we wish to know

• What segment of our audience do you represent (government, academic, private sector, press, private citizen)? How did you learn about the conference, and do you already receive notice of research being conducted at the centers (with the opportunity to sign up for such notices)?

• How clear and relevant are the presentations, and did the conference meet your expectations?

• Do you have any suggestions?

Sharing Results of the Study

Results of the study will be used within SSA for the administration of the RRC cooperative agreement. A report generated from survey results consisting of aggregated response distributions and comments/suggestions will be shared with the center staff at the Boston College Center for Retirement Research, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s RRC, and the University of Michigan’s RRC for customer feedback to be taken into account for future conferences. E-mail addresses will be shared with each center only for persons requesting to be added to that center’s mailing list.

IF FOCUS GROUP MEMBERS WILL RECEIVE A PAYMENT, INDICATE AMOUNT:

Respondents will not be paid for their participation.

USE OF SURVEY RESULTS:

Survey results will be used to evaluate:

• effectiveness of conference materials

• suitability of time, date, and location

• appropriateness of conference format, including the number of panels, speakers, discussants, and length

• relevance of topics

• interaction between centers and the public

Survey results will also be used to further dissemination efforts by enabling sign-up for mailing lists.

BURDEN HOUR COMPUTATION (Number of responses (X) estimated response time

(/60) = annual burden hours):

Number of Responses: 400

Estimated Response Time: 15 minutes

Annual Burden hours: 100 hours

The annual conference is held each year in August; we estimate that for attendance of 400 (the maximum) each year, the annual burden would be 100 hours.

NAME OF CONTACT PERSON:

Faye I. Lipsky

410-965-8783

MAJOR OFFICE, OFFICE, DIVISION, BRANCH:

DCBFM/OPLM

Tab B-2 – GC Documentation Template