MEMORANDUM
Date: March 22, 2011
To: Shellie Wilkie Martinez, Desk Officer
Office of Management and Budget
From: Lynda T. Carlson, Director
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
Via: Suzanne Plimpton, Clearance Officer
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Subject: Notification of data collection under generic clearance
The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of NSF’s plan to collect data user requirements under the generic clearance for survey improvement projects (OMB #3145-0174). This activity is associated with the redesign of the NSF SESTAT Data Tool.
The SESTAT Data Tool (https://sestat.nsf.gov/sestat/sestat.html) is a primary feature of the Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT). SESTAT is an integrated data collection effort providing information about employment, educational, and demographic characteristics of scientists and engineers in the United States. The data come from three national surveys of this population: the National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG), the National Survey of Recent College Graduates (NSRCG), and the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR). These surveys are generally conducted biennially, with 1993 being the first data year. The SESTAT Data Tool allows users to access SESTAT survey data via a browser-based online interface. Users can define their own tables and have the ability to access extensive documentation about each of the SESTAT surveys and for each survey variable (survey metadata).
As part of NSF’s SESTAT Data Tool redesign effort, NSF is evaluating current usage and future needs of data users. This clearance request is directed at collecting requirements from non-NSF and non-Federal users of the SESTAT Data Tool.
The user requirements survey will be sent to a sample of external users via email. A copy of the survey form is attached. The form includes a brief explanation of the survey’s purpose and eight questions concerning the user’s SESTAT Data Tool usage requirements.
We plan to collect up to 20 completed surveys. The sample for this external user survey consists of the 100 data users who had most recently downloaded one or more SESTAT survey data files as of January 31, 2011. These users voluntarily provided their email address when completing the SESTAT Public Use Data File Download Request Form. We do not know how many of these users accessed the SESTAT Data Tool in addition to downloading a data file. We are estimating a survey response rate of 20 percent. The results of this small, qualitative sample will be used to collect ideas for the future direction of changes.
We expect the 20 respondents to need an average of approximately 15 minutes to complete the survey form. Of the anticipated 80 non-respondents, we expect 40 will delete the email request without reading it and 40 will read the email and choose not to respond. We expect that those non-respondents reading the email will need approximately three minutes to do so. Therefore, we estimate a total of 7 hours of respondent burden:
(20 people * 15 minutes) + (40 people * 3 minutes) = 7 hours.
There are no incentive payments.
The contact person for questions regarding this data collection is:
R. Keith Wilkinson
Senior Analyst
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
National Science Foundation
703-292-7801
Attachments
cc: Fran Featherston
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Title | MEMORANDUM |
| Author | LCHRISTO |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-31 |