Science.gov User Survey

Survey for OMB FastTrack Approval 7/18/12 OMB Control # 1910-5160

Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information for the Science.gov Alliance

Science.gov is a collaboration of 13 agencies within the federal government. The content in Science.gov is selected by the participating agencies. This online survey is provided for approximately 45 days, from August 2012 to October 2012, to gain a better understanding of Science.gov usage. Survey participation is strictly voluntary and personal identifiable information will not be collected. Completing the survey will take approximately 4 minutes.

Burden Disclosure Statement:

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 4 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.  Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Office of the Chief Information Officer, Records Management Division, IM-23, Paperwork Reduction Project (1910-5160), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC, 20585-1290; and to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), OIRA, Paperwork Reduction Project (1910-5160), Washington, DC  20503.

1. How did you find Science.gov (multiple choice)

• Search engine

• Library

• Link from another site

• Online or print publication/listing

• Social media

• Don’t recall, have known about it

2. Science.gov automatically relevancy ranks results. Does the relevancy ranking appear reasonable given your search, e.g. was the first result more relevant than the fifth or sixth?

• Yes

• No

• I do not know

3. When you are presented with search results do you prefer they be listed in?

• Relevancy ranked order

• Chronological order

• By information source

4. When you open a search result on Science.gov you are actually taken to the external agency site which hosts the information. After that do you most often :

• Stay at the external site and explore

• Return to Science.gov

5. On the search results page Science.gov provides a piece of information from Wikipedia about your query term. Do you find the Wikipedia information helpful?

• Yes

• Sometimes

• No

6. Did you encounter a spellchecker if your search term was misspelled? If so how did it compare to other spellcheckers?

• Better

• About equal

• Worse

• N/A

7. Science.gov has an Alerts feature. Select the best response regarding Science.gov Alerts:

• I currently subscribe to Science.gov Alerts

• I have tried to subscribe but was unsuccessful

• I have subscribed in the past

• I was unaware that Science.gov had an Alerts feature

8. What was your awareness of the approximately 50 databases searchable on Science.gov prior to using Science.gov? If you need a reference please see http://www.science.gov/searchdbs.html.

• I was not aware of any of them

• I was aware of only a handful of them

• I was probably aware of 10 – 25 of them

• I was aware of most of them

9. Select the role which best describes your use of Science.gov:

• Student/teacher

• Researcher/analyst

• Librarian

• Policy maker/legislator

• Personal use/parent/family

• Writer/media use

Thank you for your time!

The Science.gov Team