Justification for change

JUSTIFICATION FOR CHANGE

OMB Control No. 0648-0384

NOAA Coastal Ocean Program Grants Proposal Application Package

The RESTORE Science Program is updating their final report form to streamline some of the reporting sections, provide additional guidance for others, and to align with the program’s suite of performance metrics. The changes are similar to the changes made to the Program’s semi-annual progress report form, approved by OMB earlier this year. The information collected remains generally the same. The format and headings have changed but the report form remains about 2 pages in length.

The specific changes are as follows:

Section III

A question on data management was shifted from a stand-alone section (previously Section VII) to this section on ‘Approach’.

Section IV-V

The form was reordered and Section IV (previously ‘Findings’) is now the ‘Evaluation’ section (previously in Section VI). This new order allows the grantee to evaluate the extent to which the goals/objectives were met prior to discussing the actual findings/results of the project (which are now under Section V, ‘Outputs’). This reordering creates a more logical flow.

Sections V-VI

The former ‘Applications’ section (Section V) is now separated into 2 sections (V-VI) to mimic recent changes to the Semi-Annual Progress Report format. Each of these sections are now stand alone sections instead of grouped under the ‘Applications’ heading as bullets. ‘Outputs’ remains ‘Outputs’; ‘Management Outcomes I’ and ‘Management Outcomes II’ are combined and now referred to as ‘End Users’. Both sections were expanded to include more detailed instructions.

There is no change to burden.