Office of Communications and Public Liaison

NIH Generic OMB Clearance for Evaluation of NIH Website User Satisfaction
RENEWED UNTIL 07/31/2010 - with new reporting requirements

The National Institutes of Health has been authorized by OMB under OMB No. 0925-0486 to use rapid processing for certain kinds of web user satisfaction surveys. The OD Online Information Branch (OLIB) administers the program on behalf of the NIH Project Clearance Branch, OD, OER, OPERA.

Please direct any questions regarding OMB clearance for all other information collection requests to the NIH Project Clearance Branch, attention Marilyn Tuttleman, M.S. (301) 594-7949, or Ms. Mikia Currie, (301) 435-0941.

This expedited process takes 4-6 weeks from the time OLIB receives your request to the time it is cleared.

Please follow these steps when submitting your request to clear an online survey:

1. Design your Online Survey Instrument
   No need to program it just yet! OMB wants to review your survey questions in a Microsoft Word document. Be sure to include the Burden Disclosure statement at the beginning of the document, right under the title of your survey.
• Background FAQ - perspective on this OMB clearance and its relationship to usability testing
• Cleared Survey Instrument Archive - sample questions, approved by OMB


2. Calculate your target number of responses
   Ask your Web Manager to tell you how many unique users visit your Web site/page each month. Multiply by 20%, which is the response rate OMB assumes for customer satisfaction surveys.
   
   If you think the resulting number won't provide you with enough data, contact Mangala Manivannan to discuss additional strategies to bring in respondents.



3. Complete the Submission Form
• Submission Form - download to your desktop and fill it out using Microsoft Word
• Instructions (PDF - 24 KB) - should you need more information to complete the form (PDF format)


4. Send the Submission Form and the Survey Instrument to OLIB
   Submit your Survey Instrument along with the Submission Form in Microsoft Word format to manivannanm@mail.nih.gov. If all of the questions are OMB-compliant, OLIB will send your Survey Instrument to OMB. If not, OLIB will contact you with further guidance.



5. Build the Web tool for your Survey
   Once your survey instrument has been cleared, OLIB will give you a unique OMB number to place on the first page of your online form, along with the expiration date of the clearance (07/31/2010). This identification number may not be used on any other online form.
• Section 508 (PDF - 2.37 MB) - make sure your Survey is universally accessible
• Formatting - using branching or skip logic to reduce burden on respondents
• Usability (PDF - 14.7 MB) - guidelines for designing user-friendly Web forms
• SurveySuite Tool - from the Office of Management Assessment, a program that allows you develop custom online surveys from your desktop


6. Launch the Survey on your Web site
   Once you have launched the survey on your Web site, be sure to keep close track of the number of responses you receive so that you can remove the survey once the target number of respondents has been reached. Incomplete responses count.



7. Send a copy of the results report to OLIB
   Whether it's a PowerPoint slide show, a 200-page Microsoft Word report, or an Excel spreadsheet of raw data, OMB requires that you send your results report to manivannanm@mail.nih.gov. OLIB will not share your results with anyone else without your permission.



8. Document the changes you make to your Web site
   With the renewal of this clearance, OMB requires that you document any changes you make to your Web site based on the online survey results. Be sure to review your results report and specifically address suggestions for improvements from site visitors, documenting whether or not it was appropriate to incorporate the suggestions into the Web site, and why. A brief narrative in Microsoft Word will suffice.



9. Send this Web site change report to OLIB
   Please send the document describing the Web site changes to manivannanm@mail.nih.gov. OLIB will not share your results with anyone else without your permission.
   
   Other useful information:
• OPERA Project Clearance Branch Web site - the NIH control point for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearance functions
• Paperwork Reduction Act - background information from DHHS' Office of Information Resources Management (OIRM) Web site
• Evaluation Set-Aside Funding available for online surveys