ChairTrainingMemo rev

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES National Institutes of Health

Center for Scientific Review

Office of the Director

6701 Rockledge Dr., Rm. 3016

Bethesda, Maryland 20892-7776

Dec 19, 2011

To: Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Through: Reports Clearance Officer, DHHS

Project Clearance Chief, NIH

From: Dr. George Chacko, Director,

Office of Planning, Analysis and Evaluation

Center for Scientific Review (CSR)

Subject: Center for Scientific Review (CSR),

Study Section Chair Training Evaluation (OMB Control Number: 0925-0474)

Circumstances Requiring the Survey: The Center for Scientific Review (CSR) is the portal of the NIH peer review system. Its mission is to ensure NIH grant applications receive fair, independent, expert and timely scientific review. A critical element in achieving this kind of peer review is the choice of the study section Chair. Distinguished senior scientists nominated by CSR Scientific Review Officers (SROs) to serve as Study Section Chairs are committed to chair broad-based study sections to review over 50,000 grant applications submitted to CSR each year. To promote Study Section Chairs as effective leaders of Scientific Review Groups (SRGs) comprising more than 15,000 volunteer reviewers, and to assist them in achieving peer review of the highest quality and fairness, CSR has expended considerable effort in providing training to Chairs on pre- and post-meeting responsibilities as well as training that addresses meeting management skills prior to their services at CSR as Study Section Chairs. To better understand the effectiveness and quality of the Study Section Chair training, CSR proposes to conduct a formative evaluation of the chair training under the OMB control number 0925-0474, with expiration date 10/31/2014.

Purposes and Uses of the Data Collection: The survey will assess Study Section Chairs’ satisfaction with the training they received. It will also allow the Chairs to indicate the areas for improvement, as well as to make candid comments and constructive suggestions on the training. The information collected from the survey will help refine and improve the quality of future Chair training sessions.

To reduce the burden on the Chairs and to assure confidentiality, automated information technology will be used to collect and process data for this survey. Attendees of the Study Section Chair training will be provided a unique code and password to access and conduct a secure online survey on the training session they attended. Participation in the survey will be strictly voluntary and individual respondents will not be identified. CSR will not provide payment or other forms of remuneration to respondents in collecting feedback. Respondents will be assured that neither their participation/non-participation nor any responses in the survey will be linked to their identity and will have any effect on their services at CSR. All responses will be secure to the extend permitted by law.

Estimates of Burden Hours and Costs

Types of Respondents	Number of Respondents	Frequency of Responses per Respondent	Average Time per Response	Response Hour Burden
Attendees of CSR Study Section Chair Training	500	1	10 minutes	83.3 hours (5000 min) / $0 cost