NLM Fast Track Request

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0925-0648)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

User Satisfaction Assessment with MeSH and MeSH Indexing

PURPOSE:

The Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terminology is the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary thesaurus. It consists of sets of terms naming descriptors in a hierarchical structure that permits searching at various levels of specificity. The MeSH thesaurus is used within NLM primarily to provide subject indexing for articles in MEDLINE (which makes up the majority of the PubMed database) to aid retrieval of published literature.

The purpose of this project is to explore how MeSH indexing and the MeSH vocabulary are being used in informatics and computational research for purposes like constructing derived databases, data mining, and hypothesis generation. These types of uses are likely growing, and we are interested in how to improve our services to this user group, as well as understanding the size and importance of the audience for these kinds of works.

Interviews of researchers will yield detailed information on the uses of MeSH and MeSH indexing as well as advantages and disadvantages of its use in these research scenarios. This information will allow us to improve user services.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The respondents will be researchers who utilize MeSH and/or MeSH indexing for computational research. We seek to represent both academic and commercial researchers.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[ ] Focus Group [X] Other: Interview

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other Federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: Kate Masterton

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X] No

2. If Yes, will any information that is collected be included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? N/A

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published? N/A

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [X] No

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Private Sector X Not-for-profit institutions X Business or other for-profits	80	30/60	40
Totals			40 hrs.

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is:

Interview facilitator time at $25/hour multiplied by 40 hours = $1000.00

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ ] Yes [X] No

Respondents will be identified by the following mechanisms:

1. Speaking with intramural researchers (primarily at the NLM Lister Hill Center and National Center for Biotechnology Information) and requesting names of additional researchers they may be acquainted with.

2. Searching for literature published by researchers who have utilized MeSH and/or MeSH indexing for use in projects within the past 10 years. Once publications of interest are identified, the corresponding authors will be contacted for interview.

3. Some respondents may be identified from the MeSH download registration form, or other NLM download registration forms (MEDLINE, UMLS, etc.) if necessary

4. In addition, we anticipate that many researchers will be identified by word of mouth during our interviews. Therefore, we plan to add respondents to the list as the project progresses.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[X] Other, Explain

Skype (preferred method if in-person is not an option), Adobe Connect

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X] Yes [ ] No

Additional Documents:

Attachment 1: NLM Email Invitation

Attachment 2: NLM Email with Instructions

Attachment 3: NLM Survey Instrument (Interview questions)

Primary Contact:

Kate Masterton

Associate Fellow

National Library of Medicine

8600 Rockville Pike

Building 38, Cubicle 2N-05-E

Bethesda, MD 20894

Phone: (301) 496-4943

Email: katherine.masterton@nih.gov

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