FellowshipReview Memo[1]

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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

Feb 16, 2012

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 aspect to CSR’s operations is the review of applications for research fellowships since this provides support to the next generation of biomedical researchers as they develop their careers. Recently, CSR has piloted a modified platform for Fellowship review which results in greater efficiency. The platform is being evaluated through collecting feedback from participating expert reviewers. CSR proposes to conduct an evaluation of the modified approach under OMB control number 0925-0474, with expiration date 10/31/2014.

Purposes and Uses of the Data Collection: The survey will assess satisfaction of reviewers with the various Fellowship platforms in deployment. It will also allow reviewers to identify key factors contributing to the level of satisfaction they experienced. The information collected from the survey will help refine and improve the quality of CSR’s review operations.

To reduce the burden on reviewers and to assure confidentiality, automated information technology will be used to collect and process data for this survey. Participants 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 extent 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
Randomly selected reviewers from CSR Fellowship Reviews Section Chair Training	100	1	10 minutes	17 hours (1000 min) / $0 cost