[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 169 (Tuesday, September 2, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51948-51950]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-20661]



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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

 Census Bureau


Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; 2015 Optimizing 
Self-Response and Census Tests

AGENCY: U.S. Census Bureau.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort 
to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public 
and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on 
proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13 (44 U.S.C. 
3506(c)(2)(A)).

DATES: To ensure consideration, written comments must be submitted on 
or before November 3, 2014.

ADDRESSES: Direct all written comments to Jennifer Jessup, Departmental 
Paperwork Clearance Officer, Department of Commerce, Room 6616, 14th 
and Constitution Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet 
at [email protected]).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
copies of the information collection instrument(s) and instructions 
should be directed to Erin Love, Census Bureau, HQ-3H468E, Washington, 
DC 20233; (301) 763-2034 (or via email at [email protected]).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Abstract

    During the years preceding the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau will 
pursue its commitment to reduce the costs of conducting a decennial 
census, while maintaining our commitment to quality. A primary 
decennial census cost driver is the collection of data from members of 
the public for which the Census Bureau received no reply via initially 
offered response options. Improving our methods for increasing the 
number of people who take advantage of self-response options will help 
increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Census operations. 
Additionally, improving our methods for enumerating people who do not 
initially respond can contribute to a less costly census while 
maintaining high-quality results.
    In order to help achieve these two improvements, the Census Bureau 
will conduct two tests in early 2015: The 2015 Optimizing Self-Response 
(OSR) Test, and the 2015 Census Test. The 2015 OSR Test will allow the 
Census Bureau to, on a small scale, employ a variety of new methods and 
advanced technologies that are under consideration for the 2020 Census. 
In particular, for the 2020 Census the Census Bureau plans to allow 
response via the Internet. We studied this during the 2014 Census Test, 
but as described below, we want to study other aspects of this further 
in the 2015 OSR Test. Also as described below, the 2015 Census Test 
will be used to study use of automation and available real-time data to 
transform the efficiency and effectiveness of field data collection 
operations.
    2015 OSR Test--To improve Internet self-response, the Census Bureau 
plans to continue testing multiple contact and notification strategies. 
For example, the 2015 OSR Test will include a ``Notify Me'' campaign, 
which allows respondents to pre-register their email address and cell 
phone number and provide their preference for future contacts, by email 
or text message. The Test will also include a communications component 
to increase awareness and encourage on-line participation by potential 
respondents. These outreach efforts will include some methods not 
previously employed for a decennial census, such as targeted digital 
marketing for demographic groups that we know to be hard-to-reach from 
past censuses and surveys. We will use our planning database to 
identify hard-to-count groups at the block or tract level and place ads 
with targeted messaging on digital sites frequented by these groups.
    The 2015 OSR Test will also continue Census Bureau efforts to 
increase self-response via the Internet and make it easier for 
respondents by allowing them to respond without providing a pre-
assigned User identification (ID) number associated with their address. 
Building on the work from the 2014 Census Test, we will test our 
ability to do real-time processing of responses lacking a pre-assigned 
User ID. Thus, for this test, while respondents are completing their 
census form online, we will attempt to search for their address in our 
Master Address File (MAF) to determine if it matches an existing MAF 
record or could be added as a new address. If the initial attempt to 
match is unsuccessful, and we are able to determine if further 
respondent input could assist us, the internet response instrument will 
prompt the respondent accordingly. In any case where a match cannot be 
derived, an automated process will attempt to assign the respondent 
address to a census block, and then the respondent will be asked to 
confirm or correct that location via a map interface integrated with 
the Census questionnaire. Ultimately, each response that lacks 
preassigned ID will either be matched to an address in the MAF or 
assigned to a census block. Matching a respondent's provided address 
information to our MAF permits the removal of the address from the non-
response universe, thereby reducing the non-response follow-up effort 
required. This has the potential to produce significant cost savings.
    2015 Census Test--In the decennial census, no matter how many 
response options we provide, and no matter how much we encourage self 
response, there will be households that do not respond, and there will 
be vacant units to which a form is delivered. Therefore, there will be 
a need for personal visit followup visits to addresses. In the 2015 
Census Test, we will study strategies to most effectively and 
efficiently collect information from those households. In the 2015 
Census Test, we will be testing an enhanced operational control system 
that will optimize the case assignments and routes for the enumerators. 
The use of this automation will also test a new structure for managing 
the work and the field staff. We will examine the effect on cost and 
data quality of reducing the total number of contacts made to a 
household during the Nonresponse Follow-up (NRFU) operation, as well as 
adapting the number and type of contacts made to a household based on 
information we already have about that household from administrative 
records. Administrative records can include information from federal, 
state or third-party sources. Examples of administrative records 
include Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Individual Income returns, 
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Enrollment 
information, and information from the United States Postal Service 
(USPS) Undeliverable as addressed (UAA) file. This Test will help us 
determine to what extent using administrative records information to 
remove non-responding cases from the field workload can reduce the 
costs associated with NRFU operations.
    The 2015 Census Test will also include an Evaluation Follow-up 
interview for a subset of households to help reconcile and understand 
differences observed between the administrative records and the NRFU 
interview results from self-responses and proxy respondents. 
Additionally, the Test will use focus groups to analyze reactions to 
the contact method and administrative record use, as well as any 
privacy or confidentiality concerns.

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II. Method of Collection

    The 2015 Optimizing Self-Response Test--The Census Bureau will 
conduct this Test in a location that offers a medium-sized media market 
for advertising and outreach that also provides diversity in 
demographics, address types, and internet penetration and usage. To the 
extent practicable, the selected market should be self-contained to 
limit bleed-over of advertising efforts into neighboring markets. The 
site will provide a community to engage ``together'' about the Census 
test with outreach, promotion, advertising, and the contribution of 
social media to create the civic spirit to participate in the Test. The 
Test is comprised of four parts, namely Communication, ``Notify Me,'' 
Enumeration, and follow-up via Focus Groups.
    Communication--The Census Bureau wants to learn about expanding the 
use of a variety of communication strategies and methods aimed at 
increasing the use of self-response options in a decennial census. In 
the 2015 OSR Test, these strategies could include outreach, promotion, 
advertising, partnerships, social media, email, and postal contacts. In 
addition to traditional advertising strategies (e.g., television and 
newspaper advertisements), this test will also use targeted digital 
(e.g., cable companies directing specific ads by address) and online 
advertising.
    ``Notify Me''--By deploying a variety of awareness, advertising, 
direct contact, and partnership strategies, this test hopes to reach 
and engage respondents to ``pre-register'' for the census test. This 
provides an opportunity for respondents to have early engagement in the 
census process and to select their preferred mode for future 
invitations and reminders (i.e, how to ``Notify Me'' when it is time to 
complete the census form--email or text message). The ability to engage 
respondents to pre-register is an important objective of the Test to 
continue research in optimizing the respondents' use of the Internet as 
a self-response mode.
    Enumeration--The 2015 OSR Test will collect Internet self-response 
enumeration data from both a set of households contacted directly as 
well as respondents within the Test site who become aware of the Test 
only via outreach, promotion, and advertising. The Census Bureau will 
directly contact up to 300,000 housing units to notify them of the 
survey. A subsample of these notifications will provide a User ID, and 
the remaining sample will not. Additionally, respondents who become 
aware of the Test, but have not been directly contacted, can self-
respond via the Internet without the need for a User ID. The two sets 
of non-ID respondents will allow us to further test our non-ID 
processing methodology, which compares responses without a pre-assigned 
ID to our Census address and geographic database. In the 2015 OSR Test, 
we will also test our ability to conduct real-time non-ID processing so 
that we are able to prompt a respondent (while they are still on line 
filling out the form) for additional address and location information 
if the respondent's address cannot be matched or geocoded. A non-ID 
respondent whose address cannot be matched to our address database will 
be prompted during his or her Internet self-response session to confirm 
the address information they provided while filling out the form, or to 
indicate the location of their address on an on-screen map, and no 
subsequent contact will occur. Additionally, we plan to test a 
mechanism for validating all non-ID respondents. We will also be 
testing optimal strategies for delivering mail materials, including 
paper questionnaires, to households who do not or cannot respond 
online.
    Focus Groups--The OSR test will also be used to obtain some 
qualitative data from respondents and non-respondents regarding the 
pre-registration strategy. This will be collected via eight focus 
groups, comprised of various categories of respondents and non-
respondents. Through the focus groups, we will ask about perspectives 
on burden; whether they thought that pre-registration was the actual 
participation or response to the Census Test; and whether they have 
preference to wait for Census Day without registering a contact 
preference. We also want to learn about respondent opinions and 
perspectives on broader objectives for the OSR testing, so we will try 
to ascertain and discuss the outreach, promotion, media/mode or method 
that informed the respondent about the pre-registration option, and/or 
the Census Test. We will also ask if the ability to respond without 
having to provide a preassigned User ID made the respondent more likely 
to participate.
    The 2015 Census Test--The Census Bureau will conduct this test in 
one county or two contiguous counties (location to be determined). We 
expect the location will have a combined population over one million 
people and we want to have an area with high concentrations of Hispanic 
population, vacant housing units and mobile populations. This will 
allow us to study the impacts of the usage of administrative records on 
the Hispanic population, vacant housing units and areas with more 
mobile populations. We will select approximately 170,000 housing units 
to be contacted, including an initial self-response phase that is 
followed by a NRFU phase of no more than 80,000 non-responding housing 
units.
    For the self-response phase, households within the test site will 
receive an initial invitation to go to the 2015 Census Test Web site 
and complete their census response online. For households that have not 
responded within an allotted time period, the Census Bureau will 
attempt to contact them additional times, which will include postcard 
reminders and a final reminder along with a paper questionnaire that 
they can complete and return by mail.
    If a household ultimately does not respond by a certain date, it 
will be included in the universe for the NRFU portion of the test. 
There are two new NRFU strategies (described below) being tested in the 
2015 Census Test. In addition, the test will include, as a control 
group, a strategy similar to the 2010 Census field procedures from 
which to compare results.
    First, the Adaptive Design strategy will test a method of managing 
data collection more efficiently by adapting contact attempt strategies 
on a per case basis. For example, using alternative modes of contact, 
variable number of visits to households, and modeling the best day and 
time to contact a household. Second, the Administrative Records 
strategy will remove cases from the NRFU workloads at various stages of 
fieldwork in an effort to reduce costs associated with visiting non-
responding households. In some areas, administrative records 
information will be used as the response for households (both 
unoccupied and occupied) before we make any visits to those households. 
In other areas, administrative records information will be used to 
enumerate only unoccupied units before we make any visits to those 
units. In these areas, we will conduct one in-person visit to the 
remaining households to enumerate the people in that household. If we 
are unsuccessful at contacting anyone in the household when we visit, 
administrative record information will be used to enumerate any 
occupied households remaining. For those households where 
administrative records are not available, we will continue to contact 
them based on the adaptive design strategies discussed above.
    As part of the administrative records research, this Test will also 
include an Evaluation Follow-up interview to help reconcile and 
understand differences

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observed between the administrative records and the NRFU interview 
results from self-responses and responses we receive from neighbors or 
others who are knowledge about the households (referred to as proxy 
responses). We will attempt to conduct an interview with a sample of 
approximately 10,000 cases from various groups (one example comparison 
will be between cases that self-responded and cases that administrative 
records identified as vacant) to provide additional data points for 
which to analyze the effectiveness of using administrative records in 
NRFU.
    The Census Bureau will conduct NRFU with a combination of 
enumerator-owned and government-owned, commercially provided mobile 
devices. The use of employee owned equipment/services is commonly 
referred to as ``Bring Your Own Device'' or BYOD. A sample of up to 
5,000 households will be contacted at the end of the field operation 
using this methodology. The objectives of this component of the test 
are to:
     Design and develop software solutions, deployment, and 
support processes that run on commercially available employee owned 
mobile devices (i.e., iPhone, Android);
     Deploy and support secure software solutions that can be 
installed on commercially available employee owned mobile devices;
     Conduct interviews of respondents using employee owned 
mobile devices; and
     Capture lessons learned for future operations.
    It is important to note that the Census data collection 
application, known as COMPASS, collects, stores, and securely transmits 
data for smart phones used by Census enumerators. This application 
requires a series of security measures to be met in order for the 
enumerators to collect, store, access, and transmit sensitive 
information.
    Focus groups will be conducted in the geographic site of the test. 
Respondents will be recruited into groups with regard to their 
treatment and demographic characteristics (e.g., age, education). For 
example, respondents could be recruited into one of the groups of 8-12 
participants by age and education as well as whether they were NRFU 
respondents or non-respondents. Focus groups would explore reactions to 
the contact method, administrative record use, any privacy or 
confidentiality concerns and how the Census Bureau might address these 
concerns through micro- or macro- messaging.

III. Data

    OMB Control Number: None.
    Form Number: Paper and electronic questionnaires with numbers as 
yet to be determined.
    Type of Review: Regular submission.
    Affected Public: Individuals or households.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 2015 OSR Test: ``Notify Me''--
100,000. Enumeration--305,000. Focus Groups--80. 2015 Census Test: 
Enumeration--220,000. Evaluation Follow-up--10,000. Focus Groups--80.
    Estimated Time per Response: 2015 OSR Test: ``Notify Me''--4 
minutes per response. Enumeration--12 minutes per response. Focus 
Groups--2 hours per respondent. 2015 Census Test: Enumeration--10 
minutes per response. Evaluation Follow-up--10 minutes per response. 
Focus Groups--2 hours per respondent.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 2015 OSR Test: ``Notify Me''--
6,667. Enumeration--61,000. Focus Groups--160. 2015 Census Test: 
Enumeration--36,667. Evaluation Follow-up--1,667. Focus Group--160.
    Estimated Total Annual Cost: For the 2015 OSR Test, respondents who 
are contacted by text message per their election, may incur charges 
depending on their plan with their service provider. The Census Bureau 
estimates that the total cost to respondents will be no more than 
$20,000. There are no other costs to respondents other than their time 
to participate in this data collection. For the 2015 Census Test, there 
is no cost to the respondent other than the time to complete the 
information request.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13, U.S.C. 141 and 193.

IV. Request for Comments

    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the agency, including whether the information shall have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden 
(including hours and cost) of the proposed collection of information; 
(c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the 
information to be collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the 
collection of information on respondents, including through the use of 
automated collection techniques or other forms of information 
technology.
    Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized 
and/or included in the request for OMB approval of this information 
collection; they also will become a matter of public record.

    Dated: August 26, 2014
Glenna Mickelson
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2014-20661 Filed 8-29-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P