[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 66 (Monday, April 6, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19169-19171]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-07156]


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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION


Agency Information Collection Activities: Comment Request; Survey 
of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering

AGENCY: National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 
National Science Foundation.

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics 
(NCSES) within the National Science Foundation (NSF) is announcing 
plans to request renewal of the Survey of Graduate Students and 
Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (OMB Control Number 3145-
0062). In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995, NSF is providing opportunity for public comment on this 
action. After obtaining and considering public comments, NSF will 
prepare the submission requesting that OMB approve clearance of this 
collection for three years.

DATES: Written comments on this notice must be received by June 5, 2020 
to be assured of consideration. Comments received after that date will 
be considered to the extent practicable. Send comments to the address 
below.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR COMMENTS: Contact Suzanne H. Plimpton, 
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation, 2415 Eisenhower 
Avenue, Suite 18200, Alexandria, VA 22314; telephone (703) 292-7556; or 
send email to [email protected]. Individuals who use a 
telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) may call the Federal 
Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339, which is accessible 
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (including Federal 
holidays). You also may obtain a copy of the data collection instrument 
and instructions from Ms. Plimpton.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Title of Collection: Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates 
in Science and Engineering.
    OMB Control Number: 3145-0062.
    Expiration Date of Current Approval: October 31, 2020.
    Type of Request: Intent to seek approval to extend an information 
collection for three years.
    Abstract: Established within NSF by the America COMPETES 
Reauthorization Act of 2010 Sec.  505, codified in the National Science 
Foundation Act of 1950, as amended, the National Center for Science and 
Engineering Statistics (NCSES) serves as a central Federal 
clearinghouse for the collection, interpretation, analysis, and 
dissemination of objective data on science, engineering, technology, 
and research and development for use by practitioners, researchers, 
policymakers, and the public.
    The Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and 
Engineering (GSS), sponsored by the NCSES within NSF and the National 
Institutes of Health, is designed to comply with legislative mandates 
by providing information on the characteristics of academic graduate 
enrollments in science, engineering and health fields. The GSS, which 
originated in 1966 and has been conducted annually since 1972, is a 
census of all departments in science, engineering and health (SEH) 
fields within academic institutions with graduate programs in the 
United States. This request to extend the information collection for 
three years is to cover the 2020, 2021, and 2022 GSS survey cycles. The 
information collected by the GSS is solicited under the authority of 
the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended and the America 
COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. Data collection starts each fall 
in October and data are obtained primarily through a Web survey. All 
information will be used for statistical purposes only. Participation 
in the survey is voluntary.
    The total number of respondents surveyed in the 2020 survey cycle 
is estimated to be 911 School Coordinators. The GSS is the only 
national survey that collects information on the characteristics of 
graduate enrollment and postdoctoral appointees (postdocs) for specific 
SEH disciplines at the department level. It collects information on:
    (1) Master's and doctoral students' ethnicity and race, 
citizenship, gender, source and mechanism of financial support (e.g., 
fellowships, traineeships, assistantships) and enrollment status.
    (2) Postdocs' ethnicity and race, citizenship, gender, source and 
mechanism of financial support, type of doctoral degree, and degree 
origin (U.S. or foreign); and
    (3) Other doctorate-holding non-faculty researchers' gender and 
type of doctoral degree.
    To improve coverage of postdocs, the GSS periodically collects 
information on postdocs employed in Federally Funded Research and 
Development Centers (FFRDCs) by ethnicity and race, gender, 
citizenship, source and mechanism of financial support, and field of 
research. This survey of postdocs at FFRDCs will be conducted as part 
of the 2021 GSS survey cycle.
    The initial GSS data request is sent to the designated respondent 
(School Coordinator) at each academic institution in the fall. The 
School Coordinator may upload a file with the requested data on the GSS 
website, which will automatically aggregate the data and populate the 
cells of the Web survey instrument for each reporting unit 
(departments, programs, research centers, and health care facilities). 
This method of data provision is called Electronic Data Interchange 
(EDI). The School Coordinator will be also able to upload partial data 
(e.g., student enrollment information) and delegate the provision of 
other data (e.g., financial support information) to appropriate 
reporting units at their institution (unit respondents).

[[Page 19170]]

Institutions that do not want to use EDI will be able to complete the 
survey through manual entry of data in the Web survey instrument as in 
the past.
    Data are disseminated annually on the NCSES website https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvygradpostdoc in the form of 73 data tables, a 
3 to 5 page InfoBrief, and public use files (https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvygradpostdoc/pub_data.cfm). In addition, current and 
historical data are available via the NCSES Integrated Data Tool 
(https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/ids/?utm_source=Main&utm_medium=Main&utm_campaign=Main).The Data Tool 
combines GSS data with academic sector data from both NCSES and the 
National Center of Education Statistics and allows for custom querying.
    Use of the Information: The GSS data are routinely provided to 
Congress and other Federal agencies. The GSS institutions themselves 
are major users of the GSS data. Professional societies such as the 
American Association of Universities, the Association of American 
Medical Colleges, and the Carnegie Foundation are also major users. 
Graduate enrollment and postdoc data are often used in reports by the 
national media. With the help of the aforementioned NCSES Data Tool, 
NSF reviews changing enrollment levels to: Assess the effects of NSF 
initiatives, track graduate student support patterns, and analyze 
participation in science and engineering fields for targeted groups by 
discipline and for selected groups of institutions. GSS data are also 
used in two congressionally mandated NCSES publications: Women, 
Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering 
(https://ncses.nsf.gov/wmpd/) and the National Science Board's Science 
and Engineering Indicators (https://ncses.nsf.gov/indicators). In 
addition, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) publish GSS data 
annually in the NIH Data Book https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/.
    Expected Respondents: The GSS is an annual census of all eligible 
academic institutions in the U.S. with graduate programs in science, 
engineering and health fields. The response rate is calculated based on 
the number of reporting units (departments, programs, research centers, 
and health care facilities) that respond to the survey. For reference, 
in 2018, the GSS population was 19,592 units at 715 academic 
institutions. Based on recent cycles NCSES expects the annual response 
rate to be around 99 percent.
    Estimate of Burden: For each GSS survey cycle, both School 
Coordinators and unit respondents are asked to report how long it took 
them to complete the data collection. Coordinators at FFRDCs are also 
asked about the hours required complete the Web instrument immediately 
after they submit the data. In the past three GSS cycles (2016-2018 
data collections), the average burden per coordinator reported each 
cycle was 17.8 hours. However, burden varies considerably across 
respondents. The amount of time it takes to complete the GSS data 
depends to a large degree on the extent to which the school's records 
are centrally stored and computerized. It also depends on whether the 
institution uses manual data entry or EDI to provide the GSS data, the 
number of SEH reporting units that need to be reported by the 
institution, and the degree to which unit respondents within the 
institution are used to collect and report data.
    To estimate burden for the next three GSS data collection survey 
cycles (2020, 2021, and 2022), the GSS frame is split by response 
method (EDI or manual entry) and the number of reporting units reported 
by the institution (more than 15 units are large reporters and 15 or 
fewer units are small reporters). Table 1 presents burden estimates 
based on observed institution reporting size and burden reports 
collected from the 2018 GSS survey cycle.

                            Table 1--Composition and Reported Burden of the 2018 GSS
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                                                    Respondents     Percent of
                Institution type                   (# of school     all school        Average      Total  burden
                                                   coordinators)   coordinators   burden (hours)      (hours)
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More than 15 units, EDI.........................             318            35.3            37.7          11,989
More than 15 units, Manual data entry...........              42             4.7            41.2           1,730
15 or fewer units, EDI..........................             363            40.3             8.3           3,013
15 or fewer units, Manual data entry............             178            19.8             9.0           1,602
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Totals......................................             901           100.0            20.3          18,334
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    The frame for the 2019 GSS includes 720 institutions comprising 822 
schools with 906 total School Coordinators (some institutions utilize 
multiple School Coordinators based on how they are organized). To 
estimate the burden for the 2020-2022 GSS survey cycles, we assume a 
steady state in terms of the use of EDI but based on recent cycles we 
expect the number of School Coordinators to increase by five each 
cycle. New schools tend to have small numbers of eligible units and 
students, so the five coordinators are added to the small school manual 
data entry category. Thus, we expect to have 911 coordinators in 2020, 
916 in 2021 and 921 in 2022. The estimated burden per respondent is 
approximately 20 hours per School Coordinator; the exact number is 
based on the distributions shown in Table 1, adjusted for the 
additional coordinators. Given the historically high levels of 
participation, a 100 percent school response rate is used in these 
estimates. Since the FFRDC postdoc data collection will take place in 
2021, the estimated burden for that year will increase by 73 hours from 
43 FFRDCs (based on 100 percent response rate in 2017 survey with the 
average burden of 1.7 hours per FFRDC).

                 Table 2--GSS Estimated Response Burden
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                          Respondents (#
                Category                     of School     Total  burden
                                           Coordinators)      (hours)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total burden for 2020...................             911          18,424
Total burden for 2021...................             959          18,542
    GSS institutions....................             916          18,469

[[Page 19171]]

 
    FFRDCs..............................              43              73
Total burden for 2022...................             921          18,514
Potential future methodological studies   ..............           1,000
 (across all 3 survey cycles)...........
                                         -------------------------------
    Total estimated burden..............           2,791          56,480
                                         -------------------------------
Estimated average annual burden.........             930          18,827
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    The total estimated respondent burden of the GSS, including 1,000 
hours for potential methodological studies to improve the survey 
procedures, will be 56,480 hours over the three-cycle survey clearance 
period. NCSES may review and revise this burden estimate based on 
completion time data collected during the 2019 GSS survey cycle, which 
is ongoing.
    Comments: Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed 
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of 
the functions of NSF, including whether the information shall have 
practical utility; (b) the accuracy of NSF's estimate of the burden of 
the proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the 
quality, use, and clarity of the information on respondents, including 
through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of 
information technology; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the 
collection of information on those who are to respond, including 
through the use of appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical, or 
other technological collection techniques or other forms of information 
technology.

    Dated: April 1, 2020.
Suzanne H. Plimpton,
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation.
[FR Doc. 2020-07156 Filed 4-3-20; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 7555-01-P