[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 33 (Friday, February 17, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10386-10388]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-03352]


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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION


Notice of Intent To Renew a Current Information Collection

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

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 April 18, 
2023 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: Suzanne H. Plimpton, 
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation, 2415 Eisenhower 
Avenue, Suite E7400, Alexandria, Virginia 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).

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: August 31, 2023.
    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 2023, 2024, and 2025 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 expected frame for the 2023 GSS includes 709 institutions 
comprising 797 schools with 876 total 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 2023 and 2025 GSS survey cycles. In these years, there will be 
an additional 43 coordinators contacted to respond to GSS.
    The initial GSS data request is sent to a designated respondent, 
the School Coordinator, at each academic institution in the fall. The 
School Coordinators gather the data for all of the reporting units at 
the institution. Reporting units are comprised of the departments, 
programs, research centers, and health care facilities at each 
institution. 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 
of the reporting units. This method of data provision is called 
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). The School Coordinator also may 
upload partial data (e.g., student enrollment information) and delegate 
the provision of other data (e.g., financial support information) to 
the appropriate reporting units at their institution (unit 
respondents). Institutions that do not want to use EDI will be able to 
complete the survey through manual entry of data (i.e., typing the data 
for each response item on every unit) 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 93 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.

[[Page 10387]]

    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 2021, the GSS population consisted of 21,365 reporting units at 699 
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 reporting-unit respondents (URs) are asked to provide 
an estimate of how long it took them to complete the data collection. 
Coordinators at FFRDCs are also asked about the hours required complete 
the Web instrument. In the past three GSS cycles (2019-2021 data 
collections), the average burden per coordinator was 19.7 hours per 
cycle. 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 URs within the institution are used to collect and 
report data.
    To estimate burden for the next three GSS data collection survey 
cycles (2023, 2024, and 2025), 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 the size of the institution and burden estimates 
collected from the 2019-21 GSS survey cycles. Average burden is 
weighted by year and the proportion of institutions that utilize URs in 
reporting data to GSS.
    The use of URs has a large impact on GSS burden as it requires 
multiple individuals at the school to respond to the survey. To address 
the variance between schools that use URs and those that do not, UR 
burden was calculated and included with the coordinator's burden when 
applicable. This calculation is necessary because when a school 
utilizes URs, the coordinators' burden is minimal while the response 
burden falls to individual URs. Average UR burden was applied to all 
units at schools utilizing URs and was then added to the coordinator's 
burden.

                 Table 1--GSS 2019-2021 Total Burden by Institutional Reporting Size, Data Provision Method, and Unit Respondent Status
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                                                              Do not use URs                 Uses URs                       All coordinators
                                                       -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                          Year-                       Year-                       Year-
                   Institution type                        Average      weighted       Average      weighted       Average      weighted     Average per
                                                        coordinators     average    coordinators     average    coordinators     average    cycle burden
                                                          per year       burden       per year       burden       per year       burden        (hours)
                                                                         (hours)                     (hours)                     (hours)
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More than 15 units, EDI...............................           314          29.9            19         179.2           332          38.3        12,716
More than 15 units, Manual data entry.................            24          24.7             8         152.8            32          58.1         1,859
15 or fewer units, EDI................................           350           9.9             5          28.8           354          10.1         3,575
15 or fewer units, Manual data entry..................           149           7.4            14          22.1           164           8.7         1,427
                                                       -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Average Estimated Total...........................           836          17.4            46         110.2           882          22.2        19,603
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    The expected frame for the 2022 GSS includes 704 institutions 
comprising 792 schools with 871 total School Coordinators (some 
institutions utilize multiple School Coordinators based on how they are 
organized). To estimate the burden for the 2023-2025 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 876 coordinators in 
2023, 881 in 2024 and 886 in 2025. The estimated burden per respondent 
is approximately 22 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 
2023 and 2025, the estimated burden for those years will increase by 90 
hours from 43 FFRDCs (based on 100 percent response rate in 2021 survey 
with the average burden of 2.1 hours per FFRDC).

                 Table 2--GSS Estimated Response Burden
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                                       Respondents
             Category               (number of school     Total burden
                                      coordinators)         (hours)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total burden for 2023.............                919             19,442

[[Page 10388]]

 
    GSS institutions..............                876             19,352
    FFRDCs........................                 43                 90
Total burden for 2024.............                881             19,396
Total burden for 2025.............                929             19,529
    GSS institutions..............                886             19,439
    FFRDCs........................                 43                 90
Potential future methodological     .................              2,000
 studies (across all 3 survey
 cycles)..........................
                                   -------------------------------------
        Total estimated burden....              2,729             60,367
                                   -------------------------------------
        Estimated average annual                  910             20,123
         burden...................
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    The total estimated respondent burden of the GSS, including 2,000 
hours for potential methodological studies to improve the survey 
procedures, will be 60,367 hours over the three-cycle survey clearance 
period. NCSES may review and revise this burden estimate based on 
completion time data collected during the 2022 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: February 13, 2023.
Suzanne H. Plimpton,
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation.
[FR Doc. 2023-03352 Filed 2-16-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7555-01-P