Challenges in Cultivating EOSDIS User Survey Participation IN21B-1420

1. Challenges in Cultivating EOSDIS User Survey Participation IN21B-1420 Carol.L.Boquist@nasa.gov, Edwin.J.Sofinowski@nasa.gov (Columbus), Shannon Walter (Swalter@cfigroup.com), Jon Cioffi (Jcioffi@cfigroup.com), Lindsay Gould (Lgould@cfigroup.com) EOSDIS ACSI Individual DAAC Responses DAAC Diversity (FY2010 Metrics) Background - Since 2004 NASA has surveyed users of its Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). The surveys have been conducted by CFI Group under contract with the Federal Consulting Group, Executive Agent in government for the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) to comply with the Privacy Act and Paperwork Reduction Act. The purpose of these annual surveys is to help EOSDIS and its 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) assess current status and improve services. Analysis of each year's results has provided insight into the survey process. Ongoing Challenges - In addition to the rating questions for the ACSI and EOSDIS models, the survey includes demographic and experiential questions. The EOSDIS provides access to data from across the Earth science spectrum as well as socioeconomic data. Access ranges from immediate download to subscription with frequencies ranging from sub-daily to annual. Users are located across the globe and access data for applications, education, and personal use as well as research. Anonymous ftp yields alarge number of slight variations in e-mail addresses. The increasing ease of web access results in the data provider being transparent to many users. The DAACs are discipline specific contributing to a wide range in the number of responses per DAAC. And technology keeps changing – so access methods have changed! Ongoing Strategy - Working with the CFI Group, we have refined the invitation and questions to increase clarity and address the different ways diverse groups of users access EOSDIS services. Although specific questions have been added, modified, or deleted to reflect changes to the EOSDIS system and processes, the model rating questions have remained the same to ensure consistency for evaluating cross-year trends. We examine word choice and options to encourage users from diverse backgrounds to respond and we introduced more options for a user to skip over parts of the survey not relevant. The survey process is examined and redesigned in response to lessons learned (100%) (100%) Each year we improve terminology while maintaining core questions (100%) • Survey Reponses: • # included in Results • (% of Responses Used) (100%) (94.1%) In 2003 we started working with CFI Group to develop the EOSDIS model and our questions using a previous survey as a guide. (100%) (90.5%) (96.2%) Survey Period 2012 2011 2005 2004 2010 2007 2006 2009 2008 In 2009 the number of responses increased 42% and the rate of responses to the number of invitations received increased from 8.6% to 10.0%. Future Challenges The new EOSDIS web site with access to all 12 DAACs went live mid-2011. Will access be even more transparent to users? As Earthdata.nasa.gov web presence grows and access to data centers through Earthdata increases, will ratings for individual DAACs suffer? Will we need to include an extra survey rating the Earthdata web site? User registration is coming. Will we lose those users who don’t want to register? 8 DAACs Score: 75 9 DAACs Score: 78 9 DAACs Score: 74 9 DAACs Score: 75 12 DAACs Score: 77 12 DAACs Score: 77 12 DAACs Score: 77 12 DAACs Score: 77 We listed our DAACs and asked them to specify which DAAC they accessed, but 283 selected Other! We modified the survey to “suggest” to users which DAAC they accessed. Nope! Transparency Try again! We gave them their e-mail and corresponding DAAC center, but their answers were for other DAACs. We now list the DAAC name, acronym, parent organization, and related disciplines; we still get responses for a different DAAC than requested! Guidelines were to not include the NASA meatball , but we did include a NASA contact in e-mail invitation Privacy/Anonymity We removed the NASA contact. NASA HQ, "Is this spam?“ We now include a NASA contact in both the initial e-mail invitation and the reminder. We now include the NASA meatball . A number of our e-mail invitations ended up in a spam filter. A sys admin checked with us, then released them. From here on, CFI reduced the rate of invites sent to 500/hour - lengthening our time in the field. Spam Issues ORNL, the home of one of our data centers, flagged our invites as spam! Now every year the ORNL DAAC warns ORNL ahead of time. We add questions/options as more data and data products become available. We add options for data formats and access methods as indicated by users. We asked a separate question about the new data pools. Changing Technology As data pools became more common, "data pool" became an option in the search question. We analyzed the number of e-mail addresses associated with multiple DAACs. We arranged the send order by smallest to largest e-mail addresses, and asked them to consider filling out more than one survey. No one requested an additional survey. Diversity of DAACs, User Base, and Variety of Access Needs We introduced many more skip options. Ever since, 100% of the responses were used in the ACSI modeling.