[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 130 (Thursday, July 8, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 39214-39215]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-16655]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Notice of Proposed Information Collection Requests
AGENCY: Department of Education.
SUMMARY: The Director, Information Collection Clearance Division,
Regulatory Information Management Services, Office of Management,
invites comments on the proposed information collection requests as
required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.
DATES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before
September 7, 2010.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 3506 of the Paperwork Reduction Act
of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35) requires that the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) provide interested Federal agencies and the public an
early opportunity to comment on information collection requests. OMB
may amend or waive the requirement for public consultation to the
extent that public participation in the approval process would defeat
the purpose of the information collection, violate State or Federal
law, or substantially interfere with any agency's ability to perform
its statutory obligations. The Director, Information Collection
Clearance Division, Regulatory Information Management Services, Office
of Management, publishes that notice containing proposed information
collection requests prior to submission of these requests to OMB. Each
proposed information collection, grouped by office, contains the
following: (1) Type of review requested, e.g. new, revision, extension,
existing or reinstatement; (2) Title; (3) Summary of the collection;
(4) Description of the need for, and proposed use of, the information;
(5) Respondents and frequency of collection; and (6) Reporting and/or
Recordkeeping burden. OMB invites public comment.
The Department of Education is especially interested in public
comment addressing the following issues: (1) Is this collection
necessary to the proper functions of the Department; (2) will this
information be processed and used in a timely manner; (3) is the
estimate of burden accurate; (4) how might the Department enhance the
quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and
(5) how might the Department minimize the burden of this collection on
the respondents, including through the use of information technology.
Dated: July 2, 2010.
Darrin A. King,
Director, Information Collection Clearance Division, Regulatory
Information Management Services, Office of Management.
Office of Postsecondary Education.
Type of Review: Reinstatement.
Title: Annual Performance Reports for Title III and Title V
Programs.
OMB #: 1840-0766.
Agency Form Number(s): N/A.
Frequency: Annually.
Affected Public: Not-for-profit institutions.
Reporting and Recordkeeping Hour Burden:
Responses: 891.
Burden Hours: 17,460.
Abstract: Titles III and V programs authorized by the Higher
Education Act of 1965 (HEA), as amended, provide discretionary and
formula grants to approximately 40 percent of eligible institutions of
higher education and organizations (MSEIP-Title III, E only) to support
improvements in educational quality, institutional management and
fiscal stability. The office of Institutional Development and
Undergraduate Education Services (IDUES) is authorized to award one
year planning grants and five-year development grants and collect key
data, analyze, report, and evaluate grantee and Program performance and
outcomes. Grantees submit a yearly performance report to demonstrate
that substantial progress is being made towards meeting the objectives
of their project and first year grantees submit an interim (six month)
report as well. This request continues the use of a web-based
performance report to more effectively elicit program-specific
information to be used for program monitoring, data analysis, and
Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) reporting purposes. The
Annual Performance Report (APR) continues to be the cornerstone of the
Information Management Performance System (IMPS) tailored to strengthen
the Department of Education's program monitoring efforts, streamline
our processes, and enhance our customer service to the end of meeting
legislative, regulatory, and directive requirements.
The colleges and communities served by Titles III and V of the HEA
include: Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU);
Historically Black Graduate Institutions (HBGI); Hispanic-Serving
Institutions (HSI); American Indian Tribally Controlled Colleges and
Universities (TCCU); Alaska Native-Serving Institutions; Native
Hawaiian-Serving Institutions; Asian American and Native American
Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISI); Native American-
Serving Nontribal Institutions (NASNTI); and other institutions that
serve a significant number of minority and financially disadvantaged
students and have low average and general expenditures per student.
There are major forces continuing to drive the APR: (1) The need to
improve the quality and effectiveness of our program monitoring
efforts; (2) the need to provide more reliable and valid data for the
Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA); (3) the need to evaluate
grantee and Program effectiveness; and (4) capacity building efforts
toward a Title III and Title V community of practice. The Office of
Inspector General (IG) has identified repeatedly the aforementioned
needs as areas that IDUES should resolve. For the past seven years,
IDUES has been focused on addressing these areas and has designed this
APR as the data collection tool of the Information Management
Performance System platform.
The APR supports IDUES IMPS as the database tool of our monitoring
oversight, analysis, evaluation, trend and profile reporting of grant
and program life cycle performance. According the IG audit ED-OIG/A04-
90013 (``Office of Higher Education Programs Needs to Improve its
Oversight of Parts A and B of the Title III Program''), ``[Higher
Education Programs] needs a systematic approach to effectively and
efficiently monitor Title III grantees for compliance and program
performance.'' With this methodical approach to program monitoring,
IDUES is significantly reducing the risk of grantees using federal
funds inappropriately and better ensuring that grant objectives are
being met. In our most recent collection grantees indicated that only
one percent of grantees requested a change to scheduled objectives and
57 percent of grantee objectives were on schedule of
[[Page 39215]]
the more than 9,000 objectives identified. Prior to the development and
implementation of the APR electronic collection we were not able to
present data that indicated success or failure of the programs
individually or collectively without laboring through hundreds of hard
copy reports.
In addition to improving our program oversight, the IG has found
that the current Title III and Title V performance indicators for GPRA
were developed with minimal consultation with the grantee communities,
and minimal involvement from IDUES staff. In the Audit Report ED-OIG/
A04-90014 (``Review of Title III Program, HEA, Compliance with GPRA
Requirements for Implementation of Performance Indicators''), the IG
recommends that we create a more reliable system for collecting and
aggregating the data needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the
Title III and Title V programs. Clearly, the APR should play a central
role in collecting the GPRA data that we are required to report to
Congress. With this in mind, the APR was designed to collect data in a
manner that is flexible, reliable, valid and pertinent to program
objectives and Program performance measures. Furthermore the resulting
profile and trend reports from the APR are facilitating dialogues with
the grantee community on performance indicators and individual program
success.
In conjunction with the IG's findings and in accordance with
Actions (4)(a)(1) & (4)(a)(2) of the Corrective Action Plan (CAN
04-6001) issued by IDUES, we are continuing use of an Annual
Performance Report that substantially improves our efforts to meet the
aforementioned objectives. Yet it is clear that a single, annual report
would be insufficient for satisfying the multiple and varied demands
that are required for program monitoring and GPRA reporting. Therefore
the APR is being submitted for OMB approval as IDUES' cornerstone of an
Information Management Performance System that employs various tools to
comprehensively analyze, evaluate, report Program trends and community
practice, and monitor our grantees and Program success. Catalog of
Federal Domestic Assistance program numbers are being added for
84.031C, 84.031L, 84.382B, 84.031M, and 84.031X. Current questions for
CFDA 84.031B and 84.031S are edited for clarity.
Requests for copies of the proposed information collection request
may be accessed from http://edicsweb.ed.gov, by selecting the ``Browse
Pending Collections'' link and by clicking on link number 4348. When
you access the information collection, click on ``Download
Attachments'' to view. Written requests for information should be
addressed to U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW.,
LBJ, Washington, DC 20202-4537. Requests may also be electronically
mailed to [email protected] or faxed to 202-401-0920. Please specify
the complete title of the information collection when making your
request.
Comments regarding burden and/or the collection activity
requirements should be electronically mailed 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.
[FR Doc. 2010-16655 Filed 7-7-10; 8:45 am]
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