The Bureau’s 2020 Census early research agenda is focused on conducting the 2020 Census at a lower cost than the 2010 Census while maintaining high quality results. In order to do this the Bureau has developed a range of design alternatives for the 2020 Census. The Bureau’s 2020 design alternatives have potential for containing costs but also have the potential to increase risks. The design alternatives focus on options to use the Internet and other social media to increase response rate, target address canvassing, and expand the use of administrative records. Figure 1 shows the current range of six 2020 Census design alternatives currently being considered and how the three key efforts fit into them. According to the Bureau, the final 2020 design is likely to incorporate both existing approaches as well as design alternatives that have never been used in the decennial census. Greater changes to the overall design will result in greater potential for cost savings. However, greater design changes also could result in greater risk, and testing will be needed to identify the risks, costs, and benefits of any new approaches. According to the Bureau, alternative one has the lowest risk because it most closely mirrors the 2010 Census design (mailout of census forms, and in-person follow-up of non respondents) and is not dependent on implementing innovations such as increased use of administrative records and targeted address canvassing. The Bureau formally kicked off initial planning for the 2020 Census on October 3, 2008, with the 2020 Census Planning Summit. At that meeting, decennial-census managers and subject matter experts discussed challenges, strengths, and weaknesses that would need to be considered during the 2020 Census strategic decision-making process. From 2009 to 2011, during the options analysis phase of 2020 Census planning, Bureau officials went through a research topic winnowing process where they: identified cost and quality drivers, conducted brainstorming sessions, received expert input (e.g., National Academy of Sciences), cataloged over 600 ideas, clustered those ideas into over 100 projects with research questions, and then prioritized them against the for the 2020 Census. The Bureau identified Bureau’s Guiding Principles26 research projects to inform preliminary design decisions with the goal of conducting the 2020 Census at a lower cost than the 2010 Census, while maintaining high quality. Using the 26 research projects, Bureau officials plan to validate the feasibility of the various strategies for reducing costs between fiscal years 2012 and 2014. Bureau officials stated that they are planning to narrow down the design alternatives by September 2014, and that research would continue into the next phase. Bureau officials believe that conducting research earlier in the decade will better position them to make more effective changes to the 2020 Census design. Figure 2 shows the five phases of the life cycle for the 2020 Census. The Bureau is now in the “Early Research and Testing” phase and is currently refining and developing its 26 project plans. These plans include, among other requirements, project goals, objectives, scope, limitations, and skills required, and had a set of required iterative research and testing deliverables due 30, 60, 90, and 120 days after project kickoff. According to Bureau documentation, this process encouraged the development and proper consideration of ideas. The Bureau selected 17 of the 26 projects to start in fiscal year 2012. The remaining projects are scheduled to begin in fiscal years 2013 and 2014. Of the 17 research projects the Bureau is conducting in 2012, 14 projects are to inform design decisions related to the Internet, administrative records, and targeted address canvassing. See figure 3 for a list of these 14 research projects and their objectives. According to the Bureau’s timeline, project teams are to complete their work on these 14 projects by September 2014. Move mouse over each activity to see more information afterwards CLICK to close the open pop-up information display panel. To print text version of this graphic, go to appendix II. Research on new methods likely to result in a more cost-effective 2020 Census must be accomplished early enough in the decade to confirm their likely impact on both cost and quality and to inform timely design decisions. The use of the Internet as a response option, a potential move towards targeted address canvassing, and the possible use of administrative records to replace data collected during census field operations present the Bureau with opportunities to reduce costs while maintaining a high quality census. As part of the 2020 Census planning process the Bureau has identified both program-level and project-level risks associated with these options. According to the Bureau, program- level risks span the entire 2020 research and testing phase and if not managed properly could jeopardize the phase’s goals and objectives. In contrast, project-level risks pertain to the successful completion of specific projects. However, the Bureau has not developed mitigation and contingency plans for the project-level risks. Also, the Bureau has not developed cost estimates for any of its 2020 research and testing projects as required in guidance provided to project teams. Finally, some of the project plans we reviewed were incomplete. For example, not all project plans identified the necessary staff resources, while other project plans failed to provide performance metrics for measuring progress and for determining the project’s final outcome. During the 2000 Census, the Bureau piloted an Internet response option that had a limited number of respondents. They considered building on this 2000 experience for the 2010 Census, but the Bureau decided in July 2006 not to include the Internet option in the design for the 2010 Census because test results indicated that the Internet option did not increase the overall response rate, including response among hard-to-count population groups, and they had underestimated the costs of the contract that included developing the Internet option. However, more recent tests conducted in 2011 showed that adding an Internet response option increased the overall response rate. The 2011 test results, coupled with the increased prevalence and accessibility of the Internet, led Bureau officials to commit to providing an Internet response option for the 2020 Census. With regard to the cost for the 2020 Census, if this option can help achieve an overall increase in the response rate it can save money, since Bureau field staff would need to visit fewer households during nonresponse follow-up (NRFU), which is the largest and most costly census field operation. Furthermore, testing has shown that the cost of an Internet survey is low compared to a mail survey, which incurs printing and postage costs. Moreover, web survey responses are generally available more quickly and are of better quality than responses from a mail survey because there is no lag time as the responses are captured in real time and there are reminders to prompt the respondent if a question is unanswered. Quicker and complete responses can also help reduce the amount of time and money spent on following up on late or incomplete census forms. In April and November 2011, the Bureau tested an Internet response option in its American Community Survey (ACS), and beginning in January 2013, the Bureau plans to offer it as a response option. Bureau officials have stated that they intend to build on this existing information technology infrastructure in order to reduce the cost of implementing an Internet option for the 2020 Census. Given the Bureau’s decision to move forward with an Internet design option, six research and testing projects are focused on how best to implement an Internet response option in concert with other self-response options. The project team with primary responsibility for coordinating the design of the Internet response option is tasked with answering the following research question: How does the Bureau leverage technology and new response modes (including the Internet) to increase self-response, improve nonresponse follow-up data collection strategies, while maintaining overall quality? One objective of this project is to determine what contact strategy should be used to inform the public that census responses can be filed via the Internet in order to increase self-response (i.e., Bureau use of email, social networks or phone for initial contact or for reminders). Contact strategy testing will examine the impact of various Bureau instructions to respondents, as well as the timing of the delivery of the mailing pieces, on such factors as response rates, return rates, percentage of Internet returns, and speed of returns. This project will also determine what mode (paper, Internet, or phone) is best for each demographic, geographic, and language group, as well as determine the effect a lack of access to technology has on each demographic group. Additionally this project will refine and test security features. The other five projects will cover such areas as types of languages that will be offered by response mode, public perception and potential concerns about an Internet response, and management of the workload for multiple modes of response. In the 2010 and earlier censuses, the Bureau mounted a full address canvassing operation, where field staff verified every housing unit in the nation to update the Master Address File (MAF) and the associated mapping system called TIGER® (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing). This labor-intensive effort was one of the more expensive components of the 2010 Census: the 2010 Address Canvassing Operation required 140,000 temporary workers to verify 145 million addresses (by going door-to-door) at a cost of $444 million, or 3 percent of the $13 billion total cost of the 2010 Census. One of the reasons the Bureau conducted a full address canvassing for the 2010 Census was because it wanted to capture hidden and hard-to-capture addresses, such as housing units in converted garages and large storage sheds. For the 2020 Census the Bureau would like to reduce the amount of field work and cost of address and map updates by targeting the address canvassing operation. According to Bureau planning documents, through early research and testing the Bureau plans to attempt to determine the quality and stability of its address file in terms of the number of changes (adds, deletes, duplicates, and corrected addresses) that took place to each census block in 2010. Depending on that outcome, the Bureau would target for address canvassing only those blocks where the quality of the addresses was determined to be inadequate. To determine whether to target address canvassing for the 2020 Census, the Bureau has two ongoing efforts to improve the Bureau’s map and address databases.