Prepare for ATE Survey

Since 1999, The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to collect and report information about NSF’s Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program on an annual basis. NSF uses the information gathered through the survey in reports to Congress and to monitor the program’s activities and achievements.

Note that the focus is on the overall ATE program. The information collected is not used to evaluate individual projects or centers.

This survey is a census of all ATE active projects and centers funded in 2024 or earlier, including those in no-cost extensions. If you are asked to complete the 2025 ATE Survey, it is because, according to records provided to EvaluATE by NSF, you are a principal investigator for an active ATE project or center, with a funding start date on or before December 31, 2024.

Your responses to the ATE Survey are not anonymous to the EvaluATE staff since your grant number is used to track responses. However, your answers will not be associated with your project/center in any reports or other publications based on the survey data.

EvaluATE has not and will not provide individual survey response information to NSF in our reports or personal correspondence. Your individual responses to the survey are not available to NSF staff for use in their determinations regarding continued funding for your grant. If you want that information made available to them, you should include it in your annual report or other correspondence to NSF.

In an effort to respond to NSF’s interest in research on ATE matters, we will share our survey data with a select group of researchers who have been funded through the ATE program. Their use of the survey data requires their and their institutions’ written agreement that they will report only aggregate information and not identify individual projects or centers. We will follow up with these researchers to monitor their reports and to ensure that they meet their confidentiality commitments.

Because the ATE program is federally funded, ATE grantees’ responses to the ATE survey are subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. If we receive such a request, we must comply and provide the requested information. It is unlikely that we will receive such requests; we have not received a FOIA request since the survey’s initiation in 1999.

Not necessarily. You will only be asked to answer questions that pertain to the activities in which your ATE project engages based on how you answer specific questions throughout the survey. If you are unable to answer a question, you may skip it.

Although there is some overlap between the information required for the survey and the ATE project/center annual reports, the ATE Survey is much more specific about ATE activities and achievements. Moreover, there is no way to aggregate the text information provided via Research.gov into a report about the overall ATE program.

The ATE Survey is designed for projects to report on activities and achievements in a form that allows for program-wide aggregation. The project annual report is submitted to NSF and describes a project’s progress towards its goals and outcomes. Learn more about distinguishing features, audience, and responsibility, with tips on preparing for each and more with our Guide to Reporting in the ATE Program at bit.ly/ate-reporting.

Ideally, you will have records from which to retrieve much of the information we ask for. However, we understand that this may not always be the case. You may skip the question if you do not have the information you need to answer a particular question. Review our guide for working with your institutional research office to gather the information needed at bit.ly/data-ir.

We suggest you record your survey answers on a hard copy. Keeping this copy on file and notes about your data sources can assist you with this year’s survey and beyond. Review resources shared by current ATE PIs on collecting data about students to prepare for reporting in the ATE Survey at bit.ly/ATE-Survey-Data-CollectionResources.

Yes. The PI can share access to the survey by simply sharing the survey link or forwarding the email they received that contains the survey link to other project staff.

While multiple members of a project team may complete the survey, it is ultimately the responsibility of the PI to review all answers for accuracy and completeness before ensuring that the survey is submitted.

To access the survey, click on the link provided to you via email from Lee McClure. The survey will open on February 18, 2025. That link is specific to your project. If you lose your survey link, contact Lee McClure at atesurvey@evalu-ate.org or (269) 387-3771.

The system will automatically save your answers as you complete the survey, so you may return later to complete any section. To return to a particular part of the survey, click the blue buttons at the bottom of each page until you arrive at the desired location.

To submit your survey, continue to the final page and click the submit button in the bottom right. You will no longer have access to your survey once you submit it, so ensure your responses are complete and accurate before you click submit.

Once you submit your responses, the system will provide you the opportunity to download a copy of your responses in PDF form. Once you see this, you will know your survey submission was successful. If, for some reason, you need to regain access to your survey, contact Lee McClure at atesurvey@evalu-ate.org or (269) 387-3771.

The 2025 ATE Survey maintains most of the same questions as the 2024 survey. However, we have updated the structure of how some questions in sections are asked based on feedback from the larger ATE community.

The most significant difference is how the survey asks for data about students. In previous survey versions, we have asked for student data to be reported by individual activities. We now ask for the aggregate of all students who participated in a type of activity. For example, suppose you were to report the creation of three courses during the 2024 calendar year. In that case, your project will report how many total students participated in the courses created or modified by your ATE project in 2024.

We have also added additional screening questions to survey sections to help streamline the questions your project may need to respond to. Some survey sections’ directions have been updated; we encourage you to read them carefully.

Lastly, each ATE Survey includes a Special Topics section that changes annually. Questions are not included in the survey preview but will not require any additional data collection from project staff.