ADSA Member Needs Assessment Survey

What do you want most from your professional society? How effective is ADSA? What services should we be providing? Only you--an ADSA member--can shape the future of our society through your answers. Your candid responses will help establish ADSA spending and policy priorities as we plan for the future. While you will be asked for your name/member ID so that we may avoid duplication when tallying responses, you will not be personally identified in any summary reports produced with this data.

Thanks for taking a few minutes to share your opinions for the benefit of your professional community!

1. Member number (When you enter your member number, you will see  the demographic information we have on file for you. If it is correct, skip to "8" below; if it is incorrect, please update it. If you do not know your member number, please fill in items 2 - 7, below).

2. What is your name?

3. In which area of the world do you reside? (click a choice on the pull down menu) USA--East USA--Midwest USA--South USA--West Africa Asia Canada/Mexico Europe Oceania/Australia South or Central America

4. What type of membership do you have? (click a choice on the pull down menu) Professional--prod. division Professional--foods division Post-doctoral--production Post-doctoral--dairy foods Graduate Student--production Graduate student--dairy foods Undergraduate/SAD Life

5. What is your age? (type a number)

6. What is your gender?  Female Male

7. What is your job function? (check all that apply)

8a. In which groups do you maintain membership? (check all that apply)

8b.    Please list any membership groups that you feel more strongly   committed to than ADSA 
        (type text into block, below):  
       

The final three sections of this survey are designed to explore your overall opinions and expectations of ADSA, your satisfaction with current products and programs, and your interest in potential new services.

9. Please use a 10 point scale with 10 indicating the highest rating and 0 the lowest rating to evaluate ADSA on the following criteria:

10. People join organizations for a variety of reasons. 
    From the list below, check the reasons why you maintain membership; 
    for each reason checked, rate how satisfied you are with ADSA's performance

11. Do you subscribe to the paper version of the Journal of Dairy Science?

yes;    no;

12. Relative to other journals you read, how would you rate JDS in terms of..

13. Have you published peer-reviewed research in the past five years?

yes;    no; 

...if yes, and JDS publishes articles in your field, what is your impression of how it compares to other journals in terms of...

14. Below you will find a description of journal-related enhancements that could be undertaken in the future. For each that you "favor somewhat" or "favor strongly", please indicate which of the proposed trade-offs you would be willing to accept to make them possible.

14a. JDS could add an electronic archive where supplements to articles that do not print well (complicated 3-D images, databases) could be stored and accessed. Readers could access this through the internet. 
Would you favor this additional service?

strongly oppose; somewhat oppose; unsure; somewhat favor; strongly favor;

if you favor this change, would you be willing to...(check all that apply)

...pay $5 more a year in membership fees; 
...require authors who choose to include this information to pay an additional $100 fee per article; 
...wait to implement the service until grant funding or sponsorship for it can be found;

14b. JDS could become part of a service that would hyperlink from JDS article references to cited articles/abstracts from other journals.  To participate in this type of service, extensive text reprocessing will be required at a substantial annual cost. 
Do you favor this additional service?

strongly oppose; somewhat oppose; unsure; somewhat favor; strongly favor;

if you favor this change, would you be willing to...(check all that apply)

...pay $10 more a year in membership fees; 

...require readers who are not members to pay a small fee anytime they access JDS;  
wait to implement the service until grant funding or sponsorship for it can be found;

14c. Currently, electronic issues from 1997 - 2000 are available to all members online. The ADSA board recently approved scanning every issue from 1995 and 1996 into the online archive. Additional volumes could be added at a cost to ADSA of  approximately $2,000 per journal year. Once the journals are scanned, they could also be made available for sale as a compact disc (CD) collection. 
Given these factors, please check the option that seems best to you:

no further scanning; 

scan one or two years of back issues each year until a sizable archive is developed; 
scan all issues published since 1990; 

scan all issues published since 1980; 

scan every issue of JDS ever published;

If you favor at least some additional scanning, which options represent reasonable ways to fund it (check all that seem fair):

...no increase in membership fees and try to cover the cost through CD sales; 
...increase membership fees slightly and earmark funds for this purpose; 

...wait to implement this until grant funding or sponsorship for it can be found;

14d. A "JDS Plus" information service could be developed that makes it possible to receive information (e.g. conference announcements, news postings, extension literature) and participate in online discussion groups related to any section of the journal on a monthly basis. Readers could select the "plus" option for any section they choose, or for none at all. Do you favor development of this service?

strongly oppose; somewhat oppose; unsure; somewhat favor; strongly favor;

If you favor development of this service, which of the following seem like acceptable ways to fund it: 

...through an inexpensive, section-specific subscription fee only for those who want it; 
...through membership fees so that any member could take the "plus" option for any section; 

...through grant or sponsorship funding only.

15. What suggestions can you offer to improve the Journal of Dairy Science?

16. The ADSA Foundation has successfully sponsored four Discover Conferences. These are three and a half day meetings devoted to in-depth discussion and inquiry into one scientific topic in a retreat-like setting. We have run one or two of these per year since 1998. Regarding the future of Discover conferences, which option do you favor most (choose one):

discontinue them; 

continue to sponsor one or two per year at the current location in central Indiana; 
continue to sponsor one or two per year, but move them to different locations; 
expand the program to offer three or more per year across the U.S.;

17. Please indicate how strongly you favor or oppose ADSA's development of these alternative meetings, meeting formats or meeting-related products:

18. When evaluating a site for our annual meeting, there are many factors to take into consideration. 
Please rank the following factors in order of importance to you 
(1=most important, 2= 2nd most important, etc.--assign each a different rank).

19. 2004 will mark the fifth year in a row that ADSA and ASAS will meet together; no decision has been made yet regarding future years, including 2006, our centennial year. 
Please indicate which of the following arrangements you prefer (choose one):

continue to meet jointly; 

return to separate meetings; 

alternate separate and joint meetings;

meet jointly, except in 2006;

meet jointly, even in 2006, but have a separate ADSA-only day for commemorative events;

20. What suggestions can you offer to improve our annual meetings?

21. ADSA supports the FASS office for Scientific Liaison to keep in touch with important policy issues and represent our views in Washington DC. With regards to our efforts to serve as an advocate for dairy science through the media and in policy circles, what do you advise? 
(Choose one):

scale back our efforts--this is best left to other organizations; 

continue supporting the FASS Scientific Liaison office at about the same level; 
increase our support for the FASS S/L office and forge broader alliances with policy groups; 

increase our support of the FASS S/L office, forge broader alliances, and develop an active press relations operation so we are heard through the mass media;

22. If the ADSA Foundation were to launch a far-reaching fund-raising campaign among our members to improve the long term future of our profession, which of the following causes would you personally be willing to contribute to 
(check all that apply):

scholarships for dairy science students; 

travel funds for needy students to travel to the annual meeting; 

a "margin of excellence" fund that could be tapped to bring in speakers and program enhancements that ADSA could not fund through conventional sources; 

an education program/model dairy science curriculum for use in K - 12 schools; 
a concerted advocacy campaign to strengthen funding for dairy science research; 
enhanced programs and monetary awards for winners of Student Affiliate Division competitions; 

none of the above;

Is there a cause or special purpose that you feel ADSA should raise funds to support?

23. Currently, ADSA has membership branches for members living in the northeast, south and midwest regions. No additional fee is required for membership in these branches, and to varying degrees, each has combined its annual meeting with the regional membership sections of ASAS. ADSA member participation at branch meetings in at least two of these regions has declined in recent years and a small minority of ADSA members are active in branch activities. Historically, ADSA staff has provided support to these branch meetings at a minimal charge, but since we now pay FASS for all administrative services, support charges are accruing. 
With regards to future support, do you favor: (check all that apply)

continuing to provide services at low charges to the branches and subsidize these costs with general ADSA membership dues;

passing along costs to the branches at the actual rate billed by FASS;

have each branch collect dues from ADSA members who choose to join at the branch level (optional), then use these membership funds to cover administrative costs;

work with the branches to improve participation and condition future support on ADSA board approval of branch-generated plans for their survival;

stop providing support for the branches;

 

24. Looking ahead, what would you say are the most important steps ADSA can take to better serve our profession over the next decade?