As our Nebraska community came through the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bureau of Sociological Research (BOSR) was here to help. BOSR’s continuing dedication to collecting high quality information for researchers, policy makers, departments, and administrators was notable across the more than 100 projects BOSR worked on during 2021-2022. Internally, we gathered data for a variety of UNL stakeholders on what Nebraska faculty, staff, students, and alumni are thinking and doing these days with the goal of informing business processes and procedures or evaluating unit performance at the university. We also worked with researchers across the Nebraska System and with a number of state of Nebraska agencies to collect information on populations as wide-ranging as adults in households, farmers, students, physicians, and employees. These studies aimed to answer research questions, evaluate programs, and monitor ongoing health and wellbeing indicators across the state.
BOSR had to innovate during COVID, and those innovations continued to pay dividends during 2021-2022. Our innovative remote interviewer pool has continued, allowing BOSR to collect telephone data when social distancing and remote work was required. The remote interviewer pool allowed BOSR to make good use of shared space at Oldfather Hall and serve a wide variety of clients – even when in-person work resumed in full force.
Innovation was also required to collect school-based surveys. Information on students in schools was even more important as students came back into the classroom after a spring of remote learning. Access to schools was limited during 2021-2022 because of COVID restrictions on entry. BOSR worked with teachers, schools, and districts to enroll students in ongoing school surveys, including the administration of the Student Health and Risk Prevention surveys in Fall 2021. The unique difficulties of school data collection during COVID for this important survey system were skillfully handled by BOSR’s expert project managers.
Our staff are excellent. Our senior project managers presented methodological research at in-person and virtual professional meetings this year including the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the International Field Directors and Technologies Conference, contributing to the science of surveys. Additionally, two of BOSR’s current staff — Tricia Jurgens and Robert Becker — won CAS Applause awards in recognition of their contributions.
We look forward to connecting with researchers on and off campus to help make informed decisions and generate new knowledge about what people and businesses think, feel, and do.
Kristen Olson
Director, Bureau of Sociological Research