America's North Shore Journal

Nearly 15,000 Sailors cho­sen at ran­dom have been asked to share their thoughts on tele­work and tech­nol­ogy through the first Navy Tele­work and Tech­nol­ogy Sur­vey, avail­able now through mid-January.

The sur­vey, which is being con­ducted by the Navy Per­son­nel Research, Stud­ies, and Tech­nol­ogy (NPRST) divi­sion, asks Sailors to vol­un­tar­ily pro­vide their opin­ions regard­ing tele­work­ing and their use of var­i­ous tech­nolo­gies that might be used to tele­work. Tele­work is an impor­tant com­po­nent of the Navy's life/work bal­ance efforts that are being pro­moted by Task Force Life/Work.

Key tech­nolo­gies being explored in the sur­vey include hand­held devices such as cell phones, iPods, and dig­i­tal cam­eras, as well as tra­di­tional computer-based tech­nolo­gies such as the Inter­net and social net­work­ing. As part of the sur­vey, respon­dents may choose to par­tic­i­pate in the first Navy­wide sur­vey through cell phones, which expands on a recent text mes­sage sur­vey con­ducted with Navy recruiters.

"Sur­vey­ing Sailors regard­ing their use of text mes­sag­ing and other tech­nol­ogy is cut­ting edge, inno­v­a­tive, and excit­ing research. With text mes­sag­ing we are able to col­lect mean­ing­ful data in a flash," said Dr. Paul Rosen­feld, head of the Insti­tute for Orga­ni­za­tional Assess­ment at NPRST.

NPRST exists to help the Navy bet­ter recruit, select, clas­sify, train, man­age, assign, and care for its peo­ple by employ­ing a unique blend of inno­v­a­tive sci­en­tific and func­tional exper­tise. NPRST inves­ti­gates, devel­ops, and val­i­dates new tech­nolo­gies, meth­ods, and busi­ness processes to improve the readi­ness, per­for­mance, and qual­ity of life of Sailors and Marines.

US Navy