by Megan Frame, Membership Coordinator

As PRIM&R’s membership coordinator, one of my priorities is assessing how we can serve and support our membership community. This past May PRIM&R members were asked to complete the 2013 Membership Services Survey to evaluate our services and benefits and let us know what they needed from PRIM&R.

On the whole, members reported they were very glad to be a part of PRIM&R. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said they were very satisfied or satisfied with their memberships, while 96% of respondents said they would refer PRIM&R to a colleague.

The top-ranked benefits were the educational discounts available to members, our monthly Newsletter, complimentary access to PRIM&R conference presentations and webinar archives, and our bimonthly Research Ethics Digest (RED). The Knowledge Center, PRIM&R’s newest member benefit, was the benefit members said they were most likely to use in the future. If you’re a PRIM&R member who has not yet had an opportunity to utilize the Knowledge Center, I would encourage you to view the tutorial  before getting started, which will help you navigate the various sections of content.

We also use this opportunity to learn what we can do better, and here are a few of the suggestions that we are prioritizing this year:

• A Workload and Salary Survey revision—Members requested a more comprehensive Workload and Salary Survey that would explore the connections between education, workload, position, and salary. Over the course of the next year, this survey will be rewritten and reanalyzed to make the results even more useful.

• Increased involvement with PRIM&R—Many members said they were unaware of the volunteer opportunities available, or had not taken advantage of them thus far, but would like to get more involved in PRIM&R. If you have not done so already, I invite you to explore our new volunteer webpage, where volunteer opportunities are organized based on time commitment.

• Featuring additional topics in publications—Devoted readers of the Newsletter and RED requested more coverage on the following topics: audit and monitoring, categorization of research proposals, child advocacy, internet-based research methods, and social media research and recruitment. We will make a concerted effort to highlight scholarly journal articles, news stories, and blog posts on these issues wherever possible, so stay tuned into Ampersand, PRIM&R’s social media channels, and our members-only publications.

• Greater promotion of membership benefits—Some respondents did not realize the range of benefits associated with PRIM&R membership. To better showcase the resources to which members have access, we will feature a different benefit each month in the membership section of our Newsletter. 

We look forward to hearing more from our members over the course of the year and in next year’s survey. We strive to support PRIM&R members in their professional lives, and feedback is crucial to our success.