6 JUNE 2018 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG you would like more information, the full Qualtrics survey report can be found at usaquaculture.org/membership.) The survey was opened on April 9 and closed on April 25. Members were asked by email on three separate occasions to complete the survey, as well as encouraged on USAS social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@usaquasoc). A total of 261 responses were collected, out of 990 current members, for a response rate of 26 percent. The survey used Qualtrics software to tabulate data. Of the respondents, 78 percent were male, 19 percent female, and 3 percent preferred to not answer. By age, 12 percent were 30 or under, 21 percent were 31-40, 19 percent were 41-50, 23 percent were 51-60, 21 percent were over 60 (with 4 percent preferring to not answer). We do not have data on chapter demographics, so it is not clear if these responses are representative of the current USAS membership. It is notable that only about one-third of respondents were 40 or younger. Despite this, 15 percent of respondents indicated that they were USAS members, which is representative of the current student membership in USAS. The survey was predominantly completed by those in academia (45 percent), followed by the other category (23 percent), producers (13 percent), extension (10 percent), and consultants (8 percent). In the other category, government positions, supporting industries (e.g., equipment manufacturers), non-profits were listed frequently enough to include these as categories in any future surveys. Geographically, there were five or more respondents from AZ, AR, CA, HI, ID, IL, LA, MD, MA, NC, WA, and 10 or more respondents from: AL, FL, KY, MS, and TX. The states with the most respondents were FL, AL and KY. There were 30+ respondents from outside the United States. What Did We Learn? USAS has worked with other groups to provide eighteen webinars to date. Recordings can be found at usaquaculture.org/ webinars. Looking forward, we sought input about potential webinar topics that could be developed. For this question, we asked members to rate their interest on a scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 is no interest and 5 is extremely high interest) for a number of topics. The webinar topic of greatest interest is on changing public perception of aquaculture (Table 1). The column on the right of Table 1 is the percentage of respondents that ranked the topic as a high priority (as a 4 or 5). There was also considerable interest in strategies for improving feed conversion ratios and trends in aquaculture feeds, as well as a webinar about local foods and aquaculture products. Table 1. The survey also requested suggestion of other webinar topics, which predictably generated a wide range of responses. Potential additional topics included some related to feeds (e.g., quality control, exogenous enzymes, feed-mill design), development of aquaculture (including offshore, ornamental, etc.) and social issues such as a discussion of gender in aquaculture. In addition to webinars, USAS offers workshops in conjunction with the annual meeting as a benefit to members (usaquaculture.org/ workshops). We plan to continue these workshops at future meetings and sought input on topics, again using the scale of 1 to 5. The two highest-rated workshop topics were best aquaculture practices and aquatic animal health. These were followed closely by recirculating aquaculture system design, engineering and operation, and fish nutrition. Table 2. Again, a number of additional workshop topics were suggested, including economics (aquaculture economics, investment do’s and don’ts), feed formulation and quality control, value-added aquaculture products and shrimp grow-out automation. Certainly one of the most common suggestions that USAS Board members receive from members is about potential meeting venues. Although substantial planning is involved in any meeting, with venues selected and contracted years in advance, input from the USAS Board has been requested by the WAS Board regarding venue selection. To better guide our input, respondents were asked to rate their interest in potential venues on a scale from 1 to 5. Table 3. Of the suggested venues, several in Florida earned high marks including Tampa, Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale. Additionally, Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as Savannah and Atlanta (Georgia) had high interest. Los Angeles, California and St. Louis, Missouri fared poorly in the survey. A number of additional venues were suggested, including several that are the sites of upcoming meetings (e.g., New Orleans, Honolulu and San Diego). Other possibilities included Mobile, Alabama, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, San Jose, California, and Virginia Beach, Virginia. For meeting venues, we note that these are only member suggestions. It is important to keep in mind that final selection of locations for Aquaculture America meetings must also account for specific venues that have sufficient space for the trade show, an adequate number of meeting rooms for concurrent sessions, and have the necessary hotel and airport amenities for our attendees. Beyond feedback about webinars, workshops and meeting venues, we also used the survey to ask USAS members about other topics. Almost half (47 percent) of respondents indicated that there were likely or very likely to purchase USAS merchandise if available. Members also overwhelmingly agreed that they would be likely or very likely to pay $10 a year to be a member of USAS. (Current chapter dues are $5). In terms of online communication to members, we were surprised at the relatively low rates of social media ‘follows’ by respondents (Table 4). Facebook was the most commonly used platform (29 percent of respondents), followed by LinkedIn and YouTube. Twitter and Instagram, which were started approximately two years ago, were followed by only 8 percent each of respondents. We are analyzing the data further to see if there are significant differences in these response rates between students and non-students, as different platforms may better serve different member groups better than others. Only 10 percent of respondents indicated that they had ever posted to any of these platforms. In terms to the USAS website (www.usaquaculture. org), 12 percent of respondents indicated that they had visited the site in the last week, while 29 percent responded that they had visited in the last month, and 42 percent responded that they had visited in the last year, while 16 percent responded that they had never visited the website. Table 4. So, there you have it! We are putting these data to work to help guide USAS Board decisions about webinars, workshops and meeting venues, as well as using these responses to help us evaluate our social media and website efforts and setting baselines for future comparisons. There are already discussions by some of our newer members to get more respondents to the next survey if planned during a conference to increase feedback. The USAS belongs to the members and participation helps enable the Board to serve the Society. We greatly appreciate the feedback that we received.
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