Tools for Digging Deeper
Higher Education Digital Equity Framework, Digital Promise (Draft V.1; final version to be published fall 2024.)
- This framework was developed to foster an inclusive digital environment on campus. It aims to provide a systematic and comprehensive approach to democratizing access to academic resources and empowering all students to thrive in today's technology-driven world. This framework includes five student-focused domains:
- Leadership for Digital Transformation
- Coherent Systems, Resources, and Policies
- Consistent Access to Devices and Connectivity
- Powerful Learning Propelled by Technology
- Digital Competency
- Key Components:
- Access: Ensuring equitable access to devices, internet connectivity, and digital resources.
- Use: Promoting effective and meaningful use of technology for learning and student success.
- Skills: Building digital literacy and technology skills among students and faculty.
- Support: Providing comprehensive support structures for vetting and integrating emerging tech.
- Policy: Guiding administrators in the creation of policies and practices for the adoption of emerging technologies
- Highlights specific campus roles that contribute to the functional and sustainable activation of these domains at the institutional level
- Roles include administrators (department chairs, deans, provosts, and institutional presidents), chief technology officers, information technology staff, library staff, faculty, and students
Digital Opportunities Compass: Metrics to Monitor, Evaluate, and Guide Broadband and Digital Equity Policy, by Colin Rhinesmith, Pierrette Renee Dagg, Johannes M. Bauer, Greta Byrum, and Aaron Schill, Quello Center (February 2023)
- Offers a customizable approach to utilize a coherent set of indicators and metrics to create a baseline assessment of the state of digital equity, to monitor its changes over time, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to improve digital equity.
- Offers a framework to assist in the development of plans that meet federal reporting and assessment requirements but go beyond access and affordability to fully harness the benefits of digital technology. Useful as a shared framework to establish goals and priorities, to identify opportunities, and monitor progress toward these goals.
Visions of Digital Equity, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society (August 2023)
- Set of principles to help guide both the process and the resulting visions of digital equity. A well-crafted vision of digital equity has the potential to:
- offer a glimpse of a state transformed by universal connectivity.
- provide a roadmap and resources for the digital opportunity initiatives to come.
- act as a north star for goal setting, planning, and implementation efforts over the months and years to come.
State Digital Equity Implementation Manual, National Digital Inclusion Alliance (April 2024)
- This manual supports states as they implement their digital equity plans and create sustainable, robust statewide digital equity ecosystems. Includes best practices and tips for developing and refining implementation strategies and performance measurement, program evaluation, and sustainability.
Advancing Digital Equity for All: Community-Based Recommendations for Developing Effective Digital Equity Plans to Close the Digital Divide and Enable Technology-Empowered Learning, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology (September 2022)
- This resource illuminates insights from conversations with leaders from community-based organizations, as well as families and learners furthest from digital opportunities, to highlight the barriers faced by learner communities and promising solutions for increasing access to technology for learning.
2023 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Teaching and Learning Edition
- This report profiles key trends along with emerging technologies and practices shaping the future of teaching and learning, and envisions a number of scenarios and implications for that future. Includes a section devoted to artificial intelligence.
- The digital divide is included as a technological trend with a note that AI will contribute to widening this divide: "the divide persists, and now students who lack access to technology are falling behind in the latest technologies, such as AI".
- In addition to key technologies and practices related to AI (Finding Appropriate Uses for AI-Enabled Technology; Supporting AI Fluency), this report also includes sections on supporting equitable and inclusive learning, protecting data privacy and security, and navigating misinformation.
