Understanding Digital Equity

The digital divide, digital equity, best practices, and steps for a connected future

The Digital Divide

The Digital Divide describes the gap in access to technology, internet, smartphones, or computers among social and economic groups. After establishing internet access, lack of education is a main driver for creating a technology gap. Educated people are more adaptive to technologies and households with college graduates typically have more technical resources than those households with less education. Geography also plays a role, in many instances simply being too far away from internet access, or the topography, creates a barrier for service providers to build out to communities. Finally, income influences the divide as it relates to the purchasing of services or devices capable of accessing Broadband services.

Despite technology being provided, other barriers still exist in using technical resources. Some consider technology a threat or intrusive to their homes and religion. This can cause isolation, educational gaps, limit careers or job fulfillment and segregation between people.

Understanding that the digital divide exists is the first step. Fixing it is a different story and involves many new terms, concepts, and ideas. What is digital equity, digital literacy, digital inclusion, digital adoption? How do we fix the issue? What do communities do? We plan to shed some light on these questions and provide some ideas for next steps and best practices.

Digital Equity is a condition in which all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy, and economy. This can be done by ensuring that everyone has affordable access to the Internet, as well as providing devices and software that are accessible to everyone.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) defines Digital Equity as “a condition in which all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy, and economy.” Therefore, Digital Equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services. Digital Equity is achieved when all people and communities can access and use affordable, high-speed, reliable internet that meets their long-term needs.

Digital Equity is typically used when referring to education, but it’s relevant in any industry or community where tech, and specifically internet access, is essential for success. More recent conversations have turned to the importance of Digital Equity in the workplace as the pandemic has sent many employees into the ranks of remote workers.

There are several key pillars of Digital Equity, such as, Digital Literacy, Digital Inclusion, and Digital Adoption.

Digital Equity

Digital Literacy

Digital Literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.

A person with Digital Literacy skills:

  • Possesses a variety of skills – technical and cognitive – required to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information in a wide variety of formats.

  • Can use diverse technologies appropriately and effectively to retrieve information, interpret results, and judge the quality of that information.

  • Understands the relationship between technology, life-long learning, personal privacy, and stewardship of information.

  • Uses these skills and the appropriate technology to communicate and collaborate with peers, colleagues, family, and on occasion, the public.

  • Uses these skills to actively participate in society and contribute to a vibrant, informed, and engaged community.

Digital Inclusion

Digital Inclusion refers to the activities necessary to ensure that all individuals and communities, including the most disadvantaged, have access to, and use of, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

This includes five elements:

  1. Affordable and strong broadband internet service.

  2. Internet-enabled devices that meet the needs of the user.

  3. Access to Digital Literacy training.

  4. Quality technical support.

  5. Applications and online content are designed to enable and encourage self-sufficiency, participation, and collaboration.

Digital Inclusion must evolve as technology advances. Digital Inclusion requires intentional strategies and investments to reduce and eliminate historical, institutional, and structural barriers to access and use technology.

Digital Adoption

Digital Adoption has traditionally been defined as residential subscribership to high-speed Internet access. However, for those in the field, working to increase the digital capacity of communities, Digital Adoption involves daily access to the Internet:

  • At speeds, quality, and capacity necessary to accomplish common tasks,

  • With the digital skills necessary to participate online, and

  • On a personal device and secure, convenient, affordable network.

Closing the Digital Divide

Now that we understand the terminology, how do we close the Digital Divide?

There are some key best practices involved and necessary steps that communities and organizations can take.

Specifically, the creation of Digital Equity offices and officers, community engagement, and of course planning and action.

Digital Equity Offices and Community Engagement

Governments and classrooms need to introduce technical learning that encompasses the key pillars of Digital Equity.

This includes providing training to teachers, students, and the community using digital resources and educational standards that cover Digital Literacy, Digital Inclusion, and Digital Adoption.

Digital Equity Offices

Establishing a Digital Equity office starts with two essentials. The first is access to digital infrastructure. This largely affects rural areas, and it relates to whether residents have broadband infrastructure available where they live that delivers sufficient speeds. The next essential is having access to digital services, which includes whether citizens have the ability to afford them and the knowledge they need to effectively use and benefit from technology. The Digital Equity office will use these two fundamental requirements as the basis for their policies and procedures.

Both educational organizations and governments need to establish Digital Equity offices that work together to develop requirements and solutions for physical access, use of broadband, and related digital technologies and services. Each office ought to be responsible for publishing and keeping current a Digital Equity Plan. These plans will set performance targets, establish strategies, collect data, set reporting requirements, and coordinated activities across multiple agencies, including those responsible for information technologies, economic development, social services, healthcare, and others.

The Digital Equity office will need to ensure that every resident, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, or any other demographic characteristic can subscribe to service. Depending on state law and the given telecommunications technology, the office would serve as either the lead or co-lead when negotiating the geography that internet service providers (ISPs) would be obligated to serve. The office would also be responsible for monitoring service levels, including the provision of customer-facing tools to report service issues. Also, depending on local willingness, the Digital Equity office could help coordinate the construction of any publicly owned broadband networks. Digital Equity Officers could serve as the lead representative and liaison in these situations.

Digital Equity Officers

Digital Equity Officers will formalize new ideas and consolidate the many emerging Digital Equity efforts in the area they represent. This includes but is not limited to State, County, Local Government agencies, and educational programs. Each office will need a Digital Equity Officer who reports directly to the top elected executives of a multi-member cabinet, or the respective leadership of their organizations.

Community Engagement

A Digital Equity office should co-design and co-operate with programs that make broadband and related devices more affordable for lower-income households. The office would serve as the chief negotiator with ISPs over pricing and/or targeted subsidies. This will include any concessions the local government would be willing to make for specific pricing benefits that stay within the bounds of current FCC rules. The office would also serve as a resource for schools, housing departments, libraries, and other agencies that bulk purchase network and computing devices.

In this capacity, the office would share data from their Digital Equity Plan and combined with other economic indicators will establish procurement needs for the entire jurisdiction. The office would work with workforce boards and peers to ensure training reflects employer needs where sensible. The office would also serve as the lead agent to coordinate state and federal skills grants, including applying for grants and distributing funds to agency peers. They will support programs that build the digital skills of local households and support regional employers. The office would use performance data and local relationships to establish training needs. The office would then help support digital skills training operated by agency peers such as the local library system and external partners such as nonprofit community groups, including using public funding and technical capacity.

Digital Equity Best Practices and Next Steps

Understanding that communities and organizations are all in different places when it comes to Digital Equity, Literacy, Inclusion, Adoption planning, it is important to have a roadmap.

The following section will outline some best practices and necessary steps to ensure the success of your plans.

Setting Goals

Align existing goals

What are the existing goals for your organization? It’s important to lay these out in a clear and concise format. Make everyone aware of these goals and set timelines for completion.

Incorporate Community Plans

Not only do you need to focus on what will affect your organization, but also incorporate the goals for your community. Whether that is a focus on economic expansion and growth, or educational welfare, or overall community wellbeing; these all need to be aligned. Having a well thought out and planned set of goals with a timeline is key.

Digital Equity Goals

Clearly set out and define the goals for Digital Equity. This includes goals for all three facets: Digital Literacy, Digital Inclusion, and Digital Adoption. It’s important to take into consideration your need for a Digital Equity office and officers, or working in conjunction with a company that can help you augment your current workforce. There are many grants that can be researched in this space as well.

Key Practices and Steps

Asset Inventory

Catalogue, and map, if possible, State, and local community, school, college, university, and library unique assets. This can be a mix of hard assets and soft assets. People, organizations, digital skills/literacy training, and infrastructure that are unique to each community. Some examples of these assets are:

  • Broadband Infrastructure

    • Wireline infrastructure

    • Wireless infrastructure

      • Downtown Wi-Fi

      • Public Hotspots

      • Wi-Fi mobile hotspots

  • Laptop and tablet lending programs

  • Computer labs

  • Discount or Low-cost internet programs

Access Inventory

Partnering with an organization or utilizing your own staff to understand what access looks like in your community is extremely important. Again, grants are available for this type of work, but the key is to know where you are, so you can know where you can go from there. You must measure things like overall broadband availability, subscription rates, affordability, equipment cost, storage, replacement cost, and public computer access to name a few. Putting real numbers and statistics into these questions and subjects will give you a baseline to begin your planning process.

Digital Literacy

Understanding the technical and cognitive abilities of your community and promoting growth in those areas will drastically impact the Digital Divide. Finding organizations that specialize in Digital Literacy, workshops, classroom education, and courses will be key to your success. In addition, there are plenty of grants for support services, digital navigators, computer device refurbishment, low-cost or discounted support. Researching and understanding all that is available will give you a good base for developing future strategies.

Key Practices and Steps

Partnerships

Partnering with government organizations like the NTIA, the state and federal Department of Education, or even specialized consultant groups, and Internet service providers can give you a leg up. Not only do many of these organizations provide grants and funding opportunities, but they also have the expertise and ability to help you through the process.

Staffing and Strategy Recommendations

Leadership will be key to the success of your Digital Equity plan. It is extremely important to have a Digital Equity office, or at the very least a Digital Equity officer. Proper staffing, succession planning, training, and education will allow your strategies to flourish. Some key items to consider when building your team are:

  • Responding to key questions from the community

    • Will this be done in-house or over the phone?

    • What if you don’t have the answer?

  • Sustainability of your team

    • Onboarding practices and training

    • Continuous training on new technologies and practices

    • Budgetary planning and constraints

  • Prioritization of resources

    • Buildings that will be used

    • Office space

    • Technology availability

Finally, establish your timeline. What are your organization or communities’ individual short term, near term, and long term (1,3, and 5 year) goals? It’s important to consider how these goals align with any of your funding strategies and their requirements. Once those two items match, the potential for success is exponential.

Closing Thoughts

The Digital Divide is not something that can be closed tomorrow, or even next year. It is going to take a concerted effort from all parties involved. As technology continues to advance, it will be important to continue to raise the minimum standards and provide training to ensure communities are not left behind.

  • It starts with understanding the key terminology: Digital Equity, Digital Inclusion, Digital Adoption, and Digital Literacy.

  • Then begins the planning, what can you and your team do in the short and long term?

  • Then the execution: having a leadership team, partnerships, and funding in place to make your goals a reality.

At ECC Technologies we strive to help educational, corporate, and community teams achieve their broadband goals. With over 25 years of experience in providing broadband solutions across the US, building, and designing networks, establishing partnerships, grant applications, asset inventory, project management and audits, and more, we’re here to help in any way that we can. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions, we are happy to help you close the Digital Divide!

 

How we can help:

  • Infrastructure Inventories

    • Physically identifying where physical infrastructure is and is not, this can be used to define grant area boundaries, update the federal maps, and determine costs of extending preestablishing networks.

  • Broadband Availability and Adoption Toolkit

    • With questions customizable for your community, we can develop web based and physical surveys to identify the biggest challenges facing citizens and businesses in your community. This information is then mapped in a geographic database and can be displayed on websites to increase awareness and encourage solutions.

  • Pursuing Funding

    • With new Federal and state funding becoming available, targeted at solving Digital Divide issues, we can help you to pursue and implement these programs to close the Digital Divide in your community.