With major broadband funding programs well underway and widespread agreement on the importance of a broadband connection, all eyes in the connectivity policy space are set on closing the digital divide. A major part of these efforts centers around ensuring that populations have the necessary skill sets to safely and effectively use the internet and connected devices, perform everyday online tasks, and sign up for broadband affordability programs if necessary—abilities that are collectively known as “digital skills.”

Digital skills play a critical role in broadband adoption and have an incredible value of their own. Advancing them is a fundamental part of any national effort to close the digital divide. In the United States, however, a lack of consensus on how to define or measure necessary digital skills—in other words, lack of a shared digital skills “framework”—hampers any attempt to cohesively upskill. Without that framework, those working to measure and fill digital skills gaps must rely on competing definitions of digital literacy and multiple piecemeal studies that, where they exist, take various approaches to measuring digital skills.

This is all coming to a head with the implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) programs, which target various causes of the digital divide.¹ Advancing digital skills is among the goals of several of these programs, and program guidelines rightly emphasize the importance of providing measurable objectives. As it stands, our current fragmented understanding of digital skills could feed into incompatible assessments of IIJA implementation and achievement of disparate goals, leaving us no closer to a national understanding of our digital skill level and competence.

If measuring progress within states is an already-defined goal, measuring progress among states is better. And with all states and territories currently focused to some degree on digital upskilling, this is the optimal time to start working toward a national framework. The current state-level focus on digital skills should generate a rich landscape of new data that can inform a nationwide digital skills strategy, and the current policy momentum can help incentivize the creation of that strategy. At best, early formation of that framework could help guide states’ implementation of their plans toward a shared objective. And recent emphasis by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on digital upskilling offers relevant precedent for institutional interest in taking a unified approach to digital upskilling.

This report argues for the establishment of a national digital skills framework in the United States. It then examines the landscape of existing resources, including some major frameworks that are used both domestically and abroad. Finally, it explores some of the policy avenues available should the United States decide to establish a national digital skills framework. If we start work on that framework now, we can ensure that our post-IIJA digital inclusion strategy is informed by a consistent, data-driven understanding of where our digital skill levels are and where we want them to be.

Digital skills broadly refer to the individual’s ability to interact with current technology in adherence to minimum standards set by society to achieve certain goals or outcomes. Those outcomes often involve participation in societal institutions and collaboration with other members of the society. Digital skills or competencies are also sometimes referred to as digital literacy—often in an educational context—or even digital resilience, which emphasizes the need for populations to adapt to changing technologies over time.² The broadness of this definition leaves room for varying interpretations.

At a global level, the International Telecommunication Union, borrowing from the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, defines digital competence as “the knowledge and skills required for an individual to be able to use ICT [information and communications technology] to accomplish goals in his or her personal and professional life.”³ The European Commission further defines digital competence as a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable “the confident, critical and responsible use of, and engagement with, digital technologies for learning, at work, and for participation in society.”⁴

In the United States, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding in contexts like adult education and workforce training relies on a broad definition of digital skills as “the skills associated with (a) using technology to enable users to find, evaluate, organize, create, and communicate information; and (b) developing digital citizenship and the responsible use of technology.”⁵ The American Library Association’s Digital Literacy Task Force similarly defines digital literacy as “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.”⁶

Various groups have refined these and related terms based on their own assessments of the landscape. For example, the Digital US coalition reports that “digital resilience is having the awareness, skills, agility, and confidence to be empowered users of new technologies and adapt to changing digital skill demands. Digital resilience improves capacity to problem-solve and upskill, navigate digital transformations, and be active participants in society and the economy.”⁷ The National Digital Inclusion Alliance puts forth a number of traits that a person with digital literacy skills must possess, including that they “[use] these skills to actively participate in civic society and contribute to a vibrant, informed, and engaged community.”⁸

Though specific definitions vary, they all describe an individual with the capacity to wield today’s technologies effectively. In short, if broadband is the infrastructure of a digital society, digital skills are the population’s ability to participate in that society.

Digital skills gaps and lack of broadband access often coincide. Because systemic inequities cause disparities in everything from internet access to education to income levels, historically marginalized groups like people of color and people with disabilities often underperform in digital skills statistics, just as they are overrepresented in non-adoption statistics.⁹ One reason for this is that the real or perceived utility of a broadband connection plays a direct role in adoption: Surveys that explore the reasons behind non-adoption commonly attribute it to lack of interest or lack of perceived usefulness of a connection.¹⁰ Especially when the former implies the latter, lack of interest can be caused by low digital skills that render individuals unable to see the value of an internet connection. Higher levels of digital skills have been linked to higher rates of adoption and more trust in institutions like libraries that frequently provide information about affordability plans and other services.¹¹

In addition to playing a role in broadband access, digital skills have taken on a value of their own. The National Skills Coalition has previously found that 92 percent of jobs across all industries in the United States require at least some digital skills.¹² For those workers who do qualify for a job that requires digital skills, average income increases by an average of 23 percent, or $8,000 for a single worker per year.¹³ Some vital resources, such as applications for government assistance programs, are only—or most easily—accessible online.¹⁴ At a global scale, digital skills are now included in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and major organizations like the World Bank and World Economic Forum have dedicated resources to advancing them across the world.¹⁵

Digital skills tend to increase naturally alongside technological advances, but disparities in those advances also fall along familiar lines. A 2021 survey of the global workforce found that, while almost half of workers improved their digital skills in the COVID-19 lockdown period and the majority had confidence in their abilities to adapt to new technologies, those gains varied widely based on factors like gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity.¹⁶ Gaps also tend to be self-reinforcing: People with stronger digital skills, for example, are more likely to seek further upskilling than those with weaker skills.¹⁷

Despite the broad importance of the topic, the United States does not have a clear and defined digital skills framework that sets out benchmark skills and the requirements for achieving them or even a consistent method of measuring current digital skill rates across the country. This absence of data hampers any attempt to effectively and uniformly build our collective digital skills.

There is already broad institutional buy-in across the United States on the importance of closing the digital divide. The now-lapsed Affordable Connectivity Program administered by the FCC was fiercely supported by a wide range of stakeholders.¹⁸ At the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a number of large broadband funding programs initiated under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which are now in various stages of implementation, put enormous amounts of money toward addressing gaps in broadband access.¹⁹ The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program allocates $42.45 billion to states and territories to complete broadband deployment, and any remaining funds can be put toward inclusion concerns.²⁰ The Digital Equity Act (DEA) puts $2.75 billion directly into addressing digital inclusion issues like affordability and digital upskilling.²¹ States are required to document their own digital inclusion assets, needs, and objectives, and program participants must conduct ongoing assessments of their programs’ efficacy.²² Therefore, to the extent digital skills play into broadband adoption and digital inclusion, standardizing them could codify a shared goal for program participants and enable a comprehensive national perspective on the issue.

Indeed, digital skills should play a very important role in those programs according to the previous charter of the Federal Communications Commission’s Communications Equity and Diversity Council (CEDC), which included a workstream on digital upskilling that advised states to prioritize digital skills “learning and training” in the digital equity and broadband access plans designed under the IIJA.²³ The digital upskilling workstream, which focused on aligning the U.S. population’s digital skills with modern-day needs, produced a report that was subsequently adopted by the Commission. The report advised the United States to adopt a formalized digital skills strategy and to prioritize measurement of digital skills and related programs.²⁴ In particular, it identified IIJA programs as an important and timely vehicle for national digital upskilling. But despite widespread agreement on the importance of digital skills, the United States currently has reached no consensus on which skills are necessary or how to measure them.

In the absence of this shared perspective, states and other program stakeholders must cobble together various sources to assess their own digital skills landscapes. Various workstreams in the United States are focused on taxonomizing digital skills literature and conducting landscape scans to guide interested parties. In particular, several helpful resources have emerged in anticipation of programs under the IIJA. For example, in 2022, the National Governors Association Workforce Innovation Network—in partnership with the National Skills Coalition (NSC), World Education, and National Digital Inclusion Alliance—released a playbook advising states on how to take a data-driven approach to digital upskilling.²⁵ This included a list of datasets that—both directly and indirectly—could be used to assess current rates of digital skills, in addition to guidance on how states could create their own surveys. It also outlined relevant global and international digital skills frameworks for states to use as models. In the same vein, the NSC released a blog instructing states on how to measure digital skills through methods like assessing proxy data or designing skills surveys.²⁶

Though the landscape is certainly not devoid of guidance or even useful data, the lack of consensus on a framework means that states could follow these types of guidelines to the letter and still end up with incompatible assessments of their populations’ skills. Even with robust guidance, achieving a national understanding of where we stand on digital skills remains out of reach.

Despite setting overarching goals for broadband access, the United States has unsurprisingly tended to take a less centralized approach to broadband policy. In particular, major programs under the IIJA leave it in large part to states and territories to design and implement their own specific plans for closing the digital divide.²⁷ But standardization of relevant metrics and goals is the missing link toward countrywide attainment of digital upskilling goals. National standardized testing is an important tool that helps measure and guide national educational attainment, even though, for example, state educational requirements may differ. The same can be said for digital skills.

A common refrain among groups interested in digital skills is the benefits of a shared language and agreed-upon definitions.²⁸ Shared language and mutually understood objectives allow various parties to work cohesively toward the same overarching goal. If digitally upskilling the U.S. population is really a top priority—and it should be—we first need an established framework that defines and categorizes necessary skill sets and indicates standardized methods of measuring them. Current policy goals and ongoing (and forthcoming) programs would benefit enormously from that framework, and the window of opportunity is closing.

From a global perspective, measuring and defining digital skills has long been a policy and academic priority, and a number of useful frameworks, landscape assessments, and guides have been created. There are two basic approaches to measuring and standardizing digital skills, and each informs the other.

First, digital skills frameworks create a theoretical map that defines various competency levels of relevant skills. Assessments, on the other hand, measure the competency levels of the population as it is and provide a practical means of tracking progress. The goals described by frameworks are therefore at least in part informed by the results of assessments, which are designed based on the overarching categories determined by a relevant framework. Both are necessary to a comprehensive digital skills strategy.

There are a number of creative and influential digital skills frameworks on a global scale, and a number of publications dedicated to cataloging and examining them. While listing the entirety of digital skills frameworks is outside the scope of this report, a few relevant examples are listed below.

• The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, or DigComp, is one of the most widely cited and commonly referenced digital skills frameworks.²⁹ Introduced in 2013, DigComp is the European Union’s standard framework that is used as a collective tool to “improve citizens’ digital competence, help policymakers formulate policies that support digital competence building, and plan education and training initiatives to improve the digital competence of specific target groups.”³⁰ DigComp separates digital skills into five content areas: (1) information and data literacy, (2) communication and collaboration, (3) digital content creation, (4) safety, and (5) problem solving.³¹ Each area is broken down into individual competences that emphasize knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable mastery of the area.³² For example, the information and data literacy area includes competences related to evaluating and managing digital content, information, and data. Individual proficiency levels are also outlined for each competence.³³
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) created a Digital Literacy Global Framework based on a global consultation that expands on DigComp.³⁴ In addition to the original five digital competence areas listed above, UNESCO adds in two additional areas: devices and software operations and career-related competences. Both areas comprise a number of specific skills that foster effective use of technologies and specific career-oriented skill sets.
• The DQ Framework approaches digital skills as a multifaceted set of “technical, cognitive, meta-cognitive, and socioemotional competencies that are grounded in universal moral values and that enable individuals to face the challenges… of digital life.” In other words, it attempts to create a “digital intelligence” quotient (DQ).³⁵ It combines digital competency frameworks across the world to create one comprehensive standardization framework for various digital literacies, industry skills, and educational requirements. DQ separates digital life into eight areas (identity, use, safety, security, emotional intelligence, literacy, communication, and rights). It further defines four levels at which each area can be achieved—connectivity, citizenship, creativity, and competitiveness—each focusing on a different end goal.³⁶ Ultimately, it defines 32 competencies that make up the total framework and, as in DigComp, each competency can be broken down into knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values. It is accompanied by a free digital assessment tool and is widely used across the world, including by some large U.S. employers that are part of the Digital US Employer Network.³⁷ It was approved by the IEEE Standards Board as a global digital literacy standard in 2020.³⁸
• The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) sets standards for technology usage in education for students, educators, and coaches.³⁹ It outlines a number of desired outcomes for each group—such as, for students, being an Empowered Learner, Creative Communicator, and Knowledge Constructor—and lists the practical components that lead to achievement of each standard. ISTE has also published The Profile of a Lifelong Learner, which provides guidance on the skills and mindsets needed for adult education in the context of workforce training.⁴⁰ Based on ISTE’s Standards for students combined with other existing adult skills frameworks and literature, The Profile emphasizes five categories of learners: lifelong learner, empowered worker, digital citizen, solution seeker, and mindful colleague.⁴¹ In both frameworks, ISTE emphasizes the relational aspect of digital living—how to effectively coexist in certain contexts such as a classroom or workplace—and takes an outcome-based approach to its standards-setting.

The United States also has a number of digital skills frameworks that are applicable within specific contexts or geographic locations.

• Northstar Digital Literacy is a project of Literacy Minnesota that is used by over 3,000 adult education programs, businesses, and colleges.⁴² It offers online assessments and lessons premised on standards for concrete “skills and knowledge a learner requires to engage in tasks using digital technologies.”⁴³ It defines practical skills within three categories: (1) essential computer skills, (2) essential software skills, and (3) using technology in daily life.⁴⁴ Each category contains basic skills such as using Microsoft, email, and social media, and each individual task is accompanied by concrete steps that must be taken to master the skill.
• In the creation of its own digital skills framework, Virginia Tech uses a definition of digital literacy as “the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that help [individuals] deal with [the complexity of the digital world] and participate in our digital society.”⁴⁵ Virginia Tech’s framework constitutes a multilayered approach with the student or learner as the central component.⁴⁶ Core competencies include identity and wellbeing, discovery, evaluation, ethics, creation and scholarship, communication and collaboration, and curation.⁴⁷ These competencies are surrounded by key values such as curiosity, reflection, equity and social justice, creativity, and participation. All of this is housed within multiple overlapping literacies including data, information, media, and invention.⁴⁸ Learners can engage with any and all of these competencies, values, and literacies through various combinations.

Though the differences between even this handful of frameworks reflect the diversity of priorities in the digital skills landscape, there are some common threads. Most of the frameworks generally describe what it means to participate fully and safely in digital society. They recommend a mix of proactive activities (such as content creation) and defensive ones (such as measures to protect one’s digital identity). The competencies around which frameworks are based are also generally relational. They describe how to be a good student, teacher, employee, or citizen. This naturally arises from the fact that information communication technologies (ICTs) are about communication, and using them effectively means making use of that.

Many of the frameworks also advise a mix of practical competencies and skill sets as well as values and attitudes. In fact, the National Governors Association playbook characterizes the various digital skills definitions as “[ranging] from focusing on the discrete skills needed to navigate a computer or online environment to skills that are harder to measure, such as confidence and capacity to become lifelong learners of new technologies.”⁴⁹ There seems to be consensus that mindset, in addition to practical abilities, is an important component of digital success—likely in part because the technical skills associated with digital competence are regularly changing as the technologies do.

Though some of them offer specific examples of success, the frameworks can also generally be engaged with in different ways. A number of frameworks, such as Virginia Tech’s project and the ISTE standards, are outcomes-based rather than prescriptive. This creates room for flexibility in implementation based on the different contexts in which they’re applied. Similarly, many of the frameworks can and do evolve to reflect changes in technology and usage. DigComp, for example, has been updated several times, as has the DQ framework.

Furthermore, as digital skills become a growing determinant of digital inclusion, access remains a necessary precursor and is finding its place in skill-oriented frameworks. DQ, for example, updated its framework by adding “connectivity” as a baseline level to which its various competencies can be achieved. “Connectivity,” which precedes the more advanced levels of development (citizenship, creativity, and competitiveness), emphasizes the basic need to connect all individuals to digital technology and, therefore, enables them to develop digital skills at those higher levels. In doing so, it explicitly acknowledges the need for those basic digital inclusion policies as a pathway to more advanced digital skills. Similarly, UNESCO’s update to DigComp involved the addition of practical baseline components such as the ability to operate devices.

Much of this evinces a broader theme of maintaining flexibility within frameworks. The digital skills landscape is a subset of the digital inclusion landscape—or at least intimately connected. It is not a new idea that effective digital inclusion projects demand flexibility in implementation. Approaches that meet people where they are, and are tailored to the specific context and needs of participants, are the gold standard of digital inclusion. Digital skills goals in particular, which are highly subject to change as societal standards for technology use and technologies themselves advance, need to be left open enough to remain relevant as the landscape evolves. At the same time, frameworks need enough specificity to provide direction and promote the use of comparable benchmarks. Incorporating into frameworks a combination of both hard and soft skills, as well as both task-based and outcome-based objectives, is a way to achieve that balance.

On the other end of the scale, digital skills assessments measure the practical landscape of digital skills in a population and the extent and nature of digital skills gaps. Because assessments make choices in what types of skills they measure and how they do it, they are often implicitly—or explicitly—based on standards set by digital skills frameworks. Assessments can vary widely in content and administration. For example, the International Telecommunication Union’s Digital Skills Assessment Guidebook, which provides a landscape scan of digital skills frameworks to help countries embark on their own upskilling, categorizes assessments as self-administered, knowledge-based, or performance-based.⁵⁰ Similarly, Digital Resilience in the American Workforce (DRAW), a federal initiative working to improve the adult education field by providing resources on digital skills, separates assessments into standardized tests, performance-based assessments, and self-assessments.⁵¹ There is, of course, further variation within these categories as to what exactly is measured and what populations are assessed.

Perhaps the most widely cited practical skills assessment is the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Its “Survey of Adult Skills” includes an assessment of participants’ problem-solving abilities using technology in OECD countries.⁵² The PIAAC assesses digital skills alongside other adult competencies by giving participants specific tasks on various online platforms and rating their performance. In the United States, the Department of Education administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in which the Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) assessment “uses interactive scenario-based tasks” to assess how eighth-grade students can apply technological skills to different situations.⁵³ In the test, questions are intended to assess mastery of one of three TEL practices: “understanding technological principles,” “developing solutions and achieving goals,” and “communicating and collaborating,” all within the broader TEL content areas of “technology and society,” “design and systems,” and “information and communication technology.”⁵⁴ Like the PIAAC, TEL measures respondents’ problem-solving skills, but it does so in the context of an educational system.

In contrast to practical assessments, knowledge-based and theoretical testing can assess participants’ basic knowledge without a practical component. The U.S.-based Pew Research Center, for example, regularly puts out survey results assessing trends and themes among the U.S. population. In 2019, it surveyed U.S. adults’ awareness of digital knowledge on topics like cybersecurity, privacy, and the business side of major digital companies.⁵⁵

Surveys that require respondents to self-assess still rely on an objective framework of necessary skills and competence levels, but they put the onus on respondents to rate their own proficiency. Because of this added element of subjectivity, they can be especially suited to measuring discrete populations such as members of a particular group or specific geographic location, or to showing the relationships among various factors. For example, an EveryoneOn survey during the COVID-19 pandemic asked a sample of low-income U.S. households to self-assess their own proficiency at a number of everyday online tasks such as finding online information or applying for a job online.⁵⁶ The results created a snapshot of that particular population’s digital skill levels and the relationships between those proficiencies and other related trends, like perceived usefulness of a broadband subscription.

In short, there is a wide landscape of available digital skills literature, frameworks, and data sources, and a number of academic, policy, and public-interest groups have created resources dedicated to taxonomizing and analyzing them. The United States has no shortage of materials at hand if it only decides to make use of them.

With the IIJA programs ongoing and broad consensus on the importance of closing the digital divide, it is the optimal time to organize U.S. upskilling around consistently defined goals and priorities. The best way to do this is to adopt, and universally abide by, some type of digital skills framework that codifies methods of measuring current digital skills and fosters agreement on shared goals. There are two high-level options available to us if we decide to go down this path.

One option would be to make use of one of the available frameworks or assessments already in circulation. There are a number of frameworks already used by various U.S. entities. Going this route would involve simply expanding or encouraging use of a framework already in use around the country or by relevant institutions.

For example, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s “Survey of Adult Skills” results are quite commonly cited due to their breadth and the authoritative nature of the study. In fact, both the National Skills Coalition and the Department of Education use takeaways from its previous round of surveys—which took place between 2011 and 2018—to estimate the size of digital skills gaps in the United States.⁵⁷ Results from the next cycle of surveys will begin to be released in late 2024.⁵⁸

While OECD’s survey provides a helpful view into the digital proficiency of its participants, it is limited by its own scale and released only periodically. Further, the practical nature of the test may not provide insight into all aspects of digital competence (if, for example, specific necessary skills do not emerge in the test), though it effectively showcases many of the attitudes and softer skills that are mapped onto some digital skill frameworks by assessing overall problem-solving rather than specific task completion.

In the United States in particular, Northstar’s programs are already widely utilized by institutions across the country. Though they emphasize simpler capacities and discrete, task-based skills, they could provide the underpinnings for practical standards for basic internet use. They offer a helpful combination of standards, curricula, easily administered assessments and lessons that could be expanded to encompass broader skill sets or a wider range of approaches.

In addition, a number of states are making admirable efforts, many of which may be scalable. Hawaii’s digital literacy survey, for example, groups respondents based on their overall approach to technology and digital readiness.⁵⁹ State digital skill surveys in particular may both provide insight into the state population and be instructive in the creation of a national framework.

Plenty of available landscape scans and guides contain advice on what types of assessments and digital upskilling frameworks will most effectively achieve certain types of digital skills goals. Digital Resilience in the American Workforce (DRAW), for example, provides considerations for users and a checklist to answer when selecting an assessment model.⁶⁰ The International Telecommunication Union’s Guidebook provides explicit and detailed instructions on choosing (or creating) a national digital skills approach.⁶¹ Even when resources are intended for specific stakeholders, like adult educational institutes, the contours of the discussion remain similar.

There are also a number of broader digital inclusion and digital navigator frameworks in circulation. While they can overlap to varying degrees, skills frameworks are differentiated by their narrower focus on the content of the material to be taught or assessed. A digital skills framework is the tool that digital navigators and similar services use to help upskill a population. Existence of one doesn’t negate the need for the other, but inclusion frameworks can serve as an additional, valuable resource to inform the choice of a skills framework.

While adopting or expanding an existing framework would conserve the resources that would otherwise go into creating one, any chosen framework would still most likely need to be curated and adjusted. Moreover, it might never meet the needs of the U.S. population as directly as would a custom framework created specifically to meet those needs. Policymakers choosing to adapt an existing framework should keep those trade-offs in mind.

Rather than adopting an existing framework, the United States could also officially create its own. This approach would lead to a tailored, personalized framework that could directly align with U.S. needs and fit within the existing policy landscape. For example, digital skills can include the ability to find and sign up for broadband affordability programs as necessary and the ability to conform to national privacy standards if they exist, both of which may vary based on political context. Particular digital skills may be emphasized if they align with a country’s educational context or workforce-related needs.

The downside of this approach, of course, is the opportunity cost of the resources and time that would go into crafting an original framework. Presenting a novel, untested framework rather than adopting an existing, vetted one could also result in less buy-in by communities, the private sector, and local governments—though it could also result in more because it would be specifically designed for the communities it serves (and, ideally, would have taken their input into consideration).

If the United States did decide to go this route, the work wouldn’t require starting from scratch. An existing trove of available data sources could be harnessed or expanded to provide the necessary data on digital skills and digital skills gaps. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Internet Use survey is regularly administered through the Current Population Survey and collects expansive, authoritative data on the reasons people don’t adopt a broadband connection. Some of the responses available to survey-takers get at a lack of interest in a broadband connection, or similar hesitations, that can indicate a lack of digital skills (and therefore provide data on the extent of those gaps).

And the Digital Equity plans that every U.S. state and territory has submitted under the first Digital Equity Act (DEA) program provide a useful—and current—taxonomy of states’ digital inclusion resources, gaps, and their populations’ digital affinity.⁶² They assess broadband adoption rates in the context of “meaningful use” and put forth “measurable objectives for documenting and promoting” digital literacy among covered populations.⁶³ The upcoming Digital Competitive Grants program funded under the DEA will additionally fund various digital inclusion projects, many of which may directly address digital skills promotion and all of which will be accompanied (per the program’s guidelines) by a measurement component.⁶⁴ Indeed, the Communications Equity and Diversity Council (CEDC) report suggests aggregating best practices from states’ Digital Equity Plans into a national digital skills strategy.⁶⁵

On the local end, organizations focused on advancing digital skills, which range from social service agencies to organizations entirely dedicated to providing digital training to specific populations, regularly collect data to inform their own business models. Massachusetts-based nonprofit Tech Goes Home, for example, administers entry and exit surveys to learners to inform its digital literacy lesson planning and assess its own efficacy.⁶⁶ The National Digital Inclusion Alliance has similar materials available online—as part of its collectively-created “Digital Navigator Model”—to help communities and digital skills institutions conduct their own skills assessments.⁶⁷ Collecting and aggregating data that already exists could help inform a national standard based on our existing priorities. It would also take the necessary step of incorporating direct community feedback and stated priorities into the formation of any resulting framework. Continued emphasis on community-based data and an open-source model framework that facilitated ongoing community input and engagement would be key to the project’s success.

The landscape of institutional avenues for work on digital upskilling and data collection is equally rich. As mentioned above, the Federal Communications Commission’s CEDC previously included a digital upskilling workstream that advised the United States to adopt a formalized national digital skills strategy and establish metrics for success.⁶⁸ The working group also emphasized the importance of measuring existing digital skills and program outcomes, recommending that the United States increase data collection and suggest best practices and data standardization protocols across organizations that receive funding to promote digital skills. This could easily be baked into a broader framework that underscores particular standards. The Council’s current charter includes two separate workstreams—(1) digital empowerment and inclusion and (2) diversity and equity—that both relate to the broader need for digital skills and could provide an avenue for continued research into the area.⁶⁹ Elsewhere in the government, DRAW has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education to improve adult educational outcomes by creating resources for digital upskilling, including a landscape scan of digital skills literature and deep dives into various areas of interest.⁷⁰ It provides authoritative research and resources on digital skills in a national context.

The shape of the digital divide has changed, and the digital inclusion landscape has changed with it. The question of true broadband access hinges no longer on a binary question of adoption but on the level of competency with which an individual can engage online. Policy priorities now rightly emphasize widespread digital upskilling, and part of achieving that is codifying a national consensus on our current standing and future goals. More narrowly defining our own digital skills framework will empower the United States to undertake a collective digital upskilling with a shared goal in mind.