OTI Releases Toolkit to Assess Impact of Digital Inclusion Efforts

Today, the Open
Technology Institute at New America released OTI and EveryoneOn: Working
Together to Evaluate the Impact of Broadband Inclusion Efforts, a toolkit to
help organizations engaged in digital inclusion efforts assess the impact of
their broadband adoption and access programs. At least a quarter of American
households do not have access to Internet service at home, and the level of
income-based inequality in access continues to grow.

Beginning in 2014, OTI worked with EveryoneOn, a national non-profit who works
to end the digital divide. As part of these efforts, EveryoneOn hosts a digital
access platform to target gaps in broadband adoption through partnerships with
Internet Service Providers (ISPs), community organizations, and non-profits, to
look at ways to better assess the impact of community-based digital inclusion
efforts.

A key recommendation emerging from that effort was that all
actors in the digital inclusion space should document and track their entire
spectrum of broadband adoption activities, and broaden its evaluation efforts
for a more holistic understanding of which combination of activities leads to
the greatest impact. The goal is to shift the metric of success from a
quantitative assessment of subscription rates to an evaluation framework that
integrates qualitative meaningful adoption measurements with quantitative data.

This toolkit is designed to provide a resource for any
organization offering digital services, and is intended to ensure that digital
inclusion program activities remain relevant as digital access frameworks and
behaviors evolve. As a coalition-based model of digital equity planning emerges
with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s ConnectHome initiative in 28 communities
across the United States, these tools
will support a holistic approach to embedding digital services with community
anchor institutions.

This toolkit comes out a day after New America hosted the
launch of Digital Equity: Technology & Learning in the Lives of
Lower Income Families, a new report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center
and Rutgers University on the importance of meaningful broadband connection for
low-income families and access to educational tools. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler
keynoted the event and urged everyone to look for creative, outside-the-box
solutions to bridge the digital divide.

To contact the authors:

Greta Byrum

Senior Policy Analyst, Resilient Communities Program

byrum@newamerica.org

Georgia Bullen

Technology Projects Director, Open Technology
Institute

georgia@opentechinstitute.org