The Digital Divide

EDUCAUSE LEARNING INITIATIVE | APRIL 2021

Scenario

Eastern State College, which sits in a rural area and serves many first-generation college students, had spent four years pursuing institutional goals to address student success differences along demographic lines. A range of programs steadily shrank the gaps in retention, GPA, and degree completion, reaching parity on some dimensions. And then overnight, the pandemic showed how delicate those bridges were. High-touch counseling and support had been a pillar of Eastern State’s efforts, and all of those activities were either cancelled or transitioned to video calls, which some students struggled to attend. Students with the most precarious situations at home—sharing space and computers, unreliable internet service, financial strains from lost jobs—faced difficult choices about whether they could continue their studies.

Manuel Zorrilla, director of IT services and liaison to the president’s Equity Task Force, rushed to limit the damage. The college maintained a list of students considered to be at high risk, and Zorrilla deployed his staff to contact those students to find out what they needed. The IT department was able to provide some students with hardware, and negotiations with the only internet service provider in the area resulted in temporary discounts for at-home students.

Janelle Blair, head of accessibility services at the college, alerted Zorrilla to the fact that several of the assistive technologies that students used on campus were not licensed for home use and depended on specialized hardware. Zorrilla and Blair set to work identifying all of the students who used those tools and the faculty who taught those courses. With a small group of instructional designers, the team helped those instructors modify—and in some cases simply eliminate—course activities that kept students with disabilities from participating.

As the pandemic wore on, students and faculty at the college generally found ways to ensure that most students were able to maintain their studies, but a number of students withdrew altogether. College leadership and the Equity Task Force began to reconsider their approach to minimizing the digital divide, looking for strategies that will be more durable when the next disruption arises.

1 What is it?

The digital divide has been a scourge ever since information technologies began to make their way into every corner of our lives, expanding access to some while leaving others behind. Along the two primary dimensions of this divide—internet access and the hardware needed to use online resources and services—people of lower economic means, of certain racial and ethnic groups, with disabilities, and who live in rural areas consistently lag in their ability to participate fully in the technology-driven world. In some ways, that gap is smaller in higher education because colleges and universities provide hardware and high-speed internet access on campus. But when the pandemic closed campuses, the divide widened, in part because students no longer had access to campus-based support but also because the pivot to online learning created new obstacles, such as the need to have a place to participate in video learning and reliable bandwidth to support it. To be sure, many students struggled in this new reality, but the difficulties were felt more acutely by some. According to a report from the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, Black and Hispanic students and those from lower-income households reported significantly more difficulty with internet and hardware access after the pandemic struck. Students who rely on cell phones for learning had significantly more difficulty—typing is harder, some apps don’t work well on small screens—and inaccessible materials and course activities presented additional challenges for students with disabilities.

2 How does it work?

Efforts to address the fissures exposed by the pandemic can provide guidance for how to manage or shrink the digital divide after the pandemic is over. One strategy is helping faculty understand how to create learning activities that don’t disadvantage certain students. For example, virtual labs can be highly effective substitutes for in-person labs, but only for students who are able to meaningfully participate. If video is used, students need a safe, private space to study and learn. Video learning can be designed for mobile consumption and engagement, and recorded video can be low-resolution to use less bandwidth. To be accessible, videos need to be captioned, and all online resources and services must allow users with disabilities to participate. The lowest-tech option that meets the educational needs usually accommodates the widest range of users. Many institutions have provided students with hardware, software, and discounted internet access for their remote locations and have worked to deliver an online experience that is similar across all devices and connection speeds. Other institutional efforts include revising or replacing certain policies—such as for withdrawal timing, grading, proctoring, and financial matters—that exacerbate challenges for some students.

3 Who’s doing it?

The widening of the digital divide and the awareness that some students are being left behind has prompted many colleges and universities to step up their efforts to ensure equitable access to the tools and resources of learning. At the outset of the pandemic, institutions scrambled to obtain and distribute hardware to students, including computers, tablets, webcams, and internet hotspots. Where possible, students were given remote access to the software and systems they needed. Government funding, much of it from federal relief spending, was sometimes used to fill the gaps that students were experiencing. Some vendors revised pricing or usage terms for their products in ways that helped limit the expansion of the divide. Meanwhile, faculty unfamiliar with teaching online have rethought their classes, placing a premium on the services of instructional designers and educational technologists. At the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts, all instructors were required to take a course about online teaching.

4 Why is it significant?

Access to high-speed internet with an adequate data plan and a device with sufficient processing power and memory are indispensable to success in higher education. High-speed internet is more common in urban and suburban areas than in rural parts of the country, however, and some students rely on smartphones, which are inadequate for some educational activities. Differences also appear across institution type—institutions that serve lower-income students see greater gaps than other institutions, and some institutions simply don’t have the resources to address these gaps. Accessibility adds another layer to the digital divide because some assistive technologies are only available on campus. The pandemic has worsened the disparities of those who have worked the hardest to get into college. These hurdles contribute to academic difficulty, and they also lead to higher levels of stress, which harms health and well-being, creating additional impediments to academic success.

5 What are the downsides?

The digital divide is a reflection of societal disparities that are not going away, and it disadvantages some students on the basis of cultural differences. Simply having access to a device isn’t always sufficient—some devices aren’t adequate for certain activities. Countering the momentum of these societal currents takes money, and institutional budgets have been one of the casualties of the pandemic. The pandemic highlights the causes and effects of the digital divide, but many institutions will struggle to pay for programs to remedy those gaps. Another reason the digital divide seems so intractable is that technologies change rapidly, creating a moving target for solutions. Students might be uncomfortable reaching out for the help they need, and disciplinary differences for technology needs further complicate efforts to ensure equitable access to all learners.

6 Where is it going?

As higher education adapts and begins to anticipate life beyond the pandemic, institutions will need to determine whether computer labs and other facilities and services still have a role. Alternative approaches might provide more benefits to more users. Increasingly sophisticated applications will likely escalate the demand for bandwidth. Some faculty and teaching assistants have discovered that they like teaching online and will need additional formal training. Purchasing agreements and the bargaining process for software and hardware might look different as colleges and universities negotiate with a sharper focus on using tools and services that shrink the gaps between students. Licensing models might need to change to better accommodate a student body that isn’t on campus and uses personally owned hardware.

7 What are the implications for teaching and learning?

The pandemic has shined a light on the disparities that certain students face, and it made some of the disparities worse. In-person education can’t be converted overnight into effective, fully formed online learning. The principles of Universal Design for Learning, which aims to meet the needs of all students, could help broaden access and limit the digital divide. Faculty will need to pursue intentional strategies—such as asynchronous activities and resources that are less bandwidth-intensive—to limit the ways some students are left out and to cultivate outreach to students who do fall behind.

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EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit membership association created to support those who lead, manage, and use information technology to benefit higher education. The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative is an EDUCAUSE community committed to the advancement of learning through the innovative application of technology. For more information about ELI, please contact us at info@educause.edu.