The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is in the process of drafting guidance for its new grant programs established by the Digital Equity Act and funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. As the agency works to shape the programs’ future, they issued a request for comments on the design and implementation of two components of the initiative: the $1.44 billion State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program and the $1.25 billion Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program.
The Quello Center at Michigan State University, the Digital Equity Research Center at the Metropolitan New York Library Council, and Merit Network, three organizations uniquely positioned to advise on assessment of these programs, prepared and submitted joint comments for NTIA’s consideration. These comments, informed by 25 years of published research, stress the importance of shared metrics, flexible capacities, and a focus on both near and long-term broader community outcomes for digital equity.
In response to questions about defining success for the Capacity Grant Program and measuring program effectiveness and effects for Covered Populations, our organizations briefly summarized how the recently-released Digital Opportunities Compass and in-development tool can assist planners in benchmarking tactics to increase digital equity and ensure the efficacy of their efforts is assessed and quantified over time. We also shared ways the Digital Equity Ecosystems Measurement Framework, developed by the DERC in coordination with Telos Learning, can inform the development of NTIA’s reporting requirements for the Capacity Grant Program, including specific suggestions for monitoring and measuring the work of local coalitions in supporting implementation and evaluation of work to come.
Read our full comments on regulations.gov.
