D2IE Team: Addressing Digital Divide and Inclusion in Education
UPDATE: Our paper "K-12 Education in the Digital Age" has been accepted at Northeastern Educational Research Association Conference: 2021 Using Data to Solve Education's Challenges. We will be presenting our results on October 15, 2021.
Our Team was selected first place in the XPRIZE Challenge (May 2021): News Story, and Microsoft/ODI Blog Post.
View an Executive Summary with links to interactive mapping of the team's results and recommendations to the XPRIZE review board.
As a result of identifying a large seven-county area of critical need across northern New Mexico, the team is now partnering with Los Alamos National Lab Foundation, along with the New Mexico Broadband Collective and the CommUNITY Learning Network to lend our research and data analytics to their current efforts for digital equity and reliable fast internet access across all counties and tribes in New Mexico.
Team Background and Members:
This unique XPRIZE Team organizes an educational research and policy student team for the Open Data Insitute's (ODI) education challenge sponsored by Microsoft as a global XPRIZE Challenge. The primary purpose of our team is to address the lack of access to reliable and fast internet connections for learners in the U.S. (and globally), especially in light of COVID-19 pandemic pressures. We also endeavor to include accurate measures and better training in digital literacy for all people.
Team Members:
Cary K. Jim, Ph.D. Candidate in Information Science, University of North Texas (Team Co-Lead)
Alison Grant, Ph.D. Candidate in Applied Economics, Purdue University (Team Co-Lead)
Mai Anh Tran Nguyen, Undergraduate in Computer Science, Bryn Mawr College
Nathan R. Kanter, Undergraduate in Data Visualization/Web Programming & Design, Purdue University
Kena Nicol, GIS Specialist, Dallas College, Dallas, TX (Advisor on spatial data)
Brent T. Ladd, Director of Education, Center for Science of Information, Purdue University (Team Advisor/Organizer)
Education Open Data Challenge: The Impact of Digital Access on Education During Covid-19
Read about the challenge at the XPRIZE website. In summary, the ODI is working through XPRIZE with the advocacy group BroadBandNow and Microsoft to offer an open data challenge to work with available public data sets to uncover insights and propose solutions where the top teams will get to choose the eligible non-profit organizations that receive shares of a £100,000 prize. Whether or not our team wins, we have this opportunity to contribute to addressing this serious problem.
XPRIZE Education Data Challenge Deadlines (2021):
Team Collaboration Proposals - Due January 31
Teams Submit Findings/Solutions -Due April 2
Finalists Present to Judges - May 4
Team Documents:
Executive Summary of XPRIZE Results (PDF)