Sets out a controlled approach to strengthening digital inclusion through documented follow-up, covering diagnosis, responsible action, outcome evidence and sustained effect.
In 2021, consideration of digital inclusion must take account of the persistent connectivity and device gaps and the responsibilities it places before education systems. For corrective action, improvement should begin with a defined problem, a credible account of its causes and a measure capable of showing whether the response has worked. Assessment should consider learner impact, institutional accountability and stewardship of entrusted resources.
Defining the problem
For digital inclusion, the public interest is not confined to institutional compliance. For the corrective action, a change in delivery mode should not weaken the defined learning outcomes, learner protection, accessibility or reliability of assessment. Learner protection requires intelligible information and a timely means of reviewing consequential mistakes or unfair decisions.
- Test access before requiring use.
- Support staff and learners before using it to determine a learner or provider outcome.
- Provide alternative routes for material barriers.
- Define the educational purpose of the technology.
- Assure assessment validity.
Improvement method
The persistent connectivity and device gaps provides the contemporaneous context. It does not, without setting-specific evidence, demonstrate the operation of digital inclusion.
In the context of digital inclusion, effectiveness is the demonstrated change in the condition the action was intended to address. Completion of training, publication of guidance or installation of a system is an output and should not be reported as an outcome without further evidence. The judgement should state its supporting evidence and any condition limiting application to the declared scope.
Measures and review
In work concerning digital inclusion, responsibility should be identifiable at the point where consequential decisions are made. A complete improvement record should define the baseline, affected scope, causal hypothesis, responsible owner, resources, milestones and measures of effectiveness. Within the scope under review, escalation should follow whenever the available record cannot support a safe conclusion for the affected learners.
The principal risks in relation to the matter are inaccessible content or interaction, reduced opportunities for timely support, assessment methods that do not support valid judgements, and supplier dependency without continuity controls. For digital inclusion, the risks are interdependent; failure of one control may conceal or disable another. Documents should be tested against the decision process they record and the outcome that followed.
- What was the baseline?
- Did the effect reach the intended group?
- When should an effect be visible?
- What condition should change?
- Has the improvement been sustained?
Residual risk and follow-up
Relevant evidence for digital inclusion will normally include assessment validity and integrity reviews, supplier performance and exit arrangements, accessibility and usability testing, delivery-mode design and approval records, and teacher capability and workload information. The record for digital inclusion should retain disagreement between sources until its cause and effect are understood.
When examining digital inclusion, implementation of the intended improvement can be tested without imposing unnecessary reporting. Responsible bodies should set a baseline and success measure before intervention, define the review period, compare the result with the intended outcome and examine adverse or unequal effects. Continue monitoring long enough to determine whether the improvement is sustained. The assurance record may draw on existing sources, provided their limitations and fitness for the current purpose are examined.
Residual risk and follow-up
A decision to close improvement work on digital inclusion should be made by a person with authority and sufficient independence from implementation.
As regards digital inclusion, analysis should remain within the limits of the evidence. Correcting an individual record does not establish that the process which produced the error has been corrected. Digital participation data should not be treated as a direct measure of learning. Within the scope under review, log-ins, connection time and activity counts require interpretation alongside assessment and learner experience. Material uncertainty should result in further enquiry or an expressly limited finding.
For digital inclusion, decisions concerning the matter should remain traceable to the information available for the stated reference period. A revision should state whether the change concerns the underlying condition, the evidence, the method or the interpretation.
Accountability for digital inclusion should follow decision-making authority. Where work is delegated, the record should continue to identify who is accountable for material consequences to learners.
Assessment of the matter should reconcile more than one source of evidence and control. The final judgement on digital inclusion should connect the applicable expectation to implementation and outcomes while identifying unresolved risk.