Travis County and the City of Austin are currently conducting a study to better understand the needs, barriers, and assets available for digital access, prioritizing low-income communities, communities of color, and other communities that have been historically and systemically marginalized. This involves
- A needs assessment to collect, analyze, and share data about community members’ access to affordable and reliable digital connectivity and resources that enable digital access (e.g. skills, devices), as well as
- Co-design and evaluate possible strategies and recommendations to increase internet connectivity and access for all.
To accomplish this, the project teams used a participatory, community-engaged approach, involving multiple phases of data collection and design.
Where is the project now?
The project is currently in the final phase of data analysis and synthesis. To get to the final reports and recommendations, the project team has been conducting multiple data co-interpretation activities from September to November, where we shared and are planning to share graphs, tables, and insights from the data with community members to provide input and interpretation to, as well as recommendations.
If you know of an event or your organization would like to participate in a data co-interpretation activity, please email.
If you want to learn more about this project, our approach, and an early stage of top-line insights, please view this presentation and/or read below. We release information iteratively and will update this webpage with additional insights, translations, and reporting outputs over time. We anticipate completing the final report at the end of 2023, and releasing in early 2024.
Want to learn more about our process?
The digital equity needs assessment was conducted in iterative phases, utilizing community feedback at multiple points along the journey. The first phase was focused on conducting a survey, while the second phase included focus groups and community conversations. Along the way, the project team engaged the Digital Empowerment Community of Austin, community advisory workshops, and a non-profit working group to provide feedback and co-design input.
For each phase of this project, we designed our data collection taking a purposive sample approach, particularly for the survey and focus groups. In other words, we prioritized geographies and populations that had already been identified by other research to have disproportionate rates of experiences of digital inequities. For each phase of this project, we designed our data collection taking a purposive sample approach, particularly for the survey and focus groups. In other words, we prioritized geographies and populations that had already been identified by other research to have disproportionate rates of experiences of digital inequities.
Survey and Outreach
The survey questions were designed through an iterative process, seeking feedback at Digital Empowerment Community of Austin (DECA) meetings and asynchronously from members, as well as from the survey outreach team. Initial survey items were informed by multiple sources, including Roberto Gallardo's digital capital survey, Dona Ana NM's Broadband survey, the Austin Social Inclusion Taskforce 2020 survey, and the 2018 UT digital inclusion survey.
Surveys were conducted from January through April 2023 through a combination of door-to-door and at public spaces where given permission (e.g. stores, community centers) in and around census tracts identified as high divide in the Digital Divide Index [https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8ad45c48ba5c43d8ad36240ff0ea0dc7]. The survey was administered verbally by outreach team members who were bilingual in Spanish and English and the survey itself was also translated in Spanish and English. The final survey sample, not including the piloting phases, resulted in 1382 responses for analysis. Updates on the survey process and sampling strategy were regularly shared during DECA biweekly meetings.
While gathering survey data, the outreach team also disseminated paper copies of the Digital Needs Resource Guide, as well as flyers for the Affordable Connectivity Program. An estimated 4000 guides and flyers were distributed during the survey gathering phase. Following the survey phase, the outreach team pivoted to focus on resource sharing, returning to those same areas to share materials about the Affordable Connectivity Program, and directly help community members sign up. Through that phase, the outreach team distributed another 6000 flyers, and helped over 330 community members begin the ACP-signup process. The outreach team was able to directly support an additional 170 community members in completing the sign-up process to receive the ACP benefit, which estimates to approximately $62,000 in savings to community members (estimating $30/m benefit for 12 months).
Advisory Workshops
To prepare for the second phase of the project, which included community conversations and data co-interpretation, Travis County and the City of Austin hosted three community advisory workshops in February and March, which included approximately 44 individuals. One workshop was hosted in-person at a local library branch and facilitated in English, and two more workshops were hosted virtually, one facilitated in English and one facilitated in Spanish.
The workshops were designed to share the project scope and proposed design with community members for feedback and input. Participants were asked additional questions to help give insights into the outreach strategy for events, questions and information to be gathered, and ways to be more inclusive in the design. In addition to feedback about the project design, in each session, participants shared about challenges they experienced or observed related to digital access. One of the highlighted challenges was a lack of trust in government and how it could affect this project. In sharing their insights about the project, participants provided multiple recommendations or feedback summarized here:
- Add youth and rural communities in the existing list of prioritized populations.
- Involve multiple types of stakeholders to hear about the challenges and needs of community members, including: elected leaders (local, state, and national), FCC, community members and residents, internet providers, foundations/funders, and utility companies.
- In addition to seeking information through data collection, such as internet use and community needs, the next phases activities should include information sharing that helps individuals get digital resources and skills.
- Use multiple outlets to communicate about upcoming project engagement opportunities, including advertising on busses, working with local trusted organizations and groups, and ensuring that we use multiple languages.
- Work with trusted organizations and community groups to collaborate on key activities such as focus groups and data convenings.
- Especially for the data convenings, reduce jargon, make data approachable and shared in culturally responsive ways, use strategies that accommodate multiple learning styles, and organize engagement activities in ways that can include individuals who may have limited time availability (e.g. people working multiple jobs).
Community Circles
In response to the feedback we received in the advisory workshops, we organized a non-profit working group, that was composed of 19-organizations, to help in the co-design and recruitment for the community circle conversations. The working group kicked off activities in June and met weekly through July to plan and prepare for the community conversations, which occurred in August. 11 Community circles were hosted in the month of August and included 193 participants. Of the 11 sessions, 2 were facilitated in Spanish and 9 were facilitated in English. The size and length of time given for each community circle varied and was dependent on the guidance of the host organizations.
During each session, notes were documented on sticky notes and transparently displayed for participants. Using multiple rounds of coding, a single researcher who also attended all the sessions, identified and coded themes across the stickies. Unduplicated counts of themes were identified to understand frequency of themes across the sessions. A final session with the non-profit working group shared the initial insights and process for coding the qualitative data.
Next Steps and Reporting
All of the data from the surveys and community circles is currently being analyzed. Data is being summarized into graphs and written descriptions, with the intent to host presentations and data co-interpretation activities during September through November, which will inform a final report in late 2023. Activities have included presentations, resource fair tabling, and online workshops. To support the presentations using preliminary insights, the project team produced a short 15-20 minute presentation, along with a slide deck of high-level preliminary findings and insights from the study. You can see those slides here: View the presentation. Stay tuned for the final report!
