Distant and Remote Work & Learning: Call to Action Tackle the Digital Divide Issue

Andrea Ballinger, Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer, Oregon State University

When I first joined Oregon State University (OSU) as Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer (CIO), I learned of an orientation tradition – or some may describe it as a test - for new CIOs. My team shared that the previous two CIOs faced a major crisis as part of their orientation into the role. The CIO two times removed had come into a major financial crisis, a budget shortfall over $6 million. The previous CIO faced a major fire in our steam tunnel system caused by a high voltage arc flash that vaporized everything, including our communications network, in 150 feet of tunnel at the heart of campus. My response to them was “Bring it on”. I am ready for anything.

Of course, I took their warning with a grain of salt and didn't think anything of it, but the tradition came crashing down on me. I had been at OSU for a little over 100 business days when the world came to a screeching halt. The reality of the pandemic started to set in, and we had no idea how long it would last. The university was forced to close its campuses and send every faculty, staff, and student home. Literally overnight, we became a completely remote university.

The good news was all the basic technologies needed to operate remotely were already in place, and I had a phenomenal group of technologists on my team and within distributed campus IT. We were resilient. We already had our learning management system, Canvas, Microsoft 365, and Kaltura, our media management system, in the cloud, and we had an enterprise license for Zoom. Our IT professionals went out of their way to make all the IT changes required in a short time, so that OSU could continue to deliver on its teaching, research, and extension missions.

In addition, we had an exceptional role model for remote instruction, our nationally recognized online program, Ecampus, and great resources and services for students struggling to pay for food, housing, computers, and the Internet. We built on those services and ordered extra laptops, hotspots, updated classrooms with Zoom equipment, and faculty and staff took equipment home. In the early days I felt optimistic and proud of our ability to quickly respond to the needs created by the pandemic.

But the orientation gods yelled “not so fast.” We started to hear from faculty, staff, and students that they did not have needed equipment and/or reliable internet access. What I hadn't realized was the level of need and just how many relied heavily on the resources we normally provided on campus—efficient staff and faculty computers, student computer labs, high-speed and reliable networks, Wi-Fi everywhere, and the availability of our always ready-to-assist, service desk. When everyone was sent home, these resources were suddenly unavailable. Every faculty, staff, and student was forced to rely on their homes’ internet access and in some cases their personal equipment.

What was not immediately evident was that as faculty, staff and students went home they were not alone – their family members were also sent home. Even if they had a family computer and/or internet access to fully engage with work or school, the speed of their internet access was a hindrance. We learned that full engagement (video chat, uploading and downloading documents and images, collaborating online, etc.) required 100 Mbps both down and up. The bandwidth available for the 3-5 people from the same house did not approach that. Many homes had little or no access to internet resources, or it was cost prohibitive when so many families lost jobs and income because they could not work remotely.

“With my new appreciation of the digital divide, I was propelled to immediately act and have tough conversations about the resources needed to find a path toward the future.”

Until this time I had assumed the size of the divide problem was manageable because of the resources we offered on campus. I became intimately aware of the real depth and breadth of the digital divide. I recognized the digital divide means the chasm between those who have affordable and safe (cyber protection and data privacy) internet access at home, have a computer and a place to use it, are digitally literate, and have virtual support in their primary language. There are many who do not have these advantages, including many members of the campus community. With my new appreciation of the digital divide, I was propelled to immediately act and have tough conversations about the resources needed to find a path toward the future.

I took three actions to help those impacted by the digital divide. I brought K-20 CIOs together to expand the use of Eduroam by all educational institutions in the Oregon and allow all students to take advantage of that extensive network, including some public spaces such as city Wi-Fi, without cost. And second, during the height of Covid, I worked with my team to extend Wi-Fi to the parking lots of many OSU campus and extension offices across the state. Finally, in my role as Chair of the Board of Directors for Link Oregon, Oregon’s state research, education and government network, I engaged with our Tribal Community Leaders learning from them about the opportunities and challenges associated with closing the digital divide. After three summits, I am impressed with the level of their passion for finding a resilient solution and recognition that not one person or group has all the answers. Yet, I am not done and hope the reader is not either.

Luckily, I was not the only one to awaken to the complexity of this issue. I want to use this opportunity to challenge and motivate all of us to solve this problem. The federal government (via American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and its Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program) and state governments will have major grants to address this public need, so we have a real opportunity to erase the digital divide. Time to act, no excuse.

Financial

Microsoft

Learning Management