CAREER: A Community-based Approach to Empowered Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure Measurement

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

The research will develop methods by which to design and evaluate information and communication technology (ICT) measurement efforts such that deployment efforts can be held accountable to the citizens they are intended to serve. While there have been several federal efforts to increase the deployment of broadband infrastructure across the United States, many communities seem to be persistently excluded from the impacts of these deployment efforts.

It can be especially challenging to quantify these inequities for mobile broadband technologies. Currently, government subsidized broadband deployment efforts rely on provider-generated coverage maps, which use radio propagation models to demonstrate where mobile broadband is available across space. Ad hoc investigations of these maps have revealed that propagation models substantially overstate the penetration of ICT infrastructure and point to a need for widespread measurements of ICT infrastructure to better assess the true extent of coverage.

As ICT infrastructure becomes increasingly necessary for essential services such as education, healthcare, banking, and civic participation, accurate assessment of ICT infrastructure accessibility becomes essential. To measure ICT infrastructure at scale and in a manner that illuminates inequities, it is necessary to rely on crowdsourced measurements of ICT infrastructure.

This research seeks to answer two fundamental questions that drive ICT infrastructure policymaking and deployments: How do we know that ICT infrastructure deployment efforts are actually improving access to ICT infrastructure and how should crowdsourcing platforms for ICT measurements be designed in order to ensure that representative data are generated by crowdsourced ICT measurement efforts? Research activities will seek answers in three successive strands: (1) an ethnographic investigation of conceptualizations around ICT measurement and mapping; (2) the design and implementation of an innovative measurement platform; and, (3) the deployment and evaluation of the measurement platform.

Meta-analysis of data collected in each of these research strands will culminate in a transferable theory of design for inclusive crowdsourced ICT measurements. Moreover, education activities will work synergistically with the research to broaden participation in computing through inclusive problem-based curricular design and mentoring students through mixed-methods sociotechnical research approaches.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.