Connected and Capable

Chapter 1

From connection to capability

Researchers have long described the digital divide in levels. The first is physical access. The second is skills and use. The third is outcomes: whether using technology actually improves someone's life.

The dissertation draws on this research to explain why connection alone falls short. People differ in operational, informational, communicative, and strategic skills, and in their ability to turn technology use into real benefits (DiMaggio & Hargittai, 2001; Scheerder et al., 2017; van Deursen & van Dijk, 2015, via Ross, 2026). Disadvantage at one level constrains the next.

What the experts rated highest

The dissertation's expert questionnaire asked practitioners to rate barriers and solutions. Digital skills came out on top on both sides of the ledger.

The dissertation reads this as its clearest cross-question finding: infrastructure can make connection possible, but skills and confidence make connection usable. Its RQ1 analysis finds that people commonly lacked foundational competencies in device operation, Internet navigation, troubleshooting, online safety, and educational software.

Digital literacy is the pivotal mechanism between access and outcomes.Ross (2026), questionnaire findings heading

Three domains, one layer above them

Artificial intelligence cuts across all three. Chapter 5 explains why the dissertation treats it as a new divide layered on the old ones rather than a separate issue.

Chapter 2

Skills for life

More of daily life now runs through a screen: renewing an ID, paying a bill, booking a clinic visit, applying for benefits, talking with family. Each step assumes skills many people were never taught.

The dissertation lists the everyday tasks where people get stuck: operating devices, navigating websites, evaluating information, protecting personal information, completing online forms, troubleshooting, and understanding how digital services are relevant to everyday needs. Florida's state plan describes digital literacy as needing both cognitive and technical capabilities (Florida Office of Broadband, 2023, via Ross, 2026). Kansas notes that some people do not see what broadband offers them because of limited knowledge or experience (Kansas Office of Broadband Development, 2023a, via Ross, 2026).

The hidden cost of digital government

The dissertation draws on Alfalah et al. (2025), who connect the digital divide to administrative burden. Complex procedures, compliance costs, and psychological costs can block people even where access and skills exist. As public services move online, the skill demanded of the user rises, and so does the cost of not having it. The dissertation's international analysis warns that moving a government service online should be accompanied by an inclusion strategy.

Confidence, safety, and someone to ask

For older adults, the Hawaiʻi Digital Inclusion Roadmap names infrastructure, affordability, confidence, social support, safety, and usable assistance as linked conditions for staying online (AARP Hawaiʻi, 2021, via Ross, 2026). Its companion directory turns that into a path: skills classes, affordable devices, bill help, technical support, and one-to-one assistance (AARP Hawaiʻi, 2023). The dissertation's conclusion is simple: people can own a connection and a device and remain excluded without the confidence, knowledge, skills, or support to use them.

The life skills

How communities are building them

Chapter 3

Skills for learning

Contemporary learning depends on learning management systems, multimedia, online research, and videoconferencing. A student who cannot use them is excluded from the lesson even when sitting in front of it.

The dissertation treats learning as a continuum in time and place: classroom, homework, communication with parents, tutoring, college enrollment, workforce training, and lifelong learning. It expanded its own definition of digital literacy beyond student competencies to include educator professional development, parent and caregiver capacity, technical support, accessibility, cybersecurity, and lifelong learning.

Four groups who need skills

1. Students, who need operational and informational skills plus the ability to use educational software and platforms.
2. Teachers and faculty. Teacher digital training was rated highly by the expert panel (M = 3.70). Devices and connectivity have the most impact when combined with instruction, technical support, and educator support (Martin et al., 2026, via Ross, 2026), and professional development should match educators' differing skill levels (Gibbs et al., 2009, via Ross, 2026).
3. Parents and caregivers, who decide the terms of home use and navigate school portals. The hotspot use case notes they decide how adoption happens at home.
4. Learners with disabilities. Inadequate support for students with special needs was among the top post-access limitations (M = 3.75).

What the education records show

The dissertation's education-specific analysis of the coded dataset found that the solution themes shift by level. In K-12, the leading theme was access to education and support for students and institutions, including student tech support and libraries. In colleges, the leading themes were emerging technologies, AI and STEM, and cybersecurity readiness, followed by workforce and career programs and libraries for digital literacy and navigation. The dissertation concludes that colleges are both access institutions and capacity-building institutions.

States are building this capacity through their plans. Illinois documented digital literacy and digital citizenship resources for students, educators, and community members (Illinois Office of Broadband, 2023, via Ross, 2026). Virginia identified schools, universities, and community colleges as providers of devices and skills courses for people at varying experience levels (Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, 2024, via Ross, 2026).

The learning skills

How countries are building them

Chapter 4

Skills for work

Digital skills are no longer confined to technology jobs. Searching for work, applying, interviewing, training, and dealing with payroll and benefits now assume them.

The dissertation cites an FCC-supported workforce partnership that found a substantial basic digital literacy deficit at the same moment employers increasingly required digitally capable workers and online hiring (Usdan & Almasy, 2012, via Ross, 2026). It lists the routine employment functions that now require digital competence: job searches, applications, résumé submission, workforce training, communication with employers, and benefits administration. A skills deficit, it concludes, can become an employment barrier even where broadband is available.

The same applies to small businesses, which can be left behind if they cannot adopt e-commerce, cloud services, online marketing, digital payments, or other tools needed to compete.

Skills as a bridge to opportunity

In the dissertation's international analysis, digital literacy, skills, navigation, and workforce readiness appeared in 3,966 records, 44.3% of the non-U.S. subset. The analysis notes that skills solutions now reach well beyond basic computer operation, into digital communication, coding, data literacy, media and information literacy, entrepreneurship, AI, cybersecurity, platform use, and occupational technology skills (Digital Innovators & Entrepreneurs, 2024, via Ross, 2026). Training is worth more when learners can apply it, so workforce readiness works as a bridge between capability and economic participation (World Bank, 2016, via Ross, 2026).

In the education-coded workforce theme, the most common solution themes were digital literacy, STEM skills, and navigation support, followed by career and economic mobility programs. In the model's terms, the dissertation calls for connecting digital literacy, certifications, career navigation, broadband access, and employer partnerships so that inclusion becomes a pathway to economic mobility rather than a stand-alone access program.

The work skills

How countries and communities are building them

Chapter 5

AI: a new divide on top of the old

The dissertation finds the divide shifting from first-level access toward new forms of exclusion tied to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud computing, data systems, and advanced skills.

In its international analysis, AI readiness, emerging technologies, cloud systems, data, and advanced digital capacity appeared in 3,810 records, or 42.6% of the non-U.S. subset. Earlier divides centred on Internet and device access. Newer exclusion involves unequal access to computing power, AI systems, specialized software, cloud environments, cybersecurity knowledge, and future-of-work skills.

Layered, not replaced

The most important point the dissertation makes about AI is structural. Drawing on the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, it concludes that the emerging AI divide does not replace the traditional divide. Advanced technology disparities are layered on top of unresolved gaps in infrastructure, affordability, devices, and skills (GPAI, 2023, via Ross, 2026).

Who is at risk

The dissertation's model treats AI as an adverse condition as well as an opportunity. AI tools can improve accessibility, instruction, navigation, and service delivery, but they can deepen inequality by assuming equal access to bandwidth, suitable devices, data protection, language fluency, technical support, and AI literacy. Those most at risk are the people already behind on earlier layers: households without home broadband or a capable device, people with low foundational skills, speakers of languages poorly represented in AI systems, and countries without computing and research capacity.

"We can't offer AI solutions to someone who doesn't know how to use the internet in the first place."Interview participant QM, via Ross (2026)

The harms also differ by context. Material from the Royal United Services Institute on Africa emphasizes solutions that are culturally grounded and able to address disinformation, online hate, gender-based violence, and other harms intensified by emerging technologies (RUSI, 2025, via Ross, 2026). Research on AI assistive technology for students with visual disabilities raises affordability, privacy, transparency, and institutional support (Alnajdi et al., 2025, via Ross, 2026).

What meaningful AI inclusion means

The dissertation's AI Literacy and Digital Skills use case (Appendix AK, summarized in Chapter 5) defines the goal as informed, accountable participation rather than mere access to AI tools. It combines AI literacy, applied learning, human oversight, misinformation detection, cybersecurity, accessibility, workforce preparation, and responsible-use policies. Federal guidance it cites asks that AI in education be human-centered and attend to equity, safety, effectiveness, transparency, trust, privacy, and local context (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology, 2023, via Ross, 2026).

A caution from the dissertation itself: technology-company sources such as Samsung (2025) and LG (2026) show that the baseline of required capability is rising, but they do not on their own prove how widespread an AI divide is.

The AI skills

How countries and communities are responding

Chapter 6

How countries and communities build skills

About a third of the archive, some 2,060 records, describes skills, literacy, training, or navigation work. The approaches vary as much as the places.

Of these skills records, about 1,220 are education-connected and 755 have a workforce connection. About 170 combine skills with AI. The chart below sorts the records by approach.

Six approaches, and when each fits

The state examples in the navigator row come from the dissertation's review of state plans (North Carolina Department of Information Technology, 2023; Georgia Technology Authority, 2024; New Jersey Office of Broadband Connectivity, 2023, via Ross, 2026). That review maps low digital skills to digital literacy instruction, navigators, Digital Ambassadors, train-the-trainer programmes, and community technical support.

What the strongest programmes share

1. They pair skills with access. Cambodia's curriculum arrives with computers, internet, and teacher training; Verizon's schools combine devices with professional learning.
2. They put a trusted person nearby. Can Tho's teams, Taiwan's senior ambassadors, and library staff do what a video cannot.
3. They connect learning to a use. A job, a credential, a government service, or a child's homework.
4. They reach people others miss. Incarcerated youth, girls, seniors, unemployed adults.
5. They are funded to last. The dissertation's experts asked to make community-based digital literacy and technical support permanent.

Several AI and career programmes in the archive are led or co-led by technology companies. They extend reach, and the dissertation's safeguard thinking still applies: check data practices, vendor lock-in, and whether credentials are recognized beyond one company's products.

Chapter 7

The skills catalogue

Fifty digital skills, each with what it is, why it matters for the divide, and the source of the evidence.

Filter by domain or level, or search. Levels follow a simple progression: foundational skills everyone needs to take part safely, applied skills for specific tasks in life, learning, and work, and advanced skills for technical roles and emerging technology. Sources marked "via Ross (2026)" are cited within the dissertation; record numbers refer to the archive.

Reference

Sources

Primary sources

Ross, P. (2026). Dissertation, committee draft dated September 23, 2026. Chapter 4: Digital Divide Content Questionnaire findings; RQ1 and RQ2 results; education-specific analysis; U.S. and non-U.S. analyses; model interpretation. Chapter 5: implications, recommendations, and the AI Literacy and Digital Skills Initiative summary (Appendix AK).

Digital Divide Projects and Initiatives master file, updated September 24, 2026, digests 1 to 10 (6,295 records). Chapter 6 counts come from keyword matching on project names, activities, target populations, and the education and workforce connection fields; they are approximate.

Works cited within the dissertation

Full references as listed in Ross (2026).

Archive records cited