by Hannah Ziegler

A student’s midterm grade is typically the product of a lot of hard work and long hours spent studying. But, this year there may be another factor playing an important role for students at the University of Maryland: a reliable internet connection.

At the beginning of the fall semester, this university’s administration knew that ensuring every student’s access to the internet would be crucial. For on-campus students, UMD’s IT Service Desk staff  “continued to maintain the university’s wired networks and troubleshoot reported issues,” per a university statement. The statement also states that the number of reports related to wireless connection has generally continued to decline week after week.

During this past spring semester, the Division of IT procured mobile hotspots to help university community members connect to the internet for remote learning. In an effort to provide reliable internet access to off-campus UMD students, mobile hotspots continue to be available for loan to students during this  semester, with special attention to those students with a critical need, according to a university statement.

At the start of the fall semester, the Division of IT distributed 100 laptops and loaned 78 hotspots to students. But, as students gear up for the first exams of this school year, the stakes for stable connection during class periods are higher than ever.

As schools across the country weighed the pros and cons of returning to in-person instruction over the summer, access to reliable internet for students was a major talking point. Approximately 19 million Americans — 6 percent of the population — lack access to reliable broadband internet service, according to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2019 Broadband Deployment Report. 

“The United States is behind a lot of similar countries in terms of high speed broadband penetration across the nation. In many places, what you have is a duopoly or a monopoly of the connectivity market,” said M.R. Sauter, an associate professor in the College of Information Studies. “If that given provider doesn’t necessarily provide high speed internet access to your specific location, or your specific house, you’re kind of out of luck.” 

While the state of Maryland ranks among the states with the best broadband access, there still remains a major digital divide – a gap between those who have internet access and those who don’t. According to Broadband Now, a database of broadband coverage across the United States, 96.6% of Maryland residents have access to broadband internet connection. 

201,000 people in Maryland, though, do not have access to a wired connection capable of sufficient speeds, and another 130,000 people do not have access to a wired internet connection at all. The areas of Maryland with the hardest hit populations of poor connectivity are also the smallest and most rural, with the lowest connectivity rate in Kent (78.0%) and Somerset (62.4%) counties, per Broadband Now. 

“The concept of the digital divide has been an ongoing issue for decades, and attempts by the US government to incentivize different companies to extend broadband to highly rural areas have not been successful,” Sauter said.

Although 98% of residents in Prince George’s County have access to reliable connection, some say campus Wi-Fi is not as reliable this semester. 

Sauter said that delivering higher education virtually has made America’s growing digital divide harder to ignore.

“It should be impossible to ignore how much the connectivity gap is manifesting itself because we are expecting every person who’s enrolled in college to have access to high speed, high quality, very stable connectivity for video calls, which is not something that everyone has, and it’s certainly something that is very expensive,” Sauter said.

Noting how the digital divide among Maryland students has impacted the landscape of administering exams this fall, some professors, including Sauter have reformatted their exams to be worked on over an extended period of time, rather than in one sit-down session. 

This fall will serve as the first look for many students into the university’s “new normal” for administering tests. 

Although some professors have opted to have open-note exams or swap out the written response questions for a weeks-long group project or essay to minimize the stakes for reliable internet connection, this has not stopped students like Faith Antoinetti from struggling with connectivity. 

“We were given a week to take this exam. I was trying to write this essay for it, and over  two days, I couldn’t write it because my Wi-Fi kept on glitching and the document couldn’t save my data,” said Antoinetti, a freshman anthropology major living off-campus at her home in Gaithersburg, Maryland.  “Eventually, I was like ‘Okay, I’m gonna use all the Wi-Fi power I have here to tell my teachers that I can’t do it.’”

In response to issues that may arise during fall semester exams, the university has advised instructors to be flexible and “understand the challenges faced by students who are learning remotely on and off campus,” according to a university statement. 

Instructors have also been advised to create and deliver assessments through ELMS-Canvas so they can manage any issues that students may encounter during the exam. The Division of IT also made a webpage to help the university community meet technology-related needs, including access to a reliable network.

Although Antoinetti is one of eight children, she said she’s unphased by distractions to her work environment during this exam season.

“I think I’m lucky to actually be at home because if I was on campus, there would be a lot more like new things that I would be transitioning to, but here that’s the only issue I deal with on a day-to-day basis,” she said. 

Still, midterms this fall will serve as the first exposure to college testing environments for new students like Antoinetti, which only adds to the pressure for stable connectivity during exam periods. 

“I’m not a stranger to taking online exams, and I had experience from high school doing them, but I can see how people who haven’t done online tests before could experience more distractions during midterms.” Antoinetti said.

Featured photo: Some students may struggle with accessing reliable internet connection this fall. Photo by Hannah Ziegler.