By In today’s rapidly evolving academic landscape, digital technology is central to higher education. From learning management systems (LMS) to virtual collaboration platforms, colleges and universities increasingly rely on educational technology to enhance teaching, learning, and administrative processes. Yet, despite the proliferation of edtech tools, the way institutions evaluate them often falls short.
Traditional procurement focuses on Beyond the Checklist: does a tool integrate with the LMS? Does it have an accessibility statement? Does the vendor provide a polished sales pitch? While these factors are important, they rarely capture the lived realities of students and faculty — the people who use these tools every day.
Recognizing this gap, Digital Promise collaborated with community college students, faculty, and administrators to develop a new framework for edtech evaluation in higher education — one that moves beyond compliance and centers real-world experiences. This approach introduces three evidence-based product badges that measure whether an edtech product truly meets the needs of its users.
Why Current EdTech Evaluation Falls Short
For many higher education institutions, procurement is a technical exercise. Evaluation forms often prioritize integrations, certifications, and vendor promises. While these metrics ensure a baseline level of functionality, they rarely answer questions like:
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Does the platform function reliably for students using mobile hotspots or low-bandwidth connections?
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Does it support faculty workflows for content sharing, communication, and student engagement?
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Does it accommodate users with varying levels of digital fluency?
Failing to address these questions can lead to frustration, underutilization, and wasted investment, even when the product meets all technical specifications. Students may struggle to access content, faculty may abandon certain features, and administrators may face increased support costs.
Digital Promise recognized that a new approach to edtech evaluation in higher education was needed — one that prioritizes impact, usability, and equity alongside technical compliance.
Understanding the Needs of Students and Faculty
The first step in reshaping edtech evaluation was listening. Digital Promise conducted co-design sessions, surveys, and interviews with over 300 participants from California community colleges. Their insights highlighted critical priorities:
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Students emphasized reliability across devices and networks, as well as single sign-on functionality to reduce the burden of multiple logins.
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Faculty prioritized tools that integrate seamlessly into teaching workflows, allowing efficient communication, content sharing, and student support.
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Both groups stressed the importance of digital fluency and accessibility, noting that tools must accommodate diverse skill levels and abilities.
These insights became the foundation for the Digital Promise product badges, designed to translate user priorities into measurable standards for vendors and procurement teams.
Introducing the Digital Promise Product Badges
The badges serve as evidence-based signals for both institutions and edtech vendors. They evaluate whether a product is designed for real-world effectiveness, not just technical compliance. There are three distinct badges:
1. Centering Students’ Diverse Lived Experiences
This badge evaluates whether students’ needs are central to the product’s design and functionality. Key requirements include:
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Compatibility across devices, including smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
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Reliability under low-bandwidth conditions or unstable internet connections.
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Support for varying levels of digital fluency, including intuitive interfaces, tutorials, and accessibility features.
By earning this badge, vendors demonstrate that they are building products with students’ real experiences in mind, ensuring equitable access and usability for all learners.
2. Commitment to Continuous Improvement
A static platform rarely meets the evolving needs of higher education. This badge recognizes vendors who incorporate student feedback into iterative development. Criteria include:
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Mechanisms for collecting ongoing feedback from users.
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Evidence that students have influenced product updates or enhancements.
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A culture of continuous improvement that prioritizes usability, accessibility, and educational outcomes.
This badge ensures that edtech products evolve in response to actual classroom experiences, rather than remaining fixed on outdated assumptions about learning needs.
3. Faculty Agency and Connection
Faculty are central to the success of any digital learning platform. This badge evaluates whether products empower instructors and administrators to:
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Share content efficiently and engage with students in both synchronous and asynchronous formats.
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Customize workflows to align with teaching strategies and institutional requirements.
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Participate in the product development process, ensuring their needs shape platform evolution.
By prioritizing faculty agency, this badge fosters better adoption, engagement, and instructional impact, ultimately improving student learning outcomes.
How the Badge Review Process Works
Vendors can apply for each badge through a rigorous, evidence-based review process. Digital Promise evaluates products based on criteria derived directly from student, faculty, and administrator input. Certification signals that a product has been vetted for real-world usability, accessibility, and impact, providing a reliable guide for procurement leaders.
The inaugural cohort of certified products demonstrates the framework’s effectiveness:
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Anthology: Blackboard Learn
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ConexED: Cranium Café
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Pronto: Team Communication
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Innovative Educators: Go2Orientation, Go2Knowledge, ParentLingo, StudentLingo, TutorLingo, OnlineLingo
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EAB: Navigate 360, Starfish
These platforms exemplify user-centered design principles, addressing both the technical and experiential dimensions of edtech in higher education.
Benefits for Higher Education Institutions
The new framework for edtech evaluation in higher education offers multiple advantages for colleges and universities:
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Evidence-based procurement: Institutions can select products with proven impact on students and faculty.
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Reduced adoption risk: Choosing certified products lowers the likelihood of frustration or underutilization.
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Enhanced equity and accessibility: Tools that meet diverse student needs promote inclusive learning environments.
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Alignment with strategic goals: Custom badge frameworks allow institutions to prioritize outcomes that matter most to their communities.
By moving beyond technical checklists, institutions can prioritize learning outcomes, usability, and equity, creating a more effective and student-centered technology ecosystem.
Benefits for EdTech Vendors
For edtech companies, the badge framework provides:
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A market signal of quality and impact that differentiates products from competitors.
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Guidance for user-centered product development, emphasizing accessibility, usability, and real-world application.
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Enhanced adoption potential, as products designed with faculty and student input are more likely to be embraced by institutions.
Vendors that participate in the certification process demonstrate a commitment to meaningful educational impact, building trust with both procurement leaders and end-users.
Co-Design: A Critical Component of EdTech Success
Co-design is at the heart of this new approach. By involving students and faculty directly in product development:
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Features align with classroom workflows and real-world usage.
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Accessibility and usability are embedded from the start, not added retroactively.
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Tools reflect the diverse needs of learners and instructors, creating a more inclusive digital learning environment.
The collaboration between Digital Promise and the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office exemplifies this process. Participants shaped the badge criteria, ensuring that evaluation metrics truly reflect user priorities.
Co-design also enhances adoption and engagement, as platforms developed with user input are easier to integrate, reducing training costs and friction.
Scaling Impact Across Higher Education
Digital Promise’s badge framework represents a shift toward evidence-driven edtech adoption. Institutions can:
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Streamline procurement by identifying products with validated impact.
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Support continuous improvement through vendor partnerships.
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Foster equity and inclusion by choosing tools designed for diverse users.
Vendors, in turn, gain a clear pathway for demonstrating impact, improving credibility and adoption across the sector.
The Future of EdTech Evaluation
As digital technology becomes increasingly central to higher education, evaluation frameworks must evolve. The Digital Promise badges provide a new standard, emphasizing usability, accessibility, and measurable impact.
Key takeaways for institutions and vendors include:
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Student-centered design is essential for adoption and engagement.
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Faculty involvement ensures platforms support teaching and administrative workflows.
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Iterative improvement allows products to evolve in step with changing educational needs.
By moving beyond checklists and integrating evidence-based standards, institutions can make smarter technology investments that truly enhance learning outcomes.
Conclusion
Traditional edtech evaluation often prioritizes technical compliance over real-world impact. Digital Promise’s approach to edtech evaluation in higher education shifts the focus to student and faculty experience, continuous improvement, and evidence-based certification.
The result is a framework that empowers institutions to make smarter, more equitable technology decisions while encouraging vendors to prioritize meaningful educational impact. By adopting these standards, higher education can create digital learning environments that are accessible, effective, and aligned with the evolving needs of students and faculty.
