Digital Inquiry Group

The Digital Inquiry Group (DIG) spun out of Stanford in 2023 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to preparing individuals to make sense of the past and navigate our digital present. DIG is the nation's largest provider of free, open-source social studies curriculum. Our Reading Like a Historian lessons and Beyond the Bubble assessments have been downloaded more than 17 million times. More than half of America's social studies teachers use our materials, and over 450,000 educators are registered on our site. Our Civic Online Reasoning curriculum teaches students to do what professional fact-checkers do: find out who is behind a claim, trace it to its source, and check it against other evidence. Research by DIG and scholars around the world has consistently shown that these materials lead to significant improvements in students’ ability to discern the credibility of online information. In a moment of political polarization, our resources appear on the recommended lists of 42 state departments of education, in red, blue, and purple states alike. Our ideas have traveled far beyond K-12 classrooms, shaping a 46-nation Council of Europe digital literacy initiative, a YouTube series with John Green viewed more than 5.5 million times, and digital literacy content in Minecraft, the world’s best-selling videogame.

Our work builds on more than 20 years as the Stanford History Education Group. While no longer based at Stanford, we’ve retained the research-to-practice model that set us apart. We study how young people actually make sense of information, design and test strategies in real classrooms, publish in peer-reviewed research, and then share what works for free on our website. Our research has appeared in leading academic journals, and our findings have been featured in a wide range of outlets, including The New York Times, the BBC, and The Wall Street Journal. We also offer a range of professional development opportunities to support educators to implement our resources. We have provided professional development to more than 120 school districts, educational organizations, and universities, including partnerships with some of the nation’s largest districts.