IB Diploma Programme Digital Society HL (first assessment 2024; 2021 guide). This topic equips the HL EXTENSION (5.1 global well-being, 5.2 governance and human rights, 5.3 sustainable development) and Paper 3 (25% HL): questions on an intervention related to an HL extension challenge, outlined in a pre-released brief. This handout teaches the three challenges, the intervention read and the evaluation craft. All worked examples are original classroom cases.
Must-know for hl challenges and interventions:
Family
Content
well-being
5.1: digital life and flourishing: whose welfare, which harms
governance
5.2: who rules the digital: rights, states, platforms
sustainable development
5.3: digital futures that can be sustained: energy, materials, access
intervention
a deliberate act on a challenge: policy, design, campaign
evaluation
effectiveness judged: equity and acceptability, evidence weighed
4.2
The three challenges
The HL extension names three contemporary challenges 挑战. GLOBAL WELL-BEING (5.1): digital life against flourishing (attention economies, connection and loneliness, the measured self). GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS (5.2): who rules the digital (content moderation as private law; surveillance and its limits; rights asserted against platforms and states). SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (5.3): digital futures that can be sustained (energy and mining for the machines; e-waste; access as a development question). Each challenge is a field of contest, not a topic to summarize.
Worked case. The school's phone-locker policy read as all three: well-being (attention returned to the classroom?), governance (who decided, and by what right?), sustainability (lockers built, phones still made).
Paper 3 gives a pre-released brief outlining an intervention 干预: a deliberate act on a challenge (a policy, a design change, a campaign). The read: WHAT it intervenes on (the mechanism, not the mission statement), WHO acts and who is acted on (the school locks, the students are locked), and WHAT CHANGE it claims (the outcome the brief predicts). The intervention is a case with perspectives like any source: the designer's, the target's, the regulator's.
Worked case, continued. The brief's intervention: a focus-mode feature that hides notifications for six hours. Mechanism: the notification layer silenced; actors: the company designs, the user opts in, the group-chat waits; claimed change: attention reclaimed at meals.
Effectiveness is judged on two axes named in the course: equity 公平 (who gains, who loses, who was never asked: focus mode helps the disciplined and hides the caregiver who must answer) and acceptability 可接受性 (do the affected accept the means: silence chosen differs from silence imposed). The evaluation weighs evidence (trials, testimony, data) and reaches a verdict that names its limits: a good Paper 3 answer is an argued judgement, not a summary of the brief.
Worked case, concluded. The verdict on focus mode: effective for self-chosen attention (evidence: usage trials), weak on equity (the always-reachable lose most), acceptable where chosen and not where imposed: the limits named (one platform, one term, self-reported attention).
The intervention read: mechanism, actors, claimed change (intervention).
Equity and acceptability weighed to a verdict with limits (evaluation).
Boundary notes: the examiner must see the inquiry working: concepts named, sources diverse and evaluated, real-world examples real. All worked examples are original classroom cases.
Supported preparation: HL intervention evaluation
Scope and prerequisites
IB digital society first assessment 2024. Integrate concepts, content and contexts. Inquiry uses a process document, recorded multimedia presentation and references; HL adds global well-being, governance/human rights and sustainable development interventions.
Mapped preparation outcomes: ib_digital_society_hl.4.1, ib_digital_society_hl.4.2. Read the matching native lesson first. Actual approved choices, evidence and final learner work remain separate.
Source vocabulary
intervention 干预措施; feasibility 可行性.
Explanation and worked method
An intervention needs a mechanism, resources, acceptable implementation and an outcome test. Equity asks who benefits or remains excluded; sustainability asks whether operation can continue under realistic costs and material demands.
Task: add an assisted booking channel for people with poor connectivity. Evaluate a small trial and an expansion condition.
Train staff, protect data and measure successful bookings among the previously excluded group, including waiting time and costs. Compare with the existing channel; examine displacement of other services and user acceptability. Expand only if the access gain persists within feasible staffing and maintenance. A fictional case rehearses the method and cannot replace the current pre-released stimulus.
Independent transfer
Assisted bookings increase but waiting time for every service rises sharply. Revise the intervention.
Attempt independently before reading the model.
Checked original model
Access gains may be displaced by staff bottlenecks. Compare staffing, queues, costs and the affected groups, then trial scheduling or added capacity within feasible resources. Expansion should depend on sustainable completed access, not bookings alone.
These are authored formative expectations, not official IB descriptors. Accept other justified arguments with evidence and material limits.
Source and task holds
This supplement teaches the method for this part of the course. The full assessment criteria and any texts your school chooses come from your teacher.
Interactive lessons on this topic
Work through it step by step, with instant-check exercises.
