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Article
Peer-Review Record

How Is It Covered?—A Global Perspective on Teaching Themes and Perceived Gaps and Availability of Resources in University Forestry Education

Forests 2024, 15(8), 1360; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15081360
by Konsta Wilenius 1,*, Mika Rekola 1, Anne Nevgi 2 and Niclas Sandström 2
Reviewer 1: Anonymous
Reviewer 2: Anonymous
Reviewer 3: Anonymous
Forests 2024, 15(8), 1360; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15081360
Submission received: 17 June 2024 / Revised: 31 July 2024 / Accepted: 1 August 2024 / Published: 3 August 2024

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Mostly good. A few instances where sentences were awkward or redundant have been noted in comments to authors.

Author Response

Reviewer comments 

 

Authors response 

 

 

 

I would suggest a slight change in the title to “A global perspective on teaching themes and perceived resource availability in university forestry education”. 

 

The title has been changed according to suggestions by 2 reviewers to make it more interesting and depictive of the content. 

 

 

 We have re-phrased multiple parts of the Discussion to make the language more engaging and fluent.

Table 2: Themes “forest resources and ecology” and “forest enterprise” are misspelled. 

 

We have corrected the spellings. 

 

 

 

P5 l188: comma should be a period: 0.95 

 

 

 

 

corrected 

P5 l198-199: misplaced single quotes, should be: ‘not at all, to a limited extent, moderately, and very much.’ 

 

corrected 

 

 

 

P5 l200-202: spelling error should read: “to a limited extent” 

 

corrected 

 

 

 

P6 l229-230: Suggest instead “Globally, the theme of forest resources and forest ecology had the lowest frequency of inadequate coverage with 29% of respondents indicating as such for this theme.” 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

P6 l230-235: Suggest that you should spell out the categories for the topics and skills at first use. 

 

done 

 

 

 

P7 l245-246: Suggest: “In four different teaching themes, the proportion of…” 

 

changed 

 

 

 

P9 line 290: Sentence is awkward as currently written. Suggest “These were the only significant differences within this theme.” 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

P9 line 304: Are you referring to the “teachers” category within the teaching resources or teaching resources in general here? If the later, somehow reducing the number of times “teaching resources” occurs in this sentence is recommended. 

 

Was unable to find the line 

 

 

 

P9 line 306-307: reduce redundant word usage, recommend: “In most study regions, the category of Practical opportunities (e.g., experiential learning, practical training, field visits) had the lowest perceived availability.” 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

Figure 3: You have a category “A” for each region which is not explained in the figure title, I assume, though it should be made explicit in the title, that this stands for “All” in terms of resources available. 

 

Corrected 

 

 

 

P10 l316: Is an incomplete sentence, suggest: “North America and Europe and Central Asia had the lowest percentage of perceived shortages of resources overall.” (or whatever is being referred to in terms of the lowest percentage of perceived shortages). 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

P10 l322: Reduce amount of spaces between end of previous and beginning of next sentence: “…second best. Professionals…” 

 

Corrected 

 

 

 

Table 4: Again, are commas supposed to be periods? 

 

Changed 

 

 

 

P11 line 351: suggest edit “In the Teachers…” 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

P11 line 357: something needs to proceed the “learning materials”, suggest either “In the Learning materials” or “Within the Learning materials” 

 

Corrected 

 

 

 

P11 line 359-361: Not sure what you are saying here and how it differs from the previous sentence. It appears from your table 4 that Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia and the Pacific did not have statistically significant differences in the amount of negative resource availability responses. 

 

Correted to the region intended 

 

 

 

P11 line 367: Again, this is a section, not a chapter. 

 

corrested 

 

 

 

Figures 5 – 8: Forest resources and Ecology Category abbreviation should be FR&E (not FR&P) and Forest Enterprise should be the FE category (not Forest Enterprice). 

 

corrected 

 

 

 

P11 line 372: has too many spaces between words, should be “…identified as the 

 

corrected 

teaching…” 

 

 

 

 

 

P12 line 384-385: Suggest a slightly different ordering of words: “In the FS&CI and the GS themes, more than 50% of responding Teachers & Professionals perceived that these subject areas were inadequately covered.” 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

P12 line 386: According to Figure 4, this should be “with no more than 36% and 42% of responses being “inadequately covered”. 

 

corrected 

 

 

 

P14 line 443-445: suggest the following changes: “In Europe and Central Asia, the FS&CI theme was perceived as the most inadequately covered of all themes, with 54% of students, 52% of teachers, and 63% of professionals responding as such (Figure 6).” Note the change in the student percentage to match that reported in Figure 6. 

 

Has been changed according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

P14 line 452-454: Wondered why you focused on FP&M category here and not FE, as 
“inadequately covered” for the former in E&CA is 41% and lower while for FE it is 51%- 
35%. If remain with the reference to the FP&M theme, according to Figure 6, the 
percentage of students reporting should be 34%. 

 

The FP&M % corrected. And FE theme was discussed together with GE and OS themes, since they had very similar results. 

 

 

 

P14 line 457 to 460: According to Figure 6, students were generally more likely than 

 

section modified 

teachers to perceive all teaching themes as inadequately covered. 

 

 

 

 

 

P15 line 477-479: I don’t think the characterization of “dissatisfaction” is appropriate here, as that is not what was asked of respondents. Suggest something along the lines of “FE was perceived as the second most inadequately covered theme in the region, with 58% of professionals, 44% of teachers, and 40% of students expressing this view. 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

P16 line 515: Again, you refer to educational themes as subject areas: there is a difference here – a subject is something like forest ecology and educational theme would be something more like forest resources and ecology. 

 

subject area changed to themes  

 

 

 

P16 line 517-519: Suggest the following: “In North America, professionals had the highest 
percentage of “inadequate coverage” responses for the themes of FR&P, FP&M, GS, and 
OS. Teachers’ and students’ views were very close in FR&P, FP&M, and GS, with students 
a little more critical of coverage in the FR&P and GS categories.” 

 

Has been changed according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

P16 line 523: Suggest the following: Similar to the other study regions, in North America, 
only a few teaching themes did not… 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P16 line 547: Not sure what you are saying here, sentence is awkward. With categories 

 

This means that with scale this small can hide differences in respondents views, while larger (e.g. 5-point scale) scale could make them easier to indentify differences. But in the survey 3-point scale was used to make fairly long survey easier to respond. 

designed for ease of response, on a three-point scale, the survey instrument itself is prone to 

 

 

measurement errors (?). 

 

 

P17 line 563-565: Are you implying that there should be comprehensive coverage of all 6 

 

 

themes within “higher” forestry education. Isn’t the goal of “higher" forestry education to 

 

yes 

prepare graduates with a baseline comprehensive knowledge of forestry amongst those 

 

 

themes, but also to be able to be lifelong learners and to seek out knowledge for which they 

 

 

feel they are inadequately prepared throughout their life and job experiences? 

 

phrase changed 

P17 line 573 – 574, Not sure what you mean by “along time” and also “Our results 

 

 

indicate…” 

 

 

P17 line 603-605 – But what do students and professionals think about the learning 

 

The survey did not specify OER:s as its own teaching resource category, so using this data cant be used to determine OERs outcomes to teaching. 

outcomes of OER? 

 

 

P17 line 607: I think you mean “culturally dependent” 

 

Corrected according to reviewer suggestion. 

 

P18 line 614: suggest removing “already” from this sentence. 

 

deleted 

P18 line 615: The Global Forest Education Project producing a global assessment of 

 

yes 

educational themes and resource availability was a one-off effort. 

 

 

P18 line 618: remove “Already now” 

 

Already now' has been deleted. 

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript “A global perspective on teaching themes and perceived resource availability in higher forest education” aims at presenting a global perspective on forest education at the university and professional level. It is clearly presented as a sort of meta-analysis based on responses to a survey conducted for a previous publication within the context of a FAO project carried out in 2020.

Despite the interesting research questions and clear objectives, the manuscript has several issues that need to be addressed. The text is generally lengthy and redundant, and the graphical presentation is not as intuitive as it should be. The reader becomes aware that the paper presents a subset of the results already detailed in the report by Rekola, M., Sharik, T. L. "Global assessment of forest education: Creation of a Global Forest Education Platform and Launch of a Joint Initiative under the Aegis of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (FAO-ITTO-IUFRO project GCP/GLO/044/GER)." Food & Agriculture Org., 2022. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc2196en (citation #23).

 

The overall impression given by this manuscript is that it heavily relies on the aforementioned report. While this is not inherently problematic, it must be clarified that this work is deeply intertwined with that report. The differences or synergies should be well documented and clarified to avoid potential criticisms of "salami slicing”.

Operational definitions for terms like “higher education”, “resources”, “coverage” and “motivation” lack all throughout the text, making difficult to grasp the meaning and the significance of the results. Also, there is some confusion between teaching and learning. On one hand, the work seems to focus on the perception of students, but the introduction of the categories of teachers and teaching resources introduces potential distortion. Are teachers evaluating how well they cover forest education themes, or are they assessing the resources available to them? And are these resources economic, educational, or of another type?

 

Methods and Results sections need thorough reorganization to present a coherent scientific paper. The Results section contains explanations of processes undertaken during the analysis, which are redundant with the Methods section and distract from the essential message of presenting results. Introducing each paragraph with "in this chapter…” is ineffective for a scientific article and detracts from its impact. Additionally, presenting each topic with a separate graph and chapter is ineffective because it resembles a report rather than a scientific article and makes the reading experience disjointed. Grouping all graphs on one page is advisable.

 

Here follows other details that need to be addressed.

 

Title and Abstract

The title and abstract use the term "higher forest education". While I am not familiar with its use in other countries, I suggest using "higher education on forests and forest resources" for the title and abstract to increase clarity and improve discoverability in relevant literature searches. Additionally, the term “forest resources” may be misleading, as it can refer to forests' natural capital, whereas the paper discusses educational resources.

 

Introduction

Lines 31-32:

The first sentence is unclear. Rephrase to improve clarity and correct the use of the genitive, which is currently misleading.

 

Line 64:

The sentence starts with "As well." This linker should connect to the previous sentence and be separated by a comma instead of a period.

 

Line 79:

"Aforementioned" is missing the initial "A."

 

Line 85:

Should be "Global trends."

 

Lines 86-95:

This key section of the introduction needs better crafting. Check syntax and sentence construction. Define “coverage.” Clarify the term "varying" (perhaps you mean "various?"). Remove one of the periods in line 91. Explain the meaning of “perceived” – does it refer to the coverage reported by the interviewees?

 

Methods 

Line 101:

Specify all regions included in the survey here, as you mention later that a region was excluded.

 

Line 102:

Clarify whether you are referring to the survey or this analysis.

 

Line 109:

Delete the apostrophe.



Line 163:

Specify "Microsoft Office Excel." For R-Studio, provide the version of the R core as well. Moreover, since you used R, why didn’t you provide reproducible plots and data visualization prepared with this software and preferred to use Excel plots?

 

Consider using a sum instead of an average or scaling the survey results on a normalized scale. Reconsider the theoretical example provided to strengthen the justification.

 

Lines 198-199:

Check the use of brackets

 

Results Section

Explain all acronyms before using them, not just in the captions of figures and tables. Consider if it would be possible to use other types of plots and visualization methods (e.g. boxplot, lollipop charts or spider charts instead of barplots) with common x axis, to avoid repeated visualization of similar graphs.

 

Lines 210-212:

Move this sentence and similar ones to the Methods section.

 

Figure 1, Table 3:

Correct the typo in the 3rd column header to "management."

 

Other Figures:

Carefully check the category names (e.g., "enterprice" should be corrected).



Discussion and Conclusion

This section is sparse and lacks informativeness relative to the results. It references to other projects, courses, or similar items but does not critically and impartially reference other scientific literature that could support or refute the findings, or suggest future research directions. The conclusions appear to be based on general considerations rather than the study's results, making them more suitable for a report than a scientific paper. In general, the text needs to be restructured.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are several typos in both the text and the figures. Proofreading and check of English syntax is highly recommended.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors 

Authors response 

 

The manuscript “A global perspective on teaching themes and perceived resource availability in higher forest education” aims at presenting a global perspective on forest education at the university and professional level. It is clearly presented as a sort of meta-analysis based on responses to a survey conducted for a previous publication within the context of a FAO project carried out in 2020. 

 

Despite the interesting research questions and clear objectives, the manuscript has several issues that need to be addressed. The text is generally lengthy and redundant, and the graphical presentation is not as intuitive as it should be. The reader becomes aware that the paper presents a subset of the results already detailed in the report by Rekola, M., Sharik, T. L. "Global assessment of forest education: Creation of a Global Forest Education Platform and Launch of a Joint Initiative under the Aegis of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (FAO-ITTO-IUFRO project GCP/GLO/044/GER)." Food & Agriculture Org., 2022. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc2196en (citation #23). 

 

  

 

The overall impression given by this manuscript is that it heavily relies on the aforementioned report. While this is not inherently problematic, it must be clarified that this work is deeply intertwined with that report. The differences or synergies should be well documented and clarified to avoid potential criticisms of "salami slicing”. 

Added clarification how this analysis differs from the original survey report, to the introduction and materials and methods sections 

Operational definitions for terms like “higher education”, “resources”, “coverage” and “motivation” lack all throughout the text, making difficult to grasp the meaning and the significance of the results. Also, there is some confusion between teaching and learning. On one hand, the work seems to focus on the perception of students, but the introduction of the categories of teachers and teaching resources introduces potential distortion. Are teachers evaluating how well they cover forest education themes, or are they assessing the resources available to them? And are these resources economic, educational, or of another type? 

We have corrected the manuscript to make the use of terminology more concise and consistent 

  

 

Methods and Results sections need thorough reorganization to present a coherent scientific paper. The Results section contains explanations of processes undertaken during the analysis, which are redundant with the Methods section and distract from the essential message of presenting results. Introducing each paragraph with "in this chapter…” is ineffective for a scientific article and detracts from its impact. Additionally, presenting each topic with a separate graph and chapter is ineffective because it resembles a report rather than a scientific article and makes the reading experience disjointed. Grouping all graphs on one page is advisable. 

We have removed redundant expressions such as the circular "in this chapter" to make the text more interesting to read. 

  

 

Here follows other details that need to be addressed. 

 

  

 

Title and Abstract 

 

The title and abstract use the term "higher forest education". While I am not familiar with its use in other countries, I suggest using "higher education on forests and forest resources" for the title and abstract to increase clarity and improve discoverability in relevant literature searches. Additionally, the term “forest resources” may be misleading, as it can refer to forests' natural capital, whereas the paper discusses educational resources. 

We have changed the title according to 2 reviewer suggestions, to address the important points made by them.  

  

 

Introduction 

 

Lines 31-32: 

 

The first sentence is unclear. Rephrase to improve clarity and correct the use of the genitive, which is currently misleading. 

sentence changed 

  

 

Line 64: 

 

The sentence starts with "As well." This linker should connect to the previous sentence and be separated by a comma instead of a period. 

As well' has been removed and the sentence made more fitting to the context. 

  

 

Line 79: 

 

"Aforementioned" is missing the initial "A." 

The 'A' was inserted. 

  

 

Line 85: 

 

Should be "Global trends." 

Changed according to suggestion 

  

 

Lines 86-95: 

 

This key section of the introduction needs better crafting. Check syntax and sentence construction. Define “coverage.” Clarify the term "varying" (perhaps you mean "various?"). Remove one of the periods in line 91. Explain the meaning of “perceived” – does it refer to the coverage reported by the interviewees? 

Varying' was deleted as an uninformative attribute. 

  

 

Methods  

 

Line 101: 

 

Specify all regions included in the survey here, as you mention later that a region was excluded. 

Regions specified 

  

 

Line 102: 

 

Clarify whether you are referring to the survey or this analysis. 

Clarification made 

  

 

Line 109: 

 

Delete the apostrophe. 

Deleted 

 

 

 

 

Line 163: 

 

Specify "Microsoft Office Excel." For R-Studio, provide the version of the R core as well. Moreover, since you used R, why didn’t you provide reproducible plots and data visualization prepared with this software and preferred to use Excel plots? 

A description of R-Studio has been added to the text. At first i used excel visualize the data and only later, when i started doing statistical test i began to use R. Now i would likely do everything using just R.  

  

 

Consider using a sum instead of an average or scaling the survey results on a normalized scale. Reconsider the theoretical example provided to strengthen the justification. 

we have calculates sums with scales. 

  

 

Lines 198-199: 

 

Check the use of brackets 

Corrected 

  

 

Results Section 

 

Explain all acronyms before using them, not just in the captions of figures and tables. Consider if it would be possible to use other types of plots and visualization methods (e.g. boxplot, lollipop charts or spider charts instead of barplots) with common x axis, to avoid repeated visualization of similar graphs. 

Corrected 

  

 

Lines 210-212: 

 

Move this sentence and similar ones to the Methods section. 

Moved to methods section 

  

 

Figure 1, Table 3: 

 

Correct the typo in the 3rd column header to "management." 

The typos pointed out have been corrected. 

  

 

Other Figures: 

 

Carefully check the category names (e.g., "enterprice" should be corrected). 

The misspellings have been corrected. 

 

 

 

 

Discussion and Conclusion 

 

This section is sparse and lacks informativeness relative to the results. It references to other projects, courses, or similar items but does not critically and impartially reference other scientific literature that could support or refute the findings, or suggest future research directions. The conclusions appear to be based on general considerations rather than the study's results, making them more suitable for a report than a scientific paper. In general, the text needs to be restructured. 

We have re-phrased multiple parts of the Discussion to make the language more engaging and fluent.

  

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language 

 

There are several typos in both the text and the figures. Proofreading and check of English syntax is highly recommended. 

Improvements made 

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for inviting me to read this manuscript.

The study ''A global perspective to the teaching themes and perceived resource availability in higher forest education'' addresses an important research problem.

The authors focused on evaluating the perceived coverage of various educational themes and the availability of educational resources at university and college level forest education. The analysis sought to determine if different groups of respondents, such as teachers, professionals, and students, have different views on forest education.

The topic of the article is interesting and has great practical relevance. The paper presented deals with an exciting and important topic from the forest education point of view. The article is written in a very accessible manner for the reader. It does not contain any substantive formal errors.

The study's assumptions, the description of the research method and the in-depth analysis of the results are not objectionable.

The discussion section effectively connects the results to existing literature and highlights the implications of the findings.

Part of the Conclusion is somewhat disappointing and it is dry. The authors themselves state that the data and methods used made it difficult to draw any significant conclusions about the reasons for the different results across regions and respondents.

 

I recommend the manuscript for publication with minor revisions to address any clarity or formatting issues.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors 

 

Authors responses 

 

Thank you for inviting me to read this manuscript. 

 Thank you

The study ''A global perspective to the teaching themes and perceived resource availability in higher forest education'' addresses an important research problem. 

 

The authors focused on evaluating the perceived coverage of various educational themes and the availability of educational resources at university and college level forest education. The analysis sought to determine if different groups of respondents, such as teachers, professionals, and students, have different views on forest education. 

 

The topic of the article is interesting and has great practical relevance. The paper presented deals with an exciting and important topic from the forest education point of view. The article is written in a very accessible manner for the reader. It does not contain any substantive formal errors. 

 

The study's assumptions, the description of the research method and the in-depth analysis of the results are not objectionable. 

 

The discussion section effectively connects the results to existing literature and highlights the implications of the findings. 

 

Part of the Conclusion is somewhat disappointing and it is dry. The authors themselves state that the data and methods used made it difficult to draw any significant conclusions about the reasons for the different results across regions and respondents. 

We have re-phrased multiple parts of the Discussion to make the language more engaging and fluent.

  

 

I recommend the manuscript for publication with minor revisions to address any clarity or formatting issues. 

 Text has been modified to address issues mentioned here 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for addressing the issues pointed out in the previous version. It is still not clear to me if you are planning to provide different plots and graphs created with R. If so, please provide a version with the new graphs and modify the text accordingly to disclose the packages you used. Otherwise, if you plan to keep the figures prepared with Excel as in the current version of the manuscript, no further action is needed.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The current version  of the manuscript is fine and just need a proofreading.

Author Response

Responses to reviewer 2 (& the whole review process) 

 

We are thankful for the meticulous review process that has helped us in improving the manuscript significantly. In what follows, some remarks on the changes performed at round 3 of revision: 

  • We did not create new figures with R, as we believe the current figures in the presentation adequately represent the points we intended to address. 
  • As for proof-reading, we have now performed a meticulous read-through of the whole manuscript. There are several instances where whole paragraphs and sub-chapters have been re-phrased or parts of them worded anew. We have highlighted the phrases or full sub-chapters where the changes lie in yellow. Some minor corrected typos have not been highlighted. We also paid particular attention on making many sentence structures more readable, and added literature in the Discussion.  

Once again, thank you for helping us improve our text. 

 

The authors 

 

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.


Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I was excited by the topic of this paper and applaud the idea of a global survey of higher education in forestry. However, I found it difficult to get through the paper and struggle to see what the realistic implications are from it. Overall it is far too long for what is ultimately presented to the reader, and it suffers from some phrasing used in presenting the results that make it quite difficult to understand what the important aspects of the study are. I believe it needs a really comprehensive rewrite to make it understandable and of interest to the readers of forests. 

First suggestion is to use clear and consistent terminology when describing the research and methods. This is especially important as this is a large, complex research project, and it's important for the reader to be able to understand the relationship of this work to the larger study. I suggest separating out the larger project as the "study" and the work for this paper as the "analysis". Similarly, survey and questionnaire are not interchangeable; suggest using "survey" to represent all data collection methods used in the study and questionnaire for the instrument that developed the data being analyzed here. Another large problem comes in the results section, which begins with two paragraphs that describe the proportion of respondents who complete the questionnaire either insufficiently, adequately, or extensively. Apart from questioning if this level of detail is even necessary, the following sections then use confusingly similar language to introduce the specific results (e.g. line 229, "the theme that was perceived as least insufficiently covered"... and line 230, "The themes of Other skills and Forest planning...each averaging 36% insufficiently covered response rates"). This type of sentence construction is confusing at best (least insufficiently covered?). There are many examples of this throughout (line 276, "...NA achieved statistically significant higher extensively covered response rates" - it takes so long to determine what's even going on here, response rates implies something very different; line 308, "perceived to lowest perceived availability"?; line 509, "due to it's notably lower percentage of responses indicating insufficient coverage of themes"; line 541, "no region reported...any teaching theme was insufficiently covered at a rate lower than 20%"). The study design and myriad of ways to cut the data does make it complicated to explain, but careful sentence construction could help the reader out a lot. 

The results section is much too long. All results are described in repetition, even when there is no significant difference between them. The reader is left struggling to understand what is important here. Nor is that much clarified in the discussion and conclusion, which are quite short. What are the implications of this study? The authors note increasing globalization and a need for cooperation; how do the results speak to either of those issues?

There are some minor inconsistencies as well: sometime European decimal points are used (,), sometimes American (.). It is unusual to have increasing significance marked with decreasing numbers of asterisks (table 2, 3). I am not sure what is meant by a cap analysis (line 66). The presentation of the research aims and questions is repetitive. I'm not sure RQ3 is adequately addressed; the stakeholders weren't asked what topics were covered (scope), rather they could only respond to a set list of topics with how extensive the coverage of each was). 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Overall the technical aspects of the written English are correct. The sentence constructions however are often quite confusing, as detailed above. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you very much for the opportunity to read this text. I hope that my comments will help to achieve a higher scientific level of the manuscript. My comments concern:

Introduction: Line 36 - please write about what specific forestry events you are referring to.  Where did they specifically take place? Line 49 - not clear. After all, forest management is carried out by humans, so it is a 100% human-centered activity - please elaborate on the thought contained in this sentence. Line 61 - what specifically identified inadequacies in education at the university level are you referring to. What does 'Integration of social dimensions' mean? Please elaborate on the thought

Materials and methods: Line 104 please add the source of the information. In which of the FAO documents is exactly the division into 6 regions. In line 130, the authors mention that very few responses were obtained from the Middle East and North Africa region, and therefore both regions were excluded from the data analysis. Meanwhile, both regions are further mentioned and analyzed. Are there then six or eight regions highlighted by the FAO. Unclear...

I'm not sure that the use of the name 'professionals' to refer to employees of government agencies and other organizations is appropriate. In my opinion, this category should have been called "others"

Table 1 presents data on the education and participation of each group of respondents in the survey. I don't quite understand the notation under the table. After all, each respondent can have only one level of industry education, can't they? 

Results: I very much appreciate the order of the results presented- the authors first show the global context before coming to the regional level. 

The discussion, on the other hand, is very modest given the volume of research material presented. In fact, in my opinion it is more of a summary than a discussion. Please point out the conclusions. Limitation chapter would also be useful!

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Line 185 - decimal points should be use instead.
Line 244-245 - please provide possible reasons.

This is an interesting and important topic of research, addressing a significant research gap. The sample size is large and targeted worldwide participation. The results are detailed and give insights to the current status of forest education. However, the discussion is weak, mainly mentioning that results are similar to published literature. Among the various key results, facing surprisingly similar challenges across the study regions and along time (Line 553) as well as the availability of educational resources was uneven across different regions (Line 554), the possible reasons are not discussed. The limitations and future studies are just weakly mentioned and needs to be further expanded.

Please deepened the discussion section and expand the literature review.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English is ok.

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