Educational Systematized Design Thinking Platform—Case of Study: Bus Stop

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to read “Systematized Design Thinking Platform. Case of Study:Mobility Case from Architecture Point of View”. The paper proposes a Systematized Design Thinking (SDT) methodology platform that is devoted to ensuring a strong innovation value chain. I have the following comments:

·         The paper type should be a “case study” not an article based on the approach used.

·         The title should reflect an educational perspective in line with the content of the paper. It is suggested to revise the title.

·         In the first para of introduction. Please name and present the digital platforms currently in use in higher education. Also, there are various platforms used these days; the scope (type) of platforms must be clarified. Are these delivery-based (zoom, teams, etc), more visualization-focused, or something else?

·         The objectives should be presented in a numbered format to be easily identified rather than concealed in the text.

·         The case study needs further elaboration. What makes it a representative case study needs to be elaborated on and justified.

·         Also, the reason for usage/selection of KANO method should be added to the introduction. Though the related portion discusses KANO, it is not clear why it is the best approach for the current study. Related studies such as the following can be helpful in this context:

o   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073658532100099X

o   https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/9/1/11

·         The demographics of the experts should be added to the method section (3.1). How many experts were there? How were they a true representative sample (sample size calculation needed and justified)?

·         It looks like a single person has been interviewed, which may not reflect the views of the entire population. This is a vague section (method), and serious details are needed here to justify the selection of respondents and the tools.

·          How many surveys were there? The details are missing and unclear. How were the surveys conducted? What type of questions were there?

·         The kano graphs should be added to the results. The KANO method is applied at its face value only, and no real analyses are there in the study related to KANO. Please refer to the previous example studies of KANO and conduct similar analyses. It looks like the paper will have the same results regardless of KANO is being used or otherwise. The authors need to very strongly justify why KANO is used, how it is relevant and what are the KANO results here.

 

·         The paper needs a proper conclusion section with the key takeaways, limitations, and future directions listed. 

Author Response

We would like to express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewer whose comment helped us to improve the overall quality of our manuscript: “Educational Systematized Design Thinking Platform. Case of Study: Bus Stop”

In the revised paper, we have carefully addressed all review comments and revised the paper’s quality and presentation. Please check our replies to the review comments for details of revisions to our paper.

 

Thank you very much for handling our manuscript!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

First of all, I thank you for your work and encourage you to consider my recommendations in order to improve your paper. Your paper has the potential to fill a part of the huge gap between educational research and research on innovation by providing tools that teachers and educational researchers usually do not use nor have information about. I would even say that after revisions the paper could give an important contribution to this area. That said, the paper should better highlight and describe the case study that is used as a testing ground for your platform. Please see my comments and recommendations below. 

 

1. GENERAL FOCUS OF THE PAPER

The content of the paper is unclear. There are discrepancies between the title, abstract and thus, the content.

The first sentence of the abstract refers to the COVID 19 event, and the notes that "therefore an agile transfer from face-to-face activities to online activities is necessary". The first section of the introduction (section 1) refers, again, to the COVID 19 event and the need to move educational strategies from face-to-face education to online education. 

However, in the title and in the paper's body the COVID 19 event and its demand on moving education towards online solutions is not repeated anymore. Instead the word "mobility" is used, and that is again confusing as it is present in the paper only four times: once in the title, once in the citation section, once in the abstract and once on the line 62, referring to the section 6 that should be about the mobility sector of a smart city project. In the section 6 we learn that the "mobility" project is a "generic bus stop".

The problem I am referring to is that the reader could understand that the paper is about using Systematized Design Thinking methodology for transferring face-to-face educational activities to online - but instead it is about designing a "generic bus stop" prototype. While buses are used for mobility, it is not the kind of mobility we usually keep in mind when speaking about mobility in the educational context. 

SOLUTION: the title, abstract, introduction and discussion need to be rewritten and the references to the COVID 19 event and to migration from face-to-face learning to online system need to be removed because these are not a focus of your paper and you are not offering any solutions to these problem areas. 

 

2. LANGUAGE, FORMATTING

The English language is generally fluid but there are errors that require a (native) speaker to grammar-check the paper. 

For me personally, the inline list style that you are using seems strange. Please check https://www.mdpi.com/authors/layout#_bookmark19 for inline lists. Also, for lettered inline lists please check https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/lists/lettered . 

Figures. In my opinion, less figures can be used in this paper. For example, with Figure 12, you would only need to list one photo (you currently have two). The reader would only needs the minimal information that allows them to construct their understanding. Redundant information makes it more difficult to follow the paper. 

 

3. SECTIONS OF THE PAPER

> Introduction <

In addition to the notes above, you would need to open the problem the paper is studying and offering solutions to. For example, is it maybe that in the education the innovations do not follow the usual innovation process, be it closed or open, that is common in business, resulting thus the innovations becoming rejected in long term as they are useless to the end-user (teachers or students). For additional information about this area I would recommend reading the following paper: (https://www.mdpi.com/2073-431X/10/9/110).

When you speak about platforms (Batterii, MURAL, etc.), you should either list them together and bring out their common features or to list them in more detail, arguing for and against them. But if the platform is meant for collaborative work (I understand that they are) then it is not relevant to refer to the single-user pricing. And if you do, please list the price because expensive and cheap are always relative, depending of the reader's contexts). 

On the rows 54-58 you should shortly open the contents of the case study so that the reader could start constructing their understanding about the study. 

> Background and Related Works <

Here you need to open in more details the Design Thinking (DT) Process (and as you use both the words process and method when speaking about it, please either use only one word or specify their relationship [by opening the meaning of both words?]). This is needed because the DT concept is heavily used in the paper. 

Existing DT platforms

You need to open them in more details by listing their deficiencies and their stronger sides. Who use them, why they are used, why are they good and what are their limitations? This is necessary to provide enough context for your own platform that you are introducing in this paper. 

> Materials and Methods <

When you first introduce (on the rows 132-133) your sample, please describe it. How many students, any relevant specifics, how did you enlist them, what were the consequences, etc. In principle, you would need to shortly describe the rationale of creating the sample.

Data collection

I am not sure that I fully understood what the data were and how they were collected. You describe something here that allows to deduct that at least (online?) questionnaires were used but these things need to expressed in "expressis verbis" - in a way that leaves no doubt about how the things were. You would need to explain here, what kind of data did you collect, with what tool and how. Did you make the students fill in questionnaires? Were they interviewed? Did they make tests? Were the data collection tools on paper or were they digital? Did you use any specific tool for data collection, for example Google Forms? Please describe these questions in a way that allows other scientists to replicate your test. 

Data analysis

When you collected data, you had to analyze it. It can be said that the section 4. will give answers to this question but I would argue that the process of data analysis need to be described under the "Materials and Methods" section. You would need to list the contribution and involvement of researcher(s), the methods used (quantitative, qualitative, open or closed coding, statistics, etc.). 

> 4. Systematized Design Thinking Methodology <

You would need to describe how your approach differs from Kano's model, what are its supposed benefits and shortcomings. 

On the page 11: Algorithm 2 systematized Design Thinking Methodology

In my opinion the numbering of steps is incorrect, making the process logic hard if impossible to follow. For example, "go to step" 34, 23, 25 are impossible in the algorithm. Possibly the references to steps 8 and 6 are also erratic, assuming the the numeration of algorithm rows is faulty.

> Discussion <

The work is not connected to existing literature (you would need to compare your work with the work of others here, and explain differences if necessary). In addition, you would need to list the various (including methodological) shortcomings and limitations of your work here and suggest a few ways for overcoming these in the future works. 

Author Response

We would like to express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewer whose comment helped us to improve the overall quality of our manuscript: “Educational Systematized Design Thinking Platform. Case of Study: Bus Stop”

In the revised paper, we have carefully addressed all review comments and revised the paper’s quality and presentation. Please check our replies to the review comments for details of revisions to our paper.

 

Thank you very much for handling our manuscript!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for the efforts of all the authors in general, the research has been comprehensive and excellent. But parts of the article need corrections.

 

Reviewer’s Comments

·       Novelty and originality of the research must be added to the abstract.

·       In The introduction with no references, explaining the structure of this paper.

·       Theoretical literature has not been considered and reviewed. It’s better to observe the connection between the contents. Try to explain everything except the topics in order to establish the necessary coherence.

·       In conclusion, authors try to add clear practical and theoretical implications for their research.

·       The discussion section should be separate from the conclusion section. The discussion challenges findings and determines the degree of compatibility with previous research.

·       It is not clear what the limitations of the research are and how they are addressed by other researchers.

·       In parts of the article, long paragraphs are written without reference, which shows the statements of the authors without confirmation of scientific evidence.

·        

 

Best of luck with the further development of the paper.

 

 

Author Response

We would like to express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewer whose comment helped us to improve the overall quality of our manuscript: “Educational Systematized Design Thinking Platform. Case of Study: Bus Stop”

In the revised paper, we have carefully addressed all review comments and revised the paper’s quality and presentation. Please check our replies to the review comments for details of revisions to our paper.

 

Thank you very much for handling our manuscript!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have properly and extensively revised the paper. Well done and all the best.