The Use of Virtual Reality Technology in Intelligent Transportation Systems Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

There are a few minor issues with the paper that could be corrected shortly. First of all, there is a note remaining in the heading “4. Materials and Methods” that must be removed.

Secondly, the heading 4.5 The method for evaluating students’ VR experience talks about an experiment to be conducted on students while no such evaluation was carried out. I believe heading 4.5 should be redacted and should the subject of a future study rather than this paper.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comments and suggestions. We would like to inform you that we have made the following improvements to our paper, as per your comments and suggestions:

• All headings, including the new ones, was re-checked and corrected.
• It is true that the actual evaluation is not yet carried out and will occur in the future. However, we are proposing a standardized, internationally accepted and open-source questionnaire to capture the subjective experiences of students. Capturing subjective experiences of students is a key to evaluate and improve the implementation of the VR technology in ITS. Therefore, the subchapter “The proposed method for evaluating students' VR experience” is expanded to include details that brings the importance of the proposed evaluation method forward.
• Suggestions and recommendations made by other reviewers.

Best regards.

Reviewer 2 Report

Author should polish the titles at all levels of the paper, highlight the hierarchy of the paper, and correspond to the technical route of the introduction.

 Please enhance the relationship between this manuscript and the topic of this special issue in the introduction section.

The Paper is well written. Authors should add a little background of the study and limitations of the existing works and clearly explain the contributions at the end of the introduction.

Review the following papers for improvement and cite if think appropriate for your study

Effects of Virtual Reality training on medical students’ learning motivation and competency

Motivating medical students using virtual reality-based education

                          

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comments and suggestions. We would like to inform you that we have made the following improvements to our paper, as per your comments and suggestions:

• All headings, including the new ones, was re-checked and corrected.
• New headings were added to highlight the hierarchy of the paper and corresponding the technical route of the introduction.
• The relationship between the manuscript and the topic of the special issue is highlighted in the beginning of the introduction section.
• Background on the study, limitations of the existing studies, and the aim, parts that explain the motivation and contribution of this study is now enhanced.
• The suggested papers were reviewed and cited properly throughout the study.
• Suggestions and recommendations made by other reviewers.

Best regards.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper discusses the experimental success of using Virtual Reality (VR) technology in simulation-based ITS education to improve the quality of education while increasing immersion and motivation.

It is desirable to conduct an additional analysis of similar solutions and expand the content analysis of the problem. To expand the description of the technology, it may be necessary to add a description of the interaction algorithms of various interfaces (man-machine, etc.). It is advisable to take into account the risks of using such systems and the psychological features of their use in accordance with safety techniques.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comments and suggestions. We would like to inform you that we have made the following improvements to our paper, as per your comments and suggestions:

• The English language and style of the paper were improved with suggestions from an English teaching staff and the Grammarly Pro for Education software.
• Literature review regarding the use of virtual reality in education was significantly expanded, citing recent studies.
• The subsection “4.3. The user interface and interaction” was added to explain the human-computer interaction, the user interface, and the tweak made to get a legible text.
• The health issues, especially the virtual reality sickness issue, and the suggested ways to mitigate the issue were addressed in the subsection “2.3. Virtual reality sickness”.
• Suggestions and recommendations made by other reviewers.

Best regards.

Reviewer 4 Report

The article is on an interesting topic. It is easy to follow and understand. The article lacks scientific rigor due weak literature review; many important and relevant articles are missing and the lack of subjective evaluation.

The first reference in the Literature review to a published survey by Kavanagh et al. [1] is five years old. Many recent articles utilizing VR for education have been proposed since then, such as 1. "An Adaptive Game-Based Learning Strategy for Children Road Safety Education and Practice in Virtual Space", 2. "Immersive virtual reality to enforce teaching in engineering education." 3. "Virtual reality in training: An experimental study with firefighters" etc. I would rather like to see the advantages/limitations of those studies and the rationale behind proposing your suggestions for implementing one or the other solutions for offering VR-based courses/modules. Also, an overall comparison of how the proposed solution differs from existing similar works with respect to student experiences. Since you will conduct students' VR experience in future work, it might be good to mention at least here what you can learn from existing works and what you might expect in your study. 

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comments and suggestions. We would like to inform you that we have made the following improvements to our paper, as per your comments and suggestions:

• The literature review was significantly improved, and recent studies were reviewed and included on top of the review published by Kavanagh et al.
• The recommended articles were reviewed, found significantly beneficial, and cited accordingly throughout the paper. The benefits of using VR applications in education and findings of recent studies, especially the article by Khan et al., “An Adaptive Game-Based Learning Strategy for Children Road Safety Education and Practice in Virtual Space” were found significantly relevant and highlighted in our study.
• The motivations and rationale behind all suggestions and proposals in the study were explained better in their respective subsections.
• The literature review suggests that this paper is one of the few studies that propose increasing education quality by implementing VR in Intelligent Transportation Systems. We expect VR to improve the Traffic Micro Simulation course by increasing the model interaction immersion and improving knowledge retention with a highly immersive experience. Per your suggestion, the expectations were made more evident in all subchapters.
• Suggestions and recommendations made by other reviewers.

Best regards.

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors addressed all the concerns. I wish the best of luck to the authors with final acceptance.