Metaverse as a Learning Environment: Some Considerations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is very interesting and contributes to literature.

Good flow, minor grammar mistakes.

I would ask from the authors to fix their tables inside the manuscript. Maybe the align is wrong.

 

Please extend rhe conclusions section by presenting any limitations.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript and for your valuable insights. The authors tried to accommodate all your pertinent comments and suggestions and hope to have met them all. Please find below the answers to your suggestions.

With kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript and for your very positive appraisal of the manuscript.

With kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The topic of the paper is very emergent, and few litterature has debated it, for the metaverse still a largely speculative area, particularly regarding its use in education. Therefore, the authors draw excessively on three recent papers, namely those by 

Zhang, X.; Chen, Y.; Hu, L.; Wang, Y. The metaverse in education: Definition, framework, features, potential applications, 459 challenges, and future research topics. Front. Psychol. 2022, 13, 1016300. 

 Kye, B.; Han, N.; Kim, E.; Park, Y.; Jo, S. Educational applications of metaverse: Possibilities and limitations. J. Educ. Eval. 448 Health Prof. 2021, 18, 32. 449 

Jagatheesaperumal, S.K.; Ahmad, K.; Al-Fuqaha, A.; Qadir, J. Advancing education through extended reality and internet 530 of everything enabled metaverses: Applications, challenges, and open issues. arXiv e-prints 2022, 1–22. Available online: 531 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.01512.pdf (accessed on 2 September 2022). 

The tables and categorisations presented are coming mainly from these last authors, and the authors of the paper themselves provide no more than a litterature review of the topic of the metaverse, adding little discussion to it. The paper could be improved if for instance, it discussed critically the implications on privacy and safety of the application of the metaverse in formal education, namely in contexts such as Europe, where GDPR is in place and poses severe obstacles to its use. It is important to recall that most of the references used in the paper come from Asian contexts, where the protection for personal data and human rights is less of a concern. To this respect, I may suggest the reading of Beyond Data: Reclaiming Human Rights at the Dawn of the Metaverse, by  Elizabeth M. Renieris. 

Apart from this, the paper needs to clarify some of concepts and designations in use, particularly since this is an emergent topic. Namely when it uses NPC  concept (non playable character), for instance, or Dwidedi et all table, where several platforms are presented without a single explanation of its differences. 

I also consider that choosing a systematic litterature review as a methodology, clearly stating how many sources where consulted, from which repositories and with what search terms, would be another form to make the paper more relevant, since it would probably show that most references come from some cultural contexts. 

 I recommend to withdraw on self citatation of the authors own work, since particularly regarding covid and distance learning, there are several studies from other authors that could be cited. Finally, I don't understand why so many citations of digital ethnography are in the paper, since methodologically, they are not relevant for the work presented. 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript and for your valuable insights. The authors tried to accommodate all your pertinent comments and suggestions and hope to have met them all. Please find below the answers to your suggestions.

With kind regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I am very pleased with this version. Thank you for reviewing this paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

No further comments.