Challenges That Need to Be Addressed before Starting New Emergency Remote Teaching at HEIs and Proposed Solutions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Abstract is important to address methodological design, some introductory information on the context of the research and initial findings collected from data. Part of paragraphs 3 and 4 in the Introduction section should be presented in the Methodology section. In the Introduction its  important to set the context of the research along with initial presentation of the research ( ie ERT and its significance in modern education). In line 105 a new paragraph could start since the content is different in respect with the previous one. Which definition of desk research have authors selected? It is important to justify their methodological choices with respective literature. In line 212 authors write “For the next stage of the qualitative research (see Figure 1), two questionnaires were developed”; qualitative data includes not the use of questionnaires but interviews. Later in the paper write “the interview questionnaire”; it is not clear from the description provided whether they have used questionnaire or an interview. In the case of interviews an interview protocol is being developed, not a questionnaire which characterizes a quantitative research. It is my suggestion authors to carefully revise research literature and provide a more accurate and valid description of the methodological tools used and about the methodology they use. It is my suggestion authors to provide a table with a) the number and types of methodological tools used, b) brief description of each. In the Results section the analysis of the conducted qualitative research does provide a narrative with important issues that have emerged; however there are no excerpts οf qualitative research presented. Though authors have provided description of challenges according to the emergence in their research, the qualitative data have a specific way of analysis ( ie Coleman’s work). In the qualitative section authors could also enrich their narrative with excerpts of the interview data, following a specific protocol. The Discussion and Conclusion section could be better aligned with the ERT concept, and provide discussion in the scope of this term. My suggestion is also authors to try and condense the length of the paper by presenting information in the format of diagrams , tables etc.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Academic genre is well presented, language use is clear.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Author(s), 

This paper has been enhanced regarding the weakness for the literature review about internet access problems. Nevertheless, this situation is not valid for the other point that lacking of developed properly digital learning tools. However, I join with the authors the related literature is too shallow in this issue. In the same time, I join with the authors as well that new digital learning tools in distance education should be developed. Regarding Discussion, the authors could mention more on this situation such as the teachers have unknown to prepare a digital learning tool and to plan activities for interactive learning climate. Because, this is already an important problem in the education. This stiuation could be discussed as based on the current literature but the literature is not enough in this point.

However, this study deal with important points and they have not been omitted in the paper owing to be significant points in near future regarding distance education in the related area. I congratulate the authors.

Good luck

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is devoted to assessing the challenges that professors and students faced during emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemics, which relates to the sustainable development goal SDG4. The article describes a study spanning 29 countries with 276 professors and 506 students. 

However, the article has some weaknesses that should be addressed to increase its clarity and impact. 

1. The most serious weakness concerns RQ3 and the relevant subsection 5.2. The section describes a tool aimed at solving one of the most serious challenges (line 743); according to the reference [48], some of the authors of the current study participated in development of that tool. However, there was no explanation on why that particular tool is described. Do the authors claim it is the only tool that can be used to solve the challenge? If not, why that particular tool was selected? There is no brief review of related tools that can explain its selection. Also, the provided information about the tool does not answer RQ3 as it is formulated. All that description is very loosely tied with the main study and can (after adding more information) constitute a separate study. If removing the section 5.2 and RQ3 is undesirable, I recommend the following:

1.1. List several modern tools which are related to help measuring the student's engagement during an online lesson. Provide a brief comparison and make a scientifically sound choice of the tool, based on evidence.

1.2. Either reformulate RQ3 or change the information in the secton 5.2. In the section, you provide data on the tool's perceived intrusiveness, while RQ3 says "to reduce the perceived difficulty of challenges": if you formulate queston like that, you should provide experimental data about reducing the perceived difficulty of the challenge.

1.3. Also, when asking RQ3, do you want to reduce the perceived difficulty of the challenge or the real difficulty of the challenge?

2. The article lack a section discussing the study limitations and threats to its validity. The article also lacks information necessary to evaluate it. For example, while the authors says professors and students from 29 countries took part in their survey, they only list the 4 most represented countries (which all belong to the European Union; the majority of professors and all the students during the qualitative stage were also from the EU). That does not let us understand the geographical distribution of the study participants and evaluate its effects on the study results. That information can be provided in Appendix. Similarly, it may be good to include all the questions of the surveys in the Appendix too, so that the readers can evaluate their effect on the results.

3. Subsection 5.1 is titled "Guidelines for establishing resilient, sustainable and healthy higher educational systems in non-crisis times" , but most of the section text is not guidelines but repeated discussion of the challenges. Please, provide a clear list of guidelines or change the section title.

4. There is no information on how the professors and students to whom the questionarries were sent were chosen. This also does not allow the readers to evaluate the soundness of the results. Please describe you methodology of selecting the participants.

There are also minor weaknesses and errors, for example:

1. You write "Their literature review is based exclusively on articles published in 2020, thus representing a credible starting point for the present research". Please explain, why the review being based exclusively on articles published in 2020 makes it a credible starting point? What's wrong with including the articles published in 2021 and 2022 in the review?

2. There is no clear explanation on how Table 1 was compiled. For example, what exactly is the difference between "Non-responsive students",  "Lack of interactivity and motivation of students" and "Loss of human interaction between teachers and students and among students themselves" ?

3. In section 3, you write "literature review led to an overview of the current scientific research on teachers’ and students’ challenges in practicing ERT until May 2021 by querying in Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Wiley. The list of articles important for this research was updated" Please describe the review methodology and selection criteria as you consider it a step in your research. Which kinds of queries were used?

4. Table 2 mostly contans general statements, but one of them relates to a particular pedagogical method: "Not knowing how to create 3–5-minute movies pointing out keywords in the discussed topic". Why those 3-5 minute movies are so important that they are the sole online pedagogical technique mentioned directly in the table?

5. In lines 477-481 you show a statistically significant difference between the professors from different countries on the time required to prepare 1 teaching hour, which is good. However, that information is useless without discussing what the difference were. How Italy was different from Poland? Etc.

6. When discussing chronology in Section 5, can you provide at least one timeline plot or table? Chronolgy is hard to understand without visualization or table data.

Addressing those issues will increase the article's quality and its scientific impact.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The article is generally understandable, but it contains a lot of small English errors in grammar and word usage. For example, the article overuses "this" - e.g.,  "In this regard, this work also outlines".

Here is a non-exhaustive list of examples of problems with English:  "both teachers and students had their unique and unprecedented challenges", "this works  explores", "Especially in these situations, all the members in a HEI’s community (i.e., students and staff) are entirely dependent on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)" ,  "Teachers’ intensive work "  (did you mean "intense"?),  "Unskilled teachers in digital communication"(trsanspose the first two words),  "many were untrained from using e-learning platforms",  "As far as teachers are concerned, students also reported technical challenges with microphones, camera and poor Internet connections."

Figure 1 also contains many small English errors.

It is recommended to use help of  native English speaking colleague or professional proofreading service.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Abstract is well written, setting the focus of the study along with the methodology and context. The Introduction section provides important information in a brief manner, and is well written. The Methods section provides in an analytical and robust manner the research design. When referring to interview excerpts it is important to indicate the interview transcript and lines of the these so my suggestion is authors to modify the presentation of their interview excerpts for that purpose. In the Discussion section I would suggest authors to include more commentary regarding their findings in relation with the already existing literature and extend this section a little bit more.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article has been significantly improved and can be published in its current form. Most of the problems were addressed. I recommend improving a couple of small points:

1. Figures 2 and 3 are not easy to read (e.g., what is shown by the timeline plot and has it any link with the bars below). I recommend adding more text explaining them.

2. The limitations of the study was discussed only briefly in the last paragraph of Conclusion. In many serious research, the threats to validity and limitations are discussed more thoroughly in a special section or sub-section of Discussion. For example, there is no discussion of geographic and cultural limitations of the findings, caused by having most of the participants from a few geographically close countries with similar cultures.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some errors were made during the editing process, e.g. in  the lines 802-803 "I want to do this, and I can't don’t know how..."

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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

The Abstract presents in a quite clear manner the context, sample and methodology of the research. The Introduction section could be shorter whereas content of this section could be included in later section ( ie Literature Review section)- for example lines 70-105 (Literature Review section), 107-122 ( Methodology section). The schema presented in Figure 1 is based on research literature? If so, it is important to identify the source. If not it is important the authors to show its relevancy with already presented research methodologies. It is important authors to reinforce the methodological section, presenting the reasons for survey and interview used , based on desk research,  providing justification  but also limitations that underpin their work.  What would also enhance the readability of the paper is a more descriptive presentation of research tools used  ( ie categories, variables etc), avoiding many theoretical information about its preparation. Issues of reliability and validity in the specific research have to be also commented. My suggestion is authors to avoid the use of the term “Chapter” since it implies something different than a subsection of a paper. At some points the extended narration is a little bit tiresome for the reader- my suggestion would be authors to include also different modes of representation ( ie diagrams, tables etc). The Discussion section content could be better aligned with the core of the specific research, presenting a follow up of the already presented data in earlier sections of the paper. Overall this is a well presented work which however needs further justification in methodological issues and paper's redability could be enhanced by more targeted presentation of content. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Author(s), 

Initially, I congratulate author(s) regarding the efforts for this study. İt is important to include 29 countries as students and teachers via interviews and surveys. However, it could be stated these 29 countries (and the other 27 countries) as name if there is no any handicap.

Regarding the purpose of this study to determine perceptions gained from the implementation of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT).

Therefore, the challenges and opportunities were tried to determine of the ERT but author(s) omitted some significant ones like the internet access problems (perhaps as the other challenge) and a new paradigm rising in education with distance remote systems (as an opportunity). Thus, the literature review was weak (in between line of 91 and 106) owing to ignore some sources during this review (in between line of 91 and 106). However, figure 1 seems well to present study levels in this study especially as showed in step 3 and step 4.

Although this study explained some important points in the distance education based on the online, it omitted the other significant points that digital learning tools and interactivity learning in ERT for both teachers and students.

Additionally, this sentence is very bold that it can be flexible rather than present. However, I appreciate the author(s) the figure as a reachable sample both teachers and students. But, there is no in the Table 1 some important challenges in terms of connecting internet problems such the internet access problems and lacking of digital learning tools using effectively them in terms of interactivity learning. Therefore, this table includes challenges incompletely due to omitted literature review detail. Therefore, I suggest the author(s) a few previous study findings about these challenges (the internet access problems and lacking of digital learning tools) in such learning in the literature as follows:

The internet access problems:

https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/1537314

 

The development of the digital learning tools in synchrony and asynchrony learning through internet technology:

https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/3222590  (Doi: 10.5152/AUJKKEF.2023.1039092)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcal.12553 (Doi: 10.1111/jcal.12553)

https://www.oecd.org/education/Supporting-the-continuation-of-teaching-and-learning-during-the-COVID-19-pandemic.pdf

 

Regarding Discussion

The Discussion Section is not effective in the perspective of the literature because of weak literature review. For instance, this sentence (687-692) is well to determine the core of opportunities in terms of online learning for the students. In the same time, ERT also provides the most important opportunities for both teachers and students. However, the teachers have unknown to prepare a digital learning tool and to plan activities in accordance with the ERT through digital tools as creatively and vividly for interactive learning climate.

This sentence (between line of 727 and 729) of the author(s) confirms that it should be developed new digital learning tools in distance education motivate the teachers and students to remain both of them in learning climate productively. To this point, it indicates that the digital learning tools are very vital in the ERT and they are needed significant characteristics to include in these tools.

As a result, this study explained some important points; however, it omitted the other significant points as challenges in the ERT.

Good luck for this paper.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Abstract section could be better written since there is reference on types of challenges confronted however no reference is made on context and methodology used. The Introduction section lacks in coherence : ERT is presented analytically in first paragraphs when its definition is presented in lines 55-68.The Materials section could be focused on materials used mainly and not referring again on the importance of ERT etc. This section also seems quite long: it is important authors to introduce the materials used and not a quite extended narrative on theoretical aspects that could also be used in a literature review section.The Method section needs further justification: why have the authors selected a mixed method approach since they combine interviews and survey? What new does this bring to the paper/study? Though Interviews have been included in the Results section  : a) a description of the questions used, b) a qualitative analysis is not provided, but only narrative on important findings. To enhance the quality of the paper authors could analyse their qualitative data according to qualititative analysis protocols, select one and justify its selection and then use it. The Discussion section could reflect in a more effective manner data presented. A section in which authors comment and combine qualitative and quantitative data could also be used to enhance the quality of the paper. The purpose of using the software developed needs to be addressed in a more analytical manner and linked with the data collected.  The Conclusions section could be more robust and a bit extended highlighting important features of this work. This is an interesting work however a) the content through sections seems a little bit subtle ( a strong revision in content is required in my view), b) the qualitative instrument is not presented nor analysed, c) the methodology section does not justify important decisions and the research design applied, d) in a mixed method paper it is important to comment and discuss on joined qualitative and quantitative data.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English language is fine. Academic genre is well served. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The  Abstract presents the context and challenges of the research, however: a) the sentence (lines 14-17) needs rephrasing, b) the challenges reference could be shorter, b) the Abstract needs to be revised so as to be shorter,d) emphasis could be made on research tools and their scope for survey. The Introduction section could focus more on important characteristics of ERT without details on its application. An alternative approach could be authors to emphasise on ERT difference regarding  distance learning and what does this mean for agents of education. In the Method section authors could explain more about the theoretical model of ERT and its connection with their research. In the Methods section authors mingle literature review schema with their methodology; a more clear  and elaborated approach could be more effective. I would recommend to include the literature review schema and the RQs in earlier sections of the paper. It is not also clear   why have they chosen mixed methods approach, its justification, is important. Authors refer only on the RQ posed by the interview- what about the questionnaires? The Interviews are not analysed qualitatively , in an interview analysis protocol. The section with questionnaire analysis could include further commentary on tables presented. Section 5.2 seems needs a better connection in presentation with prior sections of the paper: the reader does not expect to read, based on presented information, starting points for creating tools for synchronous learning. A more extended list of references could be used. My proposal is authors to revise the content and structure of the paper, and proceed to qualitative analysis through protocol, so as to achieve the best quality of their work.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Academic genre, is served.  No issues detected, though cohesion in paragraphs at some points could be better.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf