Students’ Acceptance and Tracking of a New Container-Based Virtual Laboratory
, Antonio Robles-Gómez 1,*, Rafael Pastor 1, Roberto Hernández 1, Andrés Duque 1 and Jesús Cano 1,2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this paper, a new container-based virtual laboratories are proposed. I understand the concept of the proposed method. However, there are deficiencies in experiments to verify the usefulness of the proposed method. Make clear that students enrolled in the subject in the 2017-2018 and the 2018-2019 belong to the same population. Otherwise, it is not clear whether the difference shown in the experiment of 4.2 is due to the proposed method. I didn't know what to say from the results of the experiment conducted in 4.3. I can see that there is no significant difference in the activities of the student enrolled in the subject in the 2017-2018 and the 2018-2019. However, I did not find any evidence from the results. Please add a discussion of the results of this experiment. Is 3) on line 453 a typo? please check it.
Author Response
Comment:
In this paper, a new container-based virtual laboratories are proposed. I understand the concept of the proposed method. However, there are deficiencies in experiments to verify the usefulness of the proposed method. Make clear that students enrolled in the subject in the 2017-2018 and the 2018-2019 belong to the same population. Otherwise, it is not clear whether the difference shown in the experiment of 4.2 is due to the proposed method.
Answer:
We agree with these comments. For this reason, we have made clear in the new version of the manuscript the suitability of the population from both academic years. Changes are marked in red in the manuscript for clarity. In order to tackle this suggestion, and to verify that the population is the same, we have first detailed the demographic data normalized of two academic years, in terms of gender, age group, and interest for the topic of cybersecurity. Then, the distribution normality of the population has been validated with a Shapiro-Wilk test with a normal distribution. Finally, t-tests have been performed on those indicators from the populations. Results from those tests indicate the comparability of populations from both academic years.
Comment:
I didn't know what to say from the results of the experiment conducted in 4.3. I can see that there is no significant difference in the activities of the student enrolled in the subject in the 2017-2018 and the 2018-2019. However, I did not find any evidence from the results. Please add a discussion of the results of this experiment.
Answer:
We agree that this point needs clarification. For this reason, section 4.3 has been extended in several ways by adding further discussion the results of the experiment, and also by linking it with the previous evaluation and motivating it. A brief explanation has also been included in the abstract and conclusion sections. All changes are marked in red color in the new version of the manuscript.
To sum up, the main motivation of the results presented in section 4.3 is to conclude that neither the use of the virtual platform nor the distance methodology affect the study performed in section 4.2. That is, the analysis of the two technologies is performed in the same conditions in order to be comparable with respect to the intention of use.
On the other hand, explanations about the qualifications obtained by students in the subject are included in the new version of the manuscript, when using the two different technologies employed, LoT@UNED and CVL, for the academic years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, respectively.
Comment:
Is 3) on line 453 a typo? please check it.
Answer:
Thank you very much for finding this typo, this one and others have been corrected after proofreading the current version of the manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper proposed a new environment and technique for a cybersecurity course in distance learning. The results of the proposal shown good performance for students' acceptance. While the paper is well written and structured, I could not understand a few points as follows:
1) What is the purpose of the students' tracking? the main purpose of this section seems unclear to me. Authors had better make clarification in this regard.
2) In this paper, the main technology is the container-based virtual laboratory. You should add more details to explain the container-based virtual laboratory such as design, different functionalities, etc.
Some minor issues:
1) Paper has some typo(e.g. "Felxible configurations of remote se [14,15]" in line 87). This paper has to be proofread before publication.
2) The reference [30] refers to several important parts, but access to this paper is not open. I would like to see this paper before making my decisions.
3) Contributions of this paper should be explained in the Introduction. It will increase the quality of the paper.
4) In the appendix, the link to the table is wrong.
5) I recommend authors to consider adding recent references to support their study, e.g. -Mining Educational Data to Predict Students’ Performance through Procrastination Behavior.-A Container-Based Virtual Laboratory for Internet Security e-Learning
Author Response
Comment:
This paper proposed a new environment and technique for a cybersecurity course in distance learning. The results of the proposal shown good performance for students' acceptance. While the paper is well written and structured, I could not understand a few points as follows:
1) What is the purpose of the students' tracking? the main purpose of this section seems unclear to me. Authors had better make clarification in this regard.
Answer:
We agree that section 4.3 about students’ tracking needed to be clarified about their purpose. Section 4.3 has been extended by discussing the results of the experiment, by linking with the previous evaluation and motivating it. A brief explanation has also been included in the abstract and conclusion sections. Al changes are marked in red color in the new version of the manuscript.
The main motivation of the results presented in section 4.3 is to conclude that neither the use of the virtual platform nor the distance methodology influence the study performed in section 4.2. That is, the analysis of the two technologies is performed in the same conditions in order to be comparable with respect to the intention of use. All the obtained results are statistically comparable (for each one, a t-test is performed), hence they follow similar distributions. Interactions with the resources of the virtual platform are usually a bit lower. Extending this part of the study with evaluation resources, contents, and forums (in terms of accesses, sessions, and time) was recommended by reviewers of the conference version in TEEM 2019.
On the other hand, explanations about the qualifications obtained by students in the subject are included in the new version of the manuscript, when using the two different technologies employed, LoT@UNED and CVL, for the academic years 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, respectively.
Comment:
2) In this paper, the main technology is the container-based virtual laboratory. You should add more details to explain the container-based virtual laboratory such as design, different functionalities, etc.
Answer:
We agree with this point. For this reason, a new section 3.4 have been added to the new version of the manuscript, by including design and functionality details. First, the creation and use of containers is described, including how the configuration file is defined, and the steps followed to the students to complete the activity with some examples, among others. Additionally, the section has been linked with section 2.1, where theoretical details about the employment are given, and the general case of study is studied. All changes performed in the new version of the manuscript are marked in red.
Comment:
Some minor issues:
1) Paper has some typo(e.g. "Felxible configurations of remote se [14,15]" in line 87). This paper has to be proofread before publication.
Answer:
Thank you very much for finding this typo, this one and others have been corrected after proofreading the current version of the manuscript.
Comment:
2) The reference [30] refers to several important parts, but access to this paper is not open. I would like to see this paper before making my decisions.
Answer:
We agree with this point. In order to minimize the issue, it we have extended explanations about the work performed there in this manuscript. For instance, a new section 3.4 with technical details is incorporated in the current version of the manuscript, including more details related to the TEEM 2019 reference. In addition to this, more details are provided when referencing this paper, such as those given in section 4.3 about the students’ marks. Again, all changes are red marked in the new version of the manuscript.
Anyway, we could share editor a version of that paper for the reviewer to check it for only revision purposes, since it is not open access, if considered necessary.
Comment:
3) Contributions of this paper should be explained in the Introduction. It will increase the quality of the paper.
Answer:
We agree with this comment. For this reason, a new paragraph detailing the main contributions of the paper is included in the current version of the manuscript.
Comment:
4) In the appendix, the link to the table is wrong.
Answer:
Thank you very much for this issue. We have checked that it is a mistake of the Latex template, since the link and table are in an appendix. This link has been removed at the moment in the current version of the manuscript. If accepted the manuscript, we will share this point with the editorial in order to correct the template.
Comment:
5) I recommend authors to consider adding recent references to support their study, e.g. -Mining Educational Data to Predict Students’ Performance through Procrastination Behavior.-A Container-Based Virtual Laboratory for Internet Security e-Learning
Answer:
Attending this recommendation, we have enforced this study with additional works from the literature. In particular, the two proposed by the reviewer and another two works which have been found out. These four references have been useful to extend the introduction, the state of the art, and section 4.3. Reference numbers are 7, 8, 28 and 50 in the new version of the manuscript. Once again, all changes are marked in this new version.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The validity of the experiment was verified by describing the subject in detail.
Reviewer 2 Report
The author reflected the reviewer's comments well. Therefore, I recommend that this paper be accepted for publication.
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.
