PONE-D-22-27145Preparing future STEM faculty nationwide through flexible teaching professional developmentPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Goldberg,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by 5 January 2023. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A 'Response to Reviewers' letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Prof. Ritesh G. Menezes, M.B.B.S., M.D., Diplomate N.B.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This is a very well written article about an impressive professional development program. I have just a few comments I hope the authors will consider in a revision:

- In the title, the term "nationwide" is not specific to which nation so that should be added as this is an international journal.

- Perhaps I missed it, but were there any "research questions" presented and answered? At times the results felt overwhelming and lacking direction as I wasn't sure what knowledge gap they were filling. Please specify what some of the questions were prior to the start of the initiative and if/how they were answered.

- I was troubled by the use of the label "learners" for the "participants who complete at least two quizzes, complete a PGA, or watch videos from at least three of the six course modules". The label learners implied that they learned something, but really they "participated", so why not call them participants? I think that label is misleading somewhat.

- In the discussion on line 278 the authors stated, "Our target audience of STEM graduate students and postdocs"... perhaps I missed it, but was this identified as the target audience earlier in the paper? Were the demographic or job characteristics of the participants in this study described? That would be helpful information.

Reviewer #2: In this study, the authors are overall trying to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model of using MCLCs to accompany a MOOC in improving and sustaining learner engagement. The participation tied to survey data seems to make this case but paper is challenging to read and follow at times, which may be remedied in part with some substantial revisions to Methods section, clarification of terms and definitions used throughout the Results, as well as a more thoughtful and focused effort to reference supplementary materials relevant to the study. There also seemed to be reliance on membership in the CIRTL network for effective implementation of MCLCs. The authors may want to consider how aspects of the model itself can be adopted more broadly in the absence of the CIRTL network.

Below are a few specific comments and recommendations for revisions:

Line 45-46: This reviewer suggests that the authors consider moving away from a deficit-based description of the equity and opportunity gaps we see in higher education with reference to student “performance”, swapping this term instead for “outcomes”. Also suggest authors avoid labeling communities of color as “minorities” as it implies status as opposed to population percentage. Suggest rephrasing this and other sentences throughout manuscript. For example, “… reduce the disparities in outcomes between marginalized students who are historically underrepresented in STEM and their [white] peers”. Or “… reduce the disparities in outcomes between STEM students in racially minoritized groups and those in the dominant group”. Please see this article published by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for context and other ideas for alternative phrasing ideas when referring statistics and data describing communities of color.

Link: https://nahj.org/2020/08/04/nahj-asks-newsrooms-to-drop-the-use-of-minority/

Line 97: Materials and Methods. The authors did a nice job describing the structure of the MOOC and MCLCs. What’s missing, however, are the methodological and analytical details of the actual research study (some are buried in the Results but not in a consistent way). In other words, they need to provide a description of the methods by which they conducted their research on the MOOC and MCLC participants (data collection and analysis). What was the protocol for administering the pre- and post-surveys? Can the authors provide the IRB-approved survey instrument in the supplementary materials? How were the data analyzed? What statistical tests were undergone to examine the validity of their results? What was the protocol for interviewing MCLC facilitators? Were they asked specific questions? There also seemed to be some informal assessment done of OER utility from colleagues (line 266-267) as well as analytics pulled from the MOOC website itself (line 268). None of this methodological detail is provided thus making the Results, overall, difficult to follow or evaluate.

Line 110: Can the authors explain how they “encouraged” participation in the MCLC? Some additional details on how this was operationalized would be helpful.

Line 116: Curious as to why access to the MCLC Facilitator Guides requires sign-up to be a facilitator. Are there communications or training that occurs with facilitators that necessitate limiting access to this resource? On the website (https://www.stemteachingcourse.org/learning-communities/mclc-facilitators), the Q/A video for facilitators states, “Video unavailable. This video is private.”

Line 133-134: What was the distribution of participants from the 60 different countries? Were the majority in the US and Canada given the institutional composition of the CIRTL Network? Is this an important demographic to point out with respect to the findings reported in this paper?

Table 1: Mean % of learning completing the course and auditing the course do not add up to 100%. How did the authors characterize the remaining 4% in intro course and 21% in advanced course? Are these non-completers but still Learners based on definitions provided? Perhaps it would be helpful to define a non-completer in the table legend. According to Figure 1b, maybe these are the “Disengaged” and/or “Learner-other”? Or are the “Disengaged” the “non-learners (Line 171). It’s not clear. These terms need to be defined and used consistently as the subsequent sections of the paper refer to these terms when discussing survey results.

Line 150: Reference to “course completion” is not consistent with descriptions in Table 1 legend.

Line 149: The amount of information and data analysis provided in the supplementary materials is substantial. And these three lines (147-149) in the primary manuscript do not really do the material justice. If this information is critical to the findings shared in the primary manuscript, this reviewer would like to see it summarized with reference to relevant supplementary tables and figures. One might argue that the participation, activity, and outcome data could be a separate paper and subject to its own independent review. It would be helpful if the authors could focus on what information from the supplementary materials is most critical to the findings of the primary manuscript.

Line 148: In referencing citation #30, please check formatting. Is this supposed to be a footnote?

Lines 161-167: Figure 1 panel (b) – define “Disengaged”, “Learner – other”, “Learner – auditor” and “Learner-completer”. These terms are only partially consistent with Table 1 or what is referenced in the text (Lines 155-157, 171-172). This lack of consistency is making it difficult to follow the text in reference to the figures and table.

Line 213: Since authors have a figure with two panels (a and b), the text should refer to each panel separately and discuss the significance of these differences, not just the apparent differences.

Line 236: In referencing citation #35, please check formatting. Was this also intended to be a footnote?

Line 272: The Discussion provides a nice summary with some of the details that were missing in earlier parts of the paper. Suggest moving some of this information such as operationalization of MCLC recruitment (Line 110). Would like to see the author address some of the limitations of the study in this section as there were, for instance, issues with IRB approval linking demographics with survey data. This impacted the sample size and subsequent analysis.

Additional comments: There was a wordle on page 27 and several supplementary figures (S1-S9). No reference to this information was provided in the primary text; the supplementary figures are discussed in the supplementary file referenced in line 149 of the primary text. The volume of information provided in the supplement is excessive. This reviewer recommends that the authors curate this information and include only that which is relevant to the findings of the primary manuscript with specific and thoughtful reference to supplementary figures and tables in the primary text. Such efforts would help to create a more focused read of the research study and appreciation of the findings from readers.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-22-27145R1Preparing future STEM faculty through flexible teaching professional developmentPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Goldberg,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by 11-April-2023. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A 'Response to Reviewers' letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Prof. Ritesh G. Menezes, M.B.B.S., M.D., Diplomate N.B.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #3: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #3: Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript for reconsideration. It is apparent that a lot of hard work has gone into this work. The previous reviewer had indicated that the objectives were unclear and you had added these in the introduction. However, upon reviewing your paper the objectives remain unclear and particularly how your data addresses these questions remains unclear. I re-read the abstract after reviewing your manuscript to better understand your objectives and how these were met - but was unable to find a focus even after re-reading the abstract. Consider what is the hypothesis being tested in your paper and how this was proven/disproven by your data. Additionally, the manuscript is long and may benefit from being shortened to be succinct and focus on the primary question(s) being asked/addressed.

My constructive / focused suggestions to address my above comments are as follows:

1. I would firstly recommend that the authors re-write the abstract. The abstract has too many words dedicated to background. Background is generally permitted to be 1 sentence. Methods should be briefly stated - looks like there is some attempt to do this. No results are presented in the abstract and this is the primary purpose of the abstract. Please revise the abstract and provide the pertinent results which address the objectives that you are trying to address. The abstract should end with 1-2 sentences addressing how the findings address the objectives and/or their real world applicability. The abstract should be able to stand alone and be informative to the reader providing pertinent information.

2. The methods section does clearly not state how the data will be analyzed to answer the questions posed by the authors as their objectives. This should be revised accordingly.

3. Consider revising your results so that the subsections are designed to address each of the hypotheses/objectives being tested. This may provide the reader with better clarity to see the data addressing each of the questions you are testing.

4. Depending on the above, I would suspect that the results will need to be revised around the above structure.

5. It is traditional to place the limitations section after the discussion, and to add a conclusions section to the manuscript. The conclusion section would be a short paragraph to summarize succinctly how your manuscript addressed the questions/objectives/hypotheses and the real world appliability of the data you are presenting

6. Consider removing any data and text that do not directly address the objectives/hypotheses. While I acknowledge that a lot of work has been done in this project by your team, for the reader it is very important that the manuscript clearly defines objects and whether these were met or not. Some of this additional text may be moved to the discussion where pertinent.

Minor comments:

A. Consider not using abbreviations as key words. Abbreviations are not generally referenced by academic search databases. - I would ask that the editor/editorial staff overrule this comment if abbreviations as keywords are acceptable for use as keywords for PLOS ONE

B. The authors present data with "Absolute number/percentage". This style is not denoted in the methodology. The more usual way of presenting this is "absolute number (%)". Consider revising for clarity as when reading the data it is unclear if you are reporting 2 different percentages, vs reporting a fraction, vs reporting absolute number/percentage as I believe is your intention.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #3: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-22-27145R2Preparing future STEM faculty through flexible teaching professional developmentPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Goldberg,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 10 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A 'Response to Reviewers' letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Prof. Ritesh G. Menezes, M.B.B.S., M.D., Diplomate N.B.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Excellent work on revisions, this manuscript is ready for publication. I verify that all required questions have been answered and that all responses meet formatting specifications.

Reviewer #3: Thank you for your revisions. These have improved the readability of your paper. Unfortunately, despite changes your manuscript remains somewhat challenging to follow. I would suspect that your decision to pursue "guiding questions" rather than "formal hypotheses" significantly impairs the readability of the paper. This is because your key message(s) are not clearly stated making it particularly hard to define the purpose of the paper and key messages. To be useful to the reader, the authors must clearly state their purposes and ensure that the key take away points are clearly stated for the reader at the start of the discussion and at the conclusion of reading the paper.

Some key points to address:

Abbreviations STEM and MOOC should not be used in keywords - this has not been addressed.

Line 205 : The average introductory course completion rate of 11.5% overall is more than double the rate reported for other non-professional and non-degree MOOCs [34, 35, 25]. Belongs in discussion as this is not your results but rather a discussion of your results

Line 207: You report an "advanced MOOC" but this is never / not clearly defined in your methodology. Please specify in the methods that there are 2 MOOCs being evaluated and how these differ.

Line 215: "substantially outranked achievement oriented goals including “earn credentials for my CV” and “earn a statement of accomplishment.”" but the percentaged for both these are not specified. They should be specified in the results to support your statement that these were "substantially" different

Line 233 The "threshold" for "drop-offs" is undefined in the methodology

Line 252-3 : "Pre- and post-course respondents were largely PhDs and postdocs (50% pre-course and 58% post course) with faculty an additional 2%." Who were the other 48%?

Line 284: "Willingness" should be lower case

Line 340-352: Unclear why this "Open educational resource engagement" section is in the results section. Not sure what results are being shared here. Does this belong in the discussion?

Discussion: In your opening paragraph you need to sumarize what your key findings were. Based on your format of using guiding questions, this should be a 3-4 line paragraph which summarizes clearly what your take key results/findings of your study are. Tyipcally this would be a place where you would discuss your hypotheses and if they were proven or disproven.

Abbreviations:

- postdocs - should be expanded

- MOOCs - needs to be defined in body of manuscript not just abstract

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Preparing future STEM faculty through flexible teaching professional development

PONE-D-22-27145R3

Dear Dr. Goldberg,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Prof. Ritesh G. Menezes, M.B.B.S., M.D., Diplomate N.B.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE