Hawler Medical University students’ perceptions of e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

Sherzad A. Shabu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0281117

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 27, 2022
2 Jan 2023 Decision Letter - Mukhtiar Baig, Editor PONE-D-22-26736Hawler Medical University students’ perceptions of e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Shabu, 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. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: Its a nice study. Please revise the manuscript and mention reference/s for the questionnaire. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 16 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. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and " ext-link-type="uri" xlink:type="simple">https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf" 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Please revise the manuscript. It has been mentioned in the methodology that "The questionnaire was 117 developed based on reviewing the literature of similar studies." Therefore, please provide the references for the questionnaire. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: Good effort on a burning issue. The flow of writing is fine and ideas are presented in a well structured manner. Problem and knowledge gap are identified. Results are discussed well but they are not compare enough with other studies and not critically analyze enough. I suggest if the provide further recommendations based on the conclusion of study. Reviewer #2: Overall the study is good considering the sample size and the rigor. However, in the methodology section the development of the tool especially with respect to the selection of the items needs more emphasis. The section says that the items were taken from literature from similar studies, but it is not clear whether the items were adapted from any similar survey questionnaire. Furthermore, whether the tool was piloted has not been mentioned. In the analysis it would have been beneficial if the authors would have considered the comparison between different participant groups. ****** 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: Yes: Syeda Rubaba Azim Reviewer #2: 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281117.r001
Revision 1
12 Jan 2023 Author Response Dear Editor, Thank you very much for sharing the Editor's and reviewers' comments and suggestions on my manuscript entitled " Hawler Medical University students’ perceptions of e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic." I very much thank them for their valuable comments and suggestions. These comments have significantly helped me to improve the quality and clarity of the manuscript. I have made the necessary revision by responding to the suggested comments. Please find below explanations to the revision made through a point-to-point response to the comments. Thank you very much for considering the revised manuscript. Best regards, Sherzad Shabu Journal Requirements: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. Author's response PLOS ONE style requirements are applied to the manuscript. 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information Author's response Online written consent was obtained from the participants before completing the survey. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Author's response It was checked and it is complete and correct. Additional Editor comment Please revise the manuscript. It has been mentioned in the methodology that "The questionnaire was 117 developed based on reviewing the literature of similar studies." Therefore, please provide the references for the questionnaire. Author's response The reference for the questionnaire was provided (Reference number 9). The statement was also revised under the Methods section/Survey tool, Page 6, Line number 117 and 118. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: Reviewer’s comment Good effort on a burning issue. The flow of writing is fine and ideas are presented in a well structured manner. Problem and knowledge gap are identified. Results are discussed well but they are not compare enough with other studies and not critically analyze enough. I suggest if the provide further recommendations based on the conclusion of study. Author's response Thank you very much for the valuable comments. - Further comparisons of results were made under the Discussion section (Page 19, Line 277-284) and (Page 20-21, Line 314-323). - Critical analysis of results was made under the Discussion section (Page 18, Line 254-256), (Page 19, Line 288-290) and (Page 21, Line 325-327). - Further recommendations were provided based on the conclusion of the study under the Conclusions section (Page 22, Line 363-370). Reviewer #2: Reviewer’s comment However, in the methodology section the development of the tool especially with respect to the selection of the items needs more emphasis. The section says that the items were taken from literature from similar studies, but it is not clear whether the items were adapted from any similar survey questionnaire. Furthermore, whether the tool was piloted has not been mentioned. In the analysis it would have been beneficial if the authors would have considered the comparison between different participant groups. Author's response Thank you very much for the useful comments. - The questionnaire was adapted from a study conducted to develop a questionnaire for predicting online learning achievement (Reference number 9). The statement was added to the Methods section/Survey tool (Page 6, Line 117-118). - Piloting the survey tool: A paragraph was added in Methods section/Survey tool (Page 7, Line 141-145) as follows: For each stage, and prior to data collection, ten Hawler Medical University students were initially invited to pilot test the questionnaire. They completed the online survey questionnaire and tested the clarity of the questions' content and the practicality of the questionnaire's completion. Based on the comments from these students, the questionnaire was adapted. - Comparison between different participant groups in the analysis: A "Study limitations" section was added at the end of the Discussion section (Page 22, Line 350-353) stating the following: Study limitations Because of the study design and mainly using the Likert scale for data collection and organization, it was somehow difficult to consider comparison between different participants' groups. Further studies which consider comparison between these groups are recommended. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response_to_Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281117.r002
16 Jan 2023 Decision Letter - Mukhtiar Baig, Editor Hawler Medical University students’ perceptions of e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic PONE-D-22-26736R1 Dear Dr. Shabu, 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, Mukhtiar Baig, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281117.r003
Formally Accepted
14 Feb 2023 Acceptance Letter - Mukhtiar Baig, Editor PONE-D-22-26736R1 Hawler Medical University students’ perceptions of e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic Dear Dr. Shabu: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Mukhtiar Baig Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281117.r004

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