Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionFebruary 28, 2023 |
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PONE-D-23-02994Identifying key features of digital elements used during online science practicalsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Janštová, 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 06 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:
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Kind regards, Tomislav Jagušt Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. 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 2. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: "This work was supported by Erasmus+ project My Home - My Science Lab. We are grateful to the members of My Home - My Science Lab project and teachers involved in the study." We note that you have provided additional information within the Acknowledgements Section that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. Please note that funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "All authors were funded by Erasmus+ project 'My Home - My Science Lab'. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. 4. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. [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: Partly Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ********** 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: No 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: This article presents interesting research on the topic of science practical online teaching during the COVID-19 lockdown. The research was carried out as a part of the Erasmus+ project "My Home – My Science Lab". In the research, the data was collected from science teachers in Slovakia, Czechia, Slovenia, France, and Spain regarding shared web resources they used and would recommend. While the study's topic is interesting, the article's language is unclear and difficult to understand. It includes many errors, and I recommend that authors work with a writing coach or copyeditor to improve the flow and readability of the text. The paper should be written in an objective tone. Also, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the text, for example, the authors use both "eg." and "e.g." throughout the text, there is inconsistency in using small letters or caps (for example in Table 1), and inconsistency in the citation style used (for example line 507 with two different citation styles). Furthermore, for sentence separation the usage of ";" character instead comma is redundant, and the space character should be put after the comma, etc. The authors are off to a good start, however, the study fails to address how the findings relate to previous research in this area. The authors should rewrite their Introduction to reference the related literature. The sample size is not very high. Also, it seems as if the data collection process should have been better organized since, for example, the authors don't know which web resources teachers have tried and possibly rejected. Although the research results are interesting, there is a lack of serious contributions and conclusions drawn from the research, for example, the nature of how teachers incorporate the use of resources into their teaching and what kind of "digital element" they created from it. Some more specific comments: Page 5, line 89: I would recommend describing "recommendations for conducting online teaching" in more detail. Page 5, line 106: I would recommend describing "additional verbs typical for the digital environment" in more detail. Page 6, line 113: Missing reference supporting "have been shown to be a challenging method even in face-to-face settings." Page 10, line215: STEM is not a subject. Page 23, line 406: I suggest reorganizing the paper in order to provide a description of applications used for online teaching at the beginning. Also, giving more insight into existing applications, not only just the one mentioned by the surveyed teachers. Page 28, line 511: "i.e. the nature of how they incorporate its use into their teaching and what kind of ‘digital element’ they create from it, is enormous and we estimate that it exceeds the expectations of the creators of the resources" – this should be the base for the paper and would be interesting to see. Page 31, line 580: "We only collected the web resources the science teachers would recommend; consequently we don't know which web resources they have tried and possibly rejected. Therefore, we cannot distinguish which ones they don't want to use and which ones they don't know." – this should have also been addressed during the data collection. Reviewer #2: The paper presents research on identifying characteristics of digital elements used in science practical to identify which digital elements characteristics can serve as markers for their acceptance by teachers. The authors should emphasize more the contribution of their research in relation to existing research, preferably at the end of the introduction. The Introduction and Theoretical background section provide background information for readers, including motivation for the research. However, this part lacks a clear definition of the term "digital element" and a description of the relationship between the terms "digital element", "resource", and "learning activity". The authors should distinguish the terms (concepts) "resource" and "learning activity". It seems that these terms are sometimes considered synonymous, which makes it difficult to follow the manuscript and understand the analysis performed and its results. In the introduction, the authors give the following examples of digital elements: videos, visual materials, and domain-specific simulations, but later they also mention investigations, experiments, games, modeling and construction, etc. as types of digital elements. For example, in the learning activity "knowledge revision", students can be referred to different web resources (e.g. a specific video), so it is necessary to pay attention to the terms used. Also, before describing the importance of "science practicals", it would be desirable for the authors to describe in more detail what they mean by this term and provide some examples. The description of the methodology does not specify the research questions. Formulating the research questions using appropriate terms would allow for better structuring of the sections in which the research findings and discussion are presented. Regarding the instrument, it is necessary to better justify the selection of the types of digital elements used to describe digital elements and to present all the statements used to classify them according to other criteria (e.g., pedagogical suitability). In the abstract, the sentence that starts with "We identified their key..." is unclear. ********** 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 ********** [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. |
| Revision 1 |
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PONE-D-23-02994R1Identifying key features of digital resources used during online science practicalsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Janštová, 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 Oct 08 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:
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, Tomislav Jagušt Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 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. 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 #2: All comments have been addressed ********** 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 #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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: No Reviewer #2: 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 #1: The authors have improved their paper, yet the majority of the paper shoud be rewritten for clarity. Please consult a native English speaker to rewrite sentences. Introduction should be rewritten. Introduction as whole is rather poorly structured and unclear. Please consult a native English speaker to rewrite sentences. For example: - "obstacles that were often considered objective limiting factors to the introduction of technology into the classroom" - what obstacles? please reference or write examples - The frequency of their use and the types of digital resources (tools that are part of computing environments to support education [1] that teachers used, the method and media, but even the modality varied depending on the personality of the teacher, the technological equipment of the school, and also the school philosophy. Our focus is on the practice-oriented components of science teaching, by which we mean hands-on exercises, lab work (referred to as science practicals in this study) which, at least in our experience, have been implemented online rather infrequently. -this is very unclear, please rewrite “Therefore, when preparing designing online learning environments, socio-emotional processes have not been the main focus [7].” – very unclear Furthermore, why is Information and Communication Technology written in caps? I would suggest small letters. Reviewer #2: The authors have improved the quality of the manuscript in accordance with my comments and concerns so I propose to accept the current version of their manuscript for publication. ********** 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 #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. |
| Revision 2 |
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Identifying key features of digital resources used during online science practicals PONE-D-23-02994R2 Dear Dr. Janštová, 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, Tomislav Jagušt Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-23-02994R2 Identifying key features of digital resources used during online science practicals Dear Dr. Janštová: 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 Dr. Tomislav Jagušt Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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