-->PONE-D-25-59893-->-->An Evaluation Scale for the Cultural Value of Heritage Buildings-->-->PLOS One

Dear Dr. Huang,

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.-->-->

==============================

The current version does not meet the publication criteria due to overall weaknesses in:

(1) the theoretical framework (lack of clarity of the research gap and contribution),

(2) methodological transparency and reproducibility (not precisely defined procedures at all stages), and

(3) Evidence-Based Reporting (presenting the results narratively with a lack of quantitative details). In particular, the manuscript lacks basic information regarding expert/sample selection, decision-making rules, hierarchical analysis consistency reports, and reliability/validity statistics. The tables / figures required for transparency and interpretability are also absent or insufficient. For more detailed feedback, please refer to the reviewers' comments.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 16 2026 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.

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Baohua Wen

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: I Don't Know

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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: No

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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:  1.The manuscript addresses an important gap in heritage studies by proposing a structured evaluation scale for the cultural value of heritage buildings. The overall research design is coherent, and the mixed-methods approach (systematic review, interviews, FGD, and AHP) is appropriate for the stated objectives. The procedures for data collection and analysis are generally well described, and the conclusions are supported by the presented qualitative and quantitative results.

2.However, there are several issues that should be addressed before publication. First, the empirical basis is limited to a single case study, which restricts the generalizability of the proposed scale; this limitation should be stated more explicitly. Second, although AHP is applied, the justification for the number of experts and the robustness of the weighting process could be discussed more critically. Third, the manuscript would benefit from clearer reporting on how qualitative findings were translated into specific indicators and items, to improve transparency and reproducibility. Finally, the English language is generally understandable but contains repetitive phrasing, awkward constructions, and minor grammatical errors that should be corrected to improve clarity.

3.Overall, the study is technically sound and potentially suitable for publication in PLOS ONE after minor to moderate revision.

Reviewer #2:  Comments by the authors

General evaluation

Your study addresses an important problem and has potential value in Heritage Research and practice. The generic approach-which integrates qualitative insights with a systematic, multi-criteria methodology, and seeks to validate them-is promising. However, substantial revisions are required to ensure clarity, repeatability, and accuracy of the report in compliance with PLOS standards.

1) Introduction

- Clearly identify the research gap: explain the shortcomings of the current assessment frameworks, and the importance of this shortcoming.

- Add an explicit statement of contribution, explaining the new in your scale (its structure, dimensions, weighting method, validation methodology, or applicability).

- Be sure to back up all historical and Digital claims with appropriate references.

- Improve the academic structure so that the foreground is graded by:

- the background - problem - gap - goal / questions - contribution - research roadmap.

2) Literature review

- Reorganize the literature review into thematic subsections (e.g.: cultural value concepts; heritage assessment frameworks; indicator systems; participatory/experience-based models; scale development/validation).

- Go beyond the description: Add a critical comparison (differences in structures, indicators, methods, restrictions).

- Use the literature review to clearly justify your methodological choices (why this framework, why the hierarchical analysis method, why these indicators).

3) Methodology (major clarity and reproducibility issues)

Please provide sufficient detail so another researcher can replicate the study.

3.1 Research design

- - Identify the type of mixed curriculum design (sequential/concurrent/exploratory) and provide a flowchart linking each method to each research goal.

3.2 Qualitative phase (interviews/FGDs)

- - Report: number of participants / experts, inclusion criteria, experience profile, recruitment process, context.

- - Presented the structure of the interview protocol/focus group discussion (topics, number of questions, sample questions).

3.3 Qualitative analysis (NVivo/coding)

- Identify the analytical framework (e.g. objective analysis versus rooted theory), coding steps, iterations, and reliability checks (coders agreement or equivalent).

- Show traceability of raw text ---- icons ---- cursors (table/figure).

3.4 Expert screening / indicator refinement

- Specify whether the Delphi method or any other procedure is used; the number of rounds; decision rules; compatibility metrics.

- Provide a table showing the indicators before and after the examination, stating the reasons for deletion/merging

3.5 AHP weighting

- Show the hierarchy (goal - criteria - sub - criteria-indicators), the number of experts, the scale used, the grouping method, the number of arrays.

- Report consistency ratios (CR) and thresholds; include a table of final weights and rankings.

3.6 Validation

- Define reliability tests (e.g. cronbach's Alpha coefficient) and validity types (content/construction/convergence/discrimination).

- Report the sample size, standards/thresholds, provide tables with all verification outputs.

4) Results (insufficient quantitative reporting)

- Report exact numbers: indicators before/after screening, agreement levels, AHP weights and rankings, CR values, and all reliability/validity statistics.

- Add essential tables/figures: indicator hierarchy, screening outcomes, weight matrices/weight tables, validation tables, and relevant diagrams.

- Avoid generic statements (e.g., “satisfactory,” “significant”) without numerical evidence and/or tests.

5) Discussion

- - Associate each explanatory claim with specific results (weights, ratings, verification measures).

- - Compare the results with specific previous studies/frameworks (author/year) and indicate whether your results confirm or challenge them.

- - Make the effects practical: explain who uses the scale, when, and how it supports decision-making.

- - Clarify the scope and conditions of the circular based on your data and methodology.

6) Conclusion

- - Provide an evidence-based summary of the main quantitative findings.

- - Accurately reformulate the contribution and distinguish it from previous studies.

- - Clarify the limitations while clearly linking them to the methodologies and implications.

- - Provide specific future research directions derived from findings and limitations.

7) References, tables, and figures

- - Ensure that the list of references is complete and its formatting is consistent; check that all quotations contained in the text appear in the list and vice versa.

- - Addition of missing methodological references (mixed methodologies, analysis using the NVivo program/objective analysis, hierarchy analysis, scale validation).

- - Ensure that all figures / tables have independent explanatory headings and are mentioned in the text; clarify whether the figures are original or modified, citing sources accordingly.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments by the authors.docx

-->PONE-D-25-59893R1-->-->An Evaluation Scale for the Cultural Value of Heritage Buildings-->-->PLOS One

Dear Dr. Huang,

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.-->--> -->-->================================-->-->I concur with Reviewer 2 that the authors have made a conscientious and substantially improved response to the reviewers’ comments, and have incorporated many beneficial revisions into the manuscript. Nevertheless, after careful re-evaluation, two core methodological issues remain insufficiently addressed. First, the reliability check of the qualitative coding process (e.g., inter-coder agreement or a systematic verification procedure) is inadequately reported, making it difficult to assess the objectivity and reproducibility of the qualitative findings. Second, the transparency of how expert judgments were aggregated in AHP is lacking; the manuscript does not specify how the individual judgments of the five experts were combined into the group pairwise comparison matrix (e.g., whether the geometric mean was used, nor provides access to the raw individual matrices). These issues are essential for ensuring the methodological rigor and credibility of the conclusions. Therefore, the authors are strongly encouraged to address these two points in detail and provide supporting documentation in the next revision.-->-->================================-->-->

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 23 2026 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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• 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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Baohua Wen

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

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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 #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

-->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: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

-->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: (No Response)

**********

-->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 #2: (No Response)

**********

-->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: 1.The manuscript presents a clear and systematic approach to developing a Cultural Value Evaluation Scale (CVES) for heritage buildings. The integration of multiple methods, including literature review, face-to-face interviews, go-along interviews, and focus group discussions (FGD), strengthens the robustness of the research design. The use of NVivo for qualitative analysis and AHP for weighting indicators is appropriate and well justified.

2.The study successfully incorporates perspectives from different stakeholders, including local shop owners, visitors, and experts, which enhances the comprehensiveness and applicability of the proposed framework. The development of the LHSSA framework (Local, Historic, Sustainability, Scientific, and Aesthetic values) is a meaningful contribution to the field.

3.The data collection process appears rigorous, with clear procedures for achieving saturation in interviews and systematic coding and validation processes. The addition of the sustainability dimension improves the relevance of the scale in contemporary heritage conservation discourse.

4.The manuscript is generally well written and logically structured. Minor language polishing could further improve clarity in some sections, but overall it is intelligible and meets standard academic English requirements.

5.No major concerns regarding research ethics or data availability were identified. The authors have clearly stated that all data are available within the manuscript and supporting files, and ethical considerations such as informed consent and anonymity were appropriately addressed.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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:  Adib Amany

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Al Fahmawee, Emad Al Dein Hasan

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NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

An Evaluation Scale for the Cultural Value of Heritage Buildings

PONE-D-25-59893R2

Dear Dr. Huang,

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.

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Kind regards,

Baohua Wen

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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: Yes

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: In this second revision (R2), the authors have successfully addressed the previous methodological ambiguities. The qualitative phase now includes a robust inter-coder reliability check, yielding a Cohen's Kappa of κ = 0.84, which indicates an excellent level of agreement. Furthermore, the aggregation of expert judgments within the AHP has been clarified as utilizing the geometric mean, and the transparency criteria are fully satisfied by providing the raw pairwise comparison matrices in Appendix E.

The quantitative validation phase is statistically sound and rigorously performed. The internal consistency of the multi-dimensional scale is verified using Cronbach’s alpha, with all key value dimensions exceeding the 0.80 threshold (ranging from 0.871 to 0.941). Construct and convergence validity are appropriately tested using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with a satisfactory cumulative explained variance of 77.68% (KMO = 0.745, Bartlett's test p = 0.000).

The authors have complied fully with the PLOS ONE Data Availability Policy. All minimal datasets, derived indicator scores, and calculation metrics are embedded within the manuscript and its supporting information files, including the newly added Appendix E for raw AHP matrices.

The phrasing and overall narrative structure have been heavily polished across the revisions. The manuscript is well-organized, intelligible, and adheres to standard international academic English publishing guidelines.

Reviewer #2: The revised manuscript reflects a clear attempt to address the concerns raised previously. In particular, improvements in methodological transparency, clarification of the qualitative coding process, reporting of inter-coder reliability procedures, and clarification of the AHP process have strengthened the manuscript.

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Reviewer #1: Yes:  Adib Amany

Reviewer #2: No

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