A Prediction Model for Remote Lab Courses Designed upon the Principles of Education for Sustainable Development

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review Report

Article title: A Prediction Model for Remote Lab Courses Designed upon the ESD Principles

The manuscript presents the NI-Elvis Remote Lab designed to help students develop skills that could make them progress in a sustainable world. The manuscript presents the results of a prediction model based on students' engagement in remote lab work that could be used to identify non-achievers (students who are about to fail) to ensure their sustainability.

 Specific comments:

1.    The abstract should be rewritten. Aims are missing.

2.   The introduction section should be improved by citing recent literature on the use of remote experiments in pedagogical praxis. It should be stated that:

a) remote experiments on the Internet remove barriers that students with special needs are facing (see e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.712);  

b) remote experiments are an important part of the new education strategy  - Integrated e-Learning (INTe-L), (see e.g. https://www.ises.info/old-site/clanky_pdf/Schauer_INTEL_fin.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11090506, etc.)

3.  In the "Introduction" section, it would be appropriate to mention, in addition to the positive aspects, also the negative aspects of remote laboratories.

4.    The research objective of the study must be clearly defined in the “Our Research Objective” section. Although the authors write what the article is about, the research objective are not clearly and unambiguously defined.

5.   Either research questions or specific hypotheses being tested need to be clearly mentioned at the end of the “Introduction” section.

6.   In the "Metrics for Assessing Remote Labs" section an important aspect should be considered in the assessment process, and that is the fact that only one student can use the remote experiment at a given moment, and therefore it is necessary to ensure an efficient reservation system. Students can thus choose the most suitable time for them and work at their own pace, or return to the experiment at home if they did not understand something.

7. In the “Materials and methods” section the research sample should be characterized (number of students, age of students, school, etc.).

8.     Citations of the studies to which the authors refer are missing on lines 234-236 and 241-243.

9.    It would be useful to inform the reader about the prediction model in more detail.

10. In the "Discussion" section the authors should state how can the results be interpreted in terms of the research questions.

11. Figures 3.2.1. and 3.2.2. do not have labels of the axes.

12.The paper has several formal issues: Graphics (graphs, photographs, schematics) should be labelled uniformly as figures, grey background in graphs should be removed to improve readability, etc.

13.The English of the paper should be improved by native speaker before resubmission.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

There is a need to rewrite the abstract in light of present day circumstances and what the authors have proposed as a solution. This should include a brief description of the approach as well as the results.

Introduction: Although Covid has provided a reason for remote lab sessions, research has also made it possible for the sessions to take place remotely.  So author may rewrite this "According to a critical study, the pandemic has brought about new teaching practices 26 centred on digital technology and distance education [1]."

The need for Remote Labs : The entire section does not describe the need for remote laboratories,

1.2. Remote Labs’ Features In this section, authors describe both challenges and feature, so its better seperate them.

Metrics for Assessing Remote Labs: Additionally, there is not a great deal of information titled.

Discussion and Conclusions: A description of what has been written about it should be included in the introduction, addressing all the issues and challenges involved

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The paper titled “A Prediction Model for Remote Lab Courses Designed upon the ESD Principles” is reviewed. This paper focuses attention on a NI-Elvis Remote Lab designed to help students develop qualities that could make them thrive in a sustainable world.  The article needs some carefully editing and modifications which are listed below:

·       The authors should not use abbreviation in the title

·       The authors should report the main of the manuscript in the abstract

·       The authors should not start introduction section with sub title.

·       In the section 1.3, the authors started the sentence by “ . “

·       The introduction provided helpful information about the intended topic and explained prior research contribution, limitation, but the novelty of this study to literature and practice is missing.

·       It will be useful to proofread the manuscript 

·       Graph numbering is not correct. The authors should use Figure 1, Figure 2 ….

·       In addition, the text size and font type of the figure are not consistent with the text size and type of the text. For example, Content_Comprehension in Graph 3.2.1

·       The discussion section needs minor improvement. This can be done by comparing your results with prior studies

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Hi dear Authors,

After reading your article, this is closely related to this one: (https://ijeba.com/journal/773/download/A+Robust+Risk+Model+to+Identify+Factors+that+Affect+Students%E2%80%99+Critical+Achievement+in+Remote+Lab+Courses.pdf)

Yet is not clear the contribution of your paper in the field of the SDGs as you pointed out in the text. In addition, some parts of the text are difficult to read please review the grammar. For instance, review coherence in section 1.3. How the results are aligned with the SDGs?

In addition, explain in-depth why binary logistics regression was used and what limitations are generated by this method. In table 3.1.1, What does it mean the coefficients in the text, a section to clarify these aspects is needed in the text. Why do  not other factors are included in the regression analysis in table 2? Although one part of this is classified in table 3.3.2 more explanation is required. How data of the students were collected from the remote lab?, please explain the tools or the method in this case.

Please review the whole manuscript with these comments.

Best regards.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

I appreciate the great efforts you have made in response to my previous questions and comments. The revision clarifies almost all points I raised. You have significantly improved the clarity of your writing and addressed most of my concerns.

The text of the manuscript needs to be carefully proofread to avoid misprints, e.g., in the References source 31 also has the previous number 25. (see 31. 25.. Georgakopoulos, I., Piromalis, D., Makrygiannis, P. S., Zakopoulos, V., & Drosos, C. (2022). A Robust Risk Model to Identify Factors that Affect Students’ Critical Achievement in Remote Lab Courses. International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), 10(3), 3-22.

All figures should have a uniform name - Figure. Figures 1, 2 in the Introduction section are still listed Image 1, Image 2. The amendments must also be corrected in the text.

If it is not technically possible to label the axes of the graphs in Figures 3 and 4, then write at least below the Figure what the x and y axes show.

Kind regards,

The Reviewer

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The revised study can be accepted.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Hi dear authors,

Thank you for the corrections. I think that my doubts were addressed with them. Please review grammar in some parts of the document (minor spell check), for instance,  in line 430 (Thee word-Three). 

Thank you for your study.

Best regards.

Author Response

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