Resilience During Crisis: COVID-19 and the New Age of Remote Work in Higher Education—A Systematic Literature Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The scientific article is logical, easily understandable, and addresses a current topic. I recommend the authors focus on the proposed Figure 3, "Conceptual Framework." I suggest rotating Figure 3 and its components in the opposite direction so that the arrows point from bottom to top. The authors aim to describe progress at different levels, and directing the arrows from bottom to top will better emphasize this progression. Additionally, I recommend adding a more detailed description of the stages of the "Crisis Process" and the "Resilience Process" within the figure.

I suggest renaming Chapter 5, "Results," to "5. Results and Discussion," as the authors also describe the future direction of the research in the conclusion.

There are several discrepancies between the  scientific article and the template:

• the font style in the article title does not match the template.
• the abstract exceeds 200 words.
• in the "References" section, references 19, 49, and 78 should be adjusted according to the template.

Author Response

Comments: The scientific article is logical, easily understandable, and addresses a current topic. I recommend the authors focus on the proposed Figure 3, "Conceptual Framework." I suggest rotating Figure 3 and its components in the opposite direction so that the arrows point from bottom to top. The authors aim to describe progress at different levels, and directing the arrows from bottom to top will better emphasize this progression. 
Action: The arrows have been redirected from the bottom to the top. Thank you for this advice; it's much better. However, we need help with inserting the corrected figure in the manuscript. Please assist; it is attached as a separate document.  

Comment: Additionally, I recommend adding a more detailed description of the stages of the "Crisis Process" and the "Resilience Process" within the figure.
Action: As shown in Figure 3, the Crisis Process entails 3 stages, namely, Pre-crisis, Crisis response, and Post-crisis. Similarly, the Resilience Process is denoted with three corresponding stages which are Anticipating, Coping, and Adapting.   I am not sure if I understood what a detailed description within the figure entails given that there was an explanation leading to the development of the diagram. Please assist.

Comment: I suggest renaming Chapter 5, "Results," to "5. Results and Discussion," as the authors also describe the future direction of the research in the conclusion.
Action: Done, 5 renamed to Results and Discussion.

Comment: There are several discrepancies between the scientific article and the template:
The font style in the article title does not match the template.
The abstract exceeds 200 words.
In the "References" section, references 19, 49, and 78 should be adjusted according to the template.
Action: The Editorial office has assisted us in transferring to the correct template as well as addressing the font style. The abstract word count is 206. I have read through it, looking for what to rephrase but unable to. May we please be pardoned for the extra 6 words? References 19, 49, and 78 have been aligned to the journal requirement.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper focuses on the gap in academic discourse concerning the resilience of academics in remote working arrangements during the Covid-19 pandemic and aims to explore the application of resilience across the stages of a crisis management framework in addressing the challenges of remote working arrangements as treated in the recent literature. It tries to contribute to the discussion of these topics by systematic literature review seemingly connecting the frequency of the topics with their descriptions. The texts were selected from four databases lacking Research Gate or Academia as personally managed accounts. The selection criteria are well defined but miss the quality criteria selection. The methodology is dominantly qualitative, well defined and presented. Its weakness lies in its self-justification. The fact that the analysed texts were selected does not mean that the treatment of the topic is relevant for all the HEIs as there were national as well as institutional differences. Nevertheless, the topic can be viewed in general terms and as such, the results can be considered consistent and adequate. The manuscript is clear and well-structured. The tables and figures are appropriate and relevant. The topic and its treatment is original but the implications of the study are still rather limited. I recommend adding the comments on the process of qualitative analysis of the selected texts and the relevance of methdology of those texts. The national composition of the authors would be also interesting. 

Author Response

Comment: The paper focuses on the gap in academic discourse concerning the resilience of academics in remote working arrangements during the Covid-19 pandemic and aims to explore the application of resilience across the stages of a crisis management framework in addressing the challenges of remote working arrangements as treated in the recent literature. It tries to contribute to the discussion of these topics by systematic literature review, seemingly connecting the frequency of the topics with their descriptions. The texts were selected from four databases lacking Research Gate or Academia as personally managed accounts. The selection criteria are well defined but miss the quality criteria selection. 
Action: The authors used Endnote software for sourcing materials, which allowed them to use the identified databases within the university system. Hence, the use of Web of Science (WoS), SCOPUS, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar. However, to expand the search, an attempt was made using Research Gate and Academia, as one of the authors has a profile with these databases. It was noted that the same materials considered for this study were generated by Research Gate and Academia and thus considered duplications. 
Concerns over quality were addressed under section 5.2 Quality Assessment

Comment: The methodology is dominantly qualitative, well defined and presented. Its weakness lies in its self-justification. The fact that the analysed texts were selected does not mean that the treatment of the topic is relevant for all the HEIs as there were national as well as institutional differences. Nevertheless, the topic can be viewed in general terms, and as such, the results can be considered consistent and adequate. The manuscript is clear and well-structured. The tables and figures are appropriate and relevant. The topic and its treatment is original but the implications of the study are still rather limited. I recommend adding the comments on the process of qualitative analysis of the selected texts and the relevance of methodology of those texts. The national composition of the authors would be also interesting. 
Action: The authors were mindful of institutional and background differences and thus do not recommend generalization of the study. The qualitative analysis of the selected texts was backed up using inclusion criteria of which one of them is ‘only-peer reviewed journal articles’. In addition, comments have been added as suggested (See lines 212 and 213).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I have read your paper and found it quite interesting.

1. The systematic literature review is well done and extensive.
2. The English is good and no grammatical mistakes are there.
3. The period covered is sufficient.

Author Response

Thank you for the review