Lecturers' information literacy experience in remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The advent of coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, continues to trigger several important disruptions/innovations in practically every sector around the world. Additionally, the impacts are predominant in certain educational systems and in creating opportunities. Previous studies had addressed possible effective methods in handling distant learning and student interactions. This qualitative study explored lecturers' information literacy experience during online classes as a result of the pandemic. Semi-structured interview techniques were applied among participants, made up of 15 lecturers in the Humanities Faculty, Diponegoro University, Indonesia, and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data obtained. The results showed the focus of lecturers' information literacy experience was primarily on student interactions and knowledge of various online learning platforms. However, information repackaging was a significant initial consideration during virtual classes, after identifying salient student characteristics. In summary, the present study have contributed to the theoretical understanding of information literacy and may be of benefit to the teaching faculties for enhancing teaching and learning activities, as well as providing student support.

Introduction

The impact of COVID-19 on universities has been widespread [1, 2]. In June 2020, the Indonesian government reported the transition of major higher education institutions to various alternative teaching and learning modes, over the past three months. Essentially, all universities considered implementing online classes as a means to curtail the virus spread effectively [3]. However, the majority of lecturers perceive this approach as a novel initiative, but with very limited instructions in place. As a consequence, the online tuition requirement created a unique predicament for the country’s higher education systems. Moreover, without adequate preparation, lecturers possibly become prone to facing numerous complex issues [4, 5]. Particular previous studies have demonstrated that this virtual concept demands a separate pedagogy from a traditional classroom approach [6, 7].

Online teaching amid the growing COVID-19 pandemic and the influence on teaching and learning techniques, specifically in higher education, have been investigated globally [1, 8–10]. These studies reported the unique diversity of emergency remote teaching compared to conventional online mode [8] and the way faculties engage with related tools to promote student interactions while revealing faculties’ perspectives about remote teaching [11, 12]. Presently, no report exists on lecturers’ information literacy experience during online tuition. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and report lecturers’ information literacy experience during emergency remote teaching in the Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University. Furthermore, academic activities have migrated to virtual mode across the country as of March 2020. This movement was an urgent situation, where the lecturers were allocated little time to prepare. Under this condition, the study’s objective tends to vary from online programs under normal circumstances.

Literature review

Emergency remote teaching

The current global circumstance in terms of the transition from conventional teaching and learning systems in higher education to online mode, as an emergency delivery mode, has been identified by certain experts. Iglesias-Pradas et al. [13] emphasized “the difference between online teaching and emergency remote teaching lies in that online results from careful instructional design and planning, requiring an investment in a whole ecosystem of learner support that takes time to build” [para. 6]. Meanwhile, the emergency remote option presents as a form of temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternative channel in response to crisis situations [8]. The word ‘temporary’ is highlighted as the teaching mode assumed is delivered onsite after the setback.

No single faculty around the world expected this urgent shift [13]. People with previous virtual experience showed more adaptability, although several lecturers indicated no prior online knowledge, and possibly encountered certain challenges, including insufficient preparation. Consequently, new remote teaching methods have had to be developed, with or without experience, as these means require a different pedagogy from onsite classroom arrangement [1, 12]. In addition, considerations are also needed to initiate relevant adjustments to assignments and exams [11].

Furthermore, other studies focused on the employment of online teaching tools and instructional modes. In relation to synchronous and asynchronous virtual deliveries, Iglesias-Pradas et al. [13] reported a greater preference for resource materials in a synchronous pattern, as faculties and students were physically distant, but communicating in real time using a range of videoconferencing applications, similar to certain traditional classes. Academic lectures tend to choose familiar methods and tools. Two main online resources commonly used by faculty include a learning management system (LMS) and a video conferencing platform [14]. Lecturers use LMS to distribute course content and related academic materials. Also, it is possible to integrate discussions during and after lectures, in addition to conducting exams and post-assignment details [15]. The major limitation referred to the short time allocated to learning the platform, therefore, recommendations were suggested to provide continuous training on the use of educational tools toward enhancing faculties’ capacity [13, 16].

Based on the prevalent issues and challenges of emergency remote teaching, concerns have been generated regarding the tuition quality in higher education. Online training is not expected to inspire confidence with a lecturer talking to a screen. This only creates a teacher centered learning; instead, there is need to provide timely feedback to students’ questions and comments [10]. In participating in remote course delivery, Rapanta et al. [10] and Rad et al. [1] recommended the need for active interactions between teachers and students, as everyone in the virtual classroom is capable of learning from others.

Previous studies on faculty’s experience of online teaching emphasized the emerging issues related to emergency remote teaching as well as coping strategies. This current study investigated the information literacy experience of lecturers during emergency remote teaching.

Information literacy as a learning experience

Information literacy embraces several definitions, and more importantly, the variations in understanding originated from the various theoretical perspectives [17] have influenced these research objectives [18]. Despite offering numerous descriptions, several experts relate the concept of information literacy to problem-solving activities involving critical thinking and the ability to use information in everyday life [19].

Many higher education studies regarded information literacy as an essential skill in ensuring academic success. These abilities include information sourcing, evaluation and selection, as well as ethical implementation of the knowledge amassed. Also, the skill-based concept is significantly influenced by the behavioral aspects of information literacy, considered to be a talent or aptitude an individual may possess [18].

The current study adopted the relational perspective of information literacy. This is an information literacy perspective that emphasizes the relationship between people and information when learning in a different context [20]. From this perspective, information literacy focuses on the different ways people relate to information and interact with the information world [21]. Bruce’s work [1997] is significant for this study because it moved the understanding of information literacy beyond skills to show the complexity and nuanced elements of the phenomenon. Information literacy from the relational perspective is seen to be more than just developing skills and competencies to undertake actions or behaviors; it also involves emotion, attitudes and other more experiential elements [21-23]. As a theoretical framework for information literacy research, the relational perspective provides a wider interpretation and offers different insights into information literacy [24].

A recent study by Yates [22] employed the above approach in exploring the information literacy experience, where the variations in people’s encounters on the application of information in learning about health are the topic of study. Previously, Andretta [25] utilized a similar approach to determine the experience of information literacy of undergraduate students. Sayyad Abdi, Partridge, and Bruce [26] researched web designers and developers information literacy, while Demasson [27] investigated the category of persons engaged in serious leisure activities in traditional bases.

These above-mentioned studies highlighted the information literacy experience from various backgrounds and demonstrated other means of assessment. Similarly, several opportunities were readily available in exploring information literacy in separate contexts. The present research is aimed at investigating lecturers’ information literacy experience during emergency remote teaching. Therefore, this research addresses the question of how the lecturers experience emergency remote teaching as part of their information literacy.

Method

This study employed a basic qualitative method, a method that is used to study the interaction of people in their naturally occurring conditions [28]. It involves qualitative data collection [e.g., interviews] to understand and explain social phenomena [29]. This basic qualitative method can be used by researchers who are interested in understanding the meaning that is not discovered but constructed [30] Hence, the basic qualitative method is appropriate for a study that is interested in how people interpret their experiences, how they construct their world, and what meaning they attribute to their experiences [30]. Even though this understanding identifies all qualitative research, other types of qualitative studies have an additional dimension. For instance, a grounded theory study seeks not just to understand, but also to build a substantive theory about the phenomenon being studied [30].

This study was reviewed and validated by the Faculty of Humanities Ethics Committee, with approval number: 1215-26/UN7.5.6/HK/2020.

The research sample comprised 15 participants, lecturers of six undergraduate courses from the Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University, Indonesia. These programs include Library Science, Japanese Literature, Social Anthropology, Indonesian Literature, English Literature and History. Based on the study objective, a criterion was considered for acceptance, where only individuals at the lecturer level were eligible, and in this regard, assistant lecturers were not qualified. Also, the completion of six months distance training during the COVID-19 outbreak is further required as evidence of extensive knowledge for the remote arrangement.

The principal researcher also sent the recruitment flyer to a WhatsApp group of all the Faculty of Humanities’ lecturers. This flyer distribution was considered the best and quickest method to disseminate necessary details. Nine lecturers agreed to participate in the interviews at the first flyer distribution. Subsequently, the principal researcher posted the flyer for the second time, and six further participants signed up. The list of participants is provided in Table 1. All participants were assigned sufficient time to ask questions. Also, an information sheet and consent form were provided to properly understand the research parameters [31]. Table 1 shows the participants of this study.

Table 1

Participants of the study.

Participants	Courses	Sex	Notes
Rika	Course A	Female	36-year-old lecturer with seven years’ teaching experience. Rika is familiar with the basic features of the online resource platform as the main tool for engaging the students.
Harry	Course A	Male	33-year-old lecturer with five years’ teaching experience. Harry reported being familiar with the teaching platform as the main tool for interacting with students and has utilized virtually all the features. Harry has also used integrated YouTube videos into the platform to share with students.
Deny	Course A	Male	41-year-old lecturer with five years’ teaching experience. Deny, identified as a competent user of the teaching platform, is very conversant with majority of the features in interacting with students.
Rudi	Course B	Male	37-year-old lecturer with nearly eight years’ experience. Major features employed for teaching include text chat, audio meetings, reading files, assignments and quizzes. Rudi uses the teaching platform as a single tool in sharing resources with students and also reported being familiar with searching for information through the Internet for extra resources.
Dhani	Course B	Female	33-year-old lecturer with approximately four years’ experience. Dhani is a competent user of Office applications and social media platforms. She is able to use the teaching platform relatively easily since being initially introduced at the commencement of the emergency remote teaching.
Tina	Course B	Female	43-year-old lecturer with seven years’ experience. Tina uses blogs and Twitter effectively for searching current news related to her subjects, and also claimed the teaching platform is manageable, despite a poor internet connection.
Nida	Course C	Female	35-year-old lecturer with six years’ experience. Nida reported that the teaching platform was easy to learn and is very handy. However, presently Nida barely uses the basic features, including post, chat, creating new teams, audio meetings, assessments and quizzes.
Fikri	Course C	Male	41-year-old lecturer with eight years’ teaching experience. Fikri reported working relatively easily with the platform and occasionally prepares ready-to-use videos from YouTube as teaching content.
Ifah	Course D	Female	39-year-old lecturer with seven years’ experience in the course. Ifah feels very relaxed about using the teaching platform for the first time, but only on the basic features like text chat, audio and video meetings, assignments and uploading content for students.
Bodi	Course D	Male	42-year-old lecturer with about eight years’ experience on the course. Bodi has used different information sources like Wikipedia and any other websites during distance teaching and also shares useful information with students via the teaching platform. Bodi did not observe any technical issues, except for a poor Internet connection.
Fuji	Course D	Male	37-year-old lecturer with six years’ teaching experience. Fuji learned the teaching platform by himself at the start of the pandemic. Also, Fuji usually has students activate the camera during lectures to enable him to view the students’ presentations.
Tommy	Course E	Male	31-year-old lecturer with three years’ experience teaching the course. Tommy was also an alumnus of the Humanities Faculty and feels very close to the students. This enables easier interaction via the teaching platform. He has already used sufficient teaching resources from the Internet before the pandemic and currently feels confident using the platform for teaching and sharing resource materials.
Ara	Course E	Male	41-year = old lecturer with 12 years’ teaching experience in this faculty. Ara presents as a competent user of Office packages and Internet browsing, particularly in looking for resource materials from YouTube, Twitter and popular search engines. He also claimed to have easily adapted to the teaching platform during the first week of online teaching.
Bekti	Course F	Male	49-year-old lecturer with 14 years’ teaching experience. Bekti employs several tools, including YouTube to upload custom videos and share them with students. He believes YouTube and Facebook are effective in delivering content to students and colleagues.
Rani	Course F	Female	29-year-old lecturer with seven years’ experience in teaching the history course. Rani is identified as a fast learner in information and communication technology tools, specifically for teaching purposes. Rani agreed to seamlessly adapt to the platform and also provide short training sessions to colleagues on ways to use the application.

The study population was not limited to specific courses, as the overall purpose was not to simply investigate the nature of teaching from home within the information literacy experience for a specific group of teachers. Therefore, all the lecturers from six different courses from the Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University were targeted for data collection, using semi-structured interviews. Moreover, the principal researcher was responsible for the interviews and was the only one engaging with participants. This interviewer demonstrated adequate interrogative knowledge, as a Ph.D. graduate of Queensland University of Technology, Australia. The questions used for the interviews were:

Can you tell me what your subject is?

Can you tell me about how you deliver lectures?

Can you tell me how you engage with your students?

Can you tell me about the information sources you use for your distance teaching?

How would you define ‘distance teaching’?

Follow-up questions were used for the interviews to explore participants’ responses. One response from a participant may trigger two or three points to probe [32]. Some follow-up questions that were used during the interviews included:

Can you tell me more about that?

What did that make you think about that?

The interview guide is available in S1 File.

In accordance with established qualitative practice, the collected data were analyzed using thematic analysis. This method was applied to identify and examine patterns or themes considered significant in describing the study phenomena [14]. In addition, the approach was used to interpret various aspects of the subject matter, by “encoding” the qualitative data obtained [15]. The processes were composed of three phases, termed data familiarization, code generation, and theme identification. In the first stage, interview transcripts were read two to three times to familiarize participants with the sample data and ensure proper comprehension. Subsequently, a summary was written to describe researchers’ reflections after each reading. In the second phase, codes were generated to detect relevant data features. This study utilized an inductive approach to see what emerged from the data. The inductive approach to coding refers to generating code that “derive from what is in the data” [33]. Once the codes had been finalized, a codebook was developed. The codebook was an important element for this study, as it was used to organize the codes following the interpretations [34]. Table 2 shows an excerpt of coding from the codebook.

Table 2

Excerpts of codebook documenting the codes.

Codes	Total no of references	No of interviews used in	Participant 1		Participant 2
			No of references	Line no	No of references	Line no
Same teaching method	1	1	1	347
Independent learning instruction	2	2	2	389, 433
Video meet preferences	4	1	1	452
Self-exploration methods are working well	1	1	1	477
Asking students to read more	1	1			1	29
Video interactions after reading	2	1			1	115–145

Following the coding, codes that had similar features were grouped into higher-order categories. The identified broad categories or groups were named according to their content. In this phase, the groups created and the codes allocated to each group were reviewed to determine whether the codes were located in the right group.

In the third phase, themes were identified as the data patterns, believed to describe and organize the aspects of the phenomenon derived from the data. However, the previously generated codes were reviewed and examined multiple times against the main research question, phrased as, how was the lecturers’ information literacy experience during remote teaching? To determine the themes, in this phase, themes were identified based on similarities and differences observed between the groups and codes. The identified themes are explained in the following section.

Findings

The research findings show the participants’ information literacy experience in emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. These unique experiences consist of the ways the participants familiarized themselves with the new environment of distance teaching, which also involved the use of new information technology. The participants’ experience also included the various methods technology which was applied in terms of lecture delivery, research consultations, and students’ research and course examinations.

Information repackaging

This theme depicts an aspect of the participants’ experience of remote teaching as part of their information literacy that was associated with recording information for their students. Lecturers’ information literacy now encompasses engagement with different modes of social media platforms they used to present lectures. Remote teaching involves several interactions between lecturers and students by sharing text messages and holding video meetings for a short period on an online platform. Fuji, Rika and Nida believed these methods did not adequately convey the full intentions of the lecturers’ message. However, the concerns were resolved by creating video recordings of lectures and uploading them to other platforms, e.g., Facebook or YouTube.

The files involved selecting distinct content deemed important for students in forms other than text messages. These video recordings were expected to serve as additional materials alongside e-books and journal articles to stimulate discussions during lectures. However, as the recordings were also available to the general public, other comments within the platform occured, not only between the lecturer and students.

Rudi needed to create a recording on the technical process of writing Kanji letters, and, in turn, students were required to document the practice by uploading the video to the online platform. In this manner, the lecturer can provide feedback based on individual/group performance, and also as a good knowledge-sharing exercise.

In the context of an information literacy experience, academic resources are expected to be interactive and engaging. Selecting, recording, and then uploading content to YouTube for easy access provides a constructive opportunity for lecturer–student interactions. The purpose was not only based on getting the students’ attention as their intended audience but also targeted colleagues’ online views and comments via shared videos on social networks.

Supporting students as independent learners

This theme denotes an aspect of participants’ experience of remote teaching as part of their information literacy related to supporting students as independent learners. Emergency remote teaching environments have encouraged lecturers in observing minimal face-to-face contact with students, and they were are also required by the university not to spend above 30 minutes on video meetings, in consideration of internet access. Moreover, students in rural communities usually experience certain challenges including poor internet connections, inadequate modern devices, e.g., smartphones or laptops, and issues with data purchase. Therefore, 30-minute lectures were ultimately considered sufficient.

Conversely, five lecturers complained that this time was rather too short to allow for detailed interactive discussions. In consequence, Rika, Fuji, Nida, Ara and Bekti encouraged students to commit personal time to study the class materials provided on the teaching platform and observe related phenomena. Dhani regarded remote teaching as a hindrance to students’ overall learning objectives, but, on the other hand, possibly attracts new opportunities for the lecturers to encourage independent studying.

They don’t have to rely mainly on the lecturer, I think, and I don’t have to teach them every single step to understand the Japanese text. I really hope they would be able to explore, and be creative in reading and to present what they have found from the literature available on the Internet to the class in the next online meeting (Dhani)

Furthermore, about the course materials, the lecturers discovered the need to encourage self-study by offering valuable resources, including reading materials and videos. These provisions serve as a stimulus for guidance, and also as useful information on related supplies. Similarly, Tommy reported the additional insights generated by the students were significant for lecturers to possibly incorporate into subsequent materials. In this context, information literacy is also experienced by the lecturers as a form of providing relevant information with an intention to inspire a further search for additional related resources for self-study purposes. However, the majority of the lecturers regard the initiative as an obstacle to student interaction, by describing the use of information as activities including selecting and uploading content to the online platform, as well as monitoring student contributions.

Familiarization with the teaching platforms

This theme illustrates an aspect of participants’ experience of remote teaching as part of their information literacy related to their effort of making them familiar with the teaching platforms. The courses offered by the Faculty of Humanities include culture, language and literature studies. The subjects require active lecturer-student interactions, as there is a need to deliver and assess particular skills, e.g., speaking, or listening. The ability to achieve the learning goals in these topics relies heavily on interactions between lecturer and student as well as among students. Bodi noted the selection of a teaching platform is essential for an effective learning process, based on individual course needs. The current online platform has been identified by certain participants as adequate to cater for the educational requirements and also allows for audiovisual content as well as text messages. Furthermore, Bodi stated that the future development of any remote channel by universities is expected to consider lecturers’ needs, in terms of teaching and learning objectives.

Ara reported an elaborate delivery on the online platform, using various instructional methodologies and content. Previously, YouTube content was rarely consumed, but currently, Ara is expected to obtain a range of digital resources to enable a smooth course delivery. Also, YouTube has been one of the main selections, compared to other providers of educational resources. Therefore, the teaching platform presently employed by the university was considered very helpful, probably due to easy integration with other platforms, including YouTube, Forms, and any other learning tools known to support effective teaching activities.

Conversely, based on Bekti’s experience in using the platform, Bekti and her colleagues encountered initial difficulties understanding the platform. Moreover, “online teaching”, appeared as a common concept, but none of the participants had ever employed the application. As a consequence, the efforts required to familiarize themselves with the provision varied in terms of timeframes and techniques. For instance, Nida, Ifah, Dhani, Bekti and Harry commented on being new users to the platform, but they did not take long to become conversant with the features. These individuals formed a study group to learn how to utilize the platform effectively, as illustrated by the following quote,

…everything was happening very quickly. I had not expected the need for online teaching, until the COVID-19 outbreaks. I didn’t have any experience with using such a tool, or any other tools like YouTube and so on, for online teaching. I found the study group, where we, the lecturers, got together to learn how to use the platform, very helpful. (Bekti)

Rika and Bodi stated that the university had provided a tutorial video on the basics of the teaching platform and its features. This circumstance, however, did not enable detailed comprehension.

It doesn’t talk much about the [platform] features. I think it was intended only to show how to locate it in the system, log in, and introduce the main functions like creating classes, adding students in, and uploading files. Yeah it’s not that detailed (Rika).

Familiarization with the online platform was the way lecturers experienced information literacy. The lecturers regard information as their ability to essentially use the teaching platform, study groups and video tutorial offered by the university. Also, the participants described the use of the information as an initiative to join the study group to extensively comprehend the platform. These lecturers perceived the information-sharing communities as a means of fully understanding the platform and being successful in managing the subjects during classes.

Active learners

Active learners denote an aspect of the participants’ experience of remote teaching as part of their information literacy related to supporting students to become active learners. The lecturers identified that students were more active when they were invited for text chat discussions, compared to classroom settings, as several questions were generated, with corresponding responses. Also, Fuji and Bodi identified this behavior as related to the local culture, where students from Javanese cultural backgrounds were taught to always respect and obey teachers and, as a result, were expected to listen rather than ask questions during video sessions. However, as the lecturers commenced interaction through text chat medium, students were further encouraged to express any question by commenting about the delivered topics, and through this approach, great responses were recorded.

…during the video calls, I always encourage them to raise any questions. But if students think that it is not polite to interrupt me, I ask them to write down their questions or comments via the text chat. I did notice, though, that a few students were brave enough to ask their questions during the video meeting, but, mostly they only did that through the text chat because they didn’t want to interrupt me (Fuji).

Initiating text discussions illustrated the lecturers’ information literacy experience, where information was regarded as students’ culture and attitude. The use of information was described as inviting students to participate in text discussions after video meetings through the online platform. Lecturers initiated text discussions to give an opportunity to students who interact less during video meetings. Hence, it was an effective strategy because more students were willing to participate in the discussion.

Discussion

The results of this study showed each lecturer with a unique information literacy experience involving the new remote teaching platform. The majority of the lecturers confirmed that the idea of a fully remote resource was a brand-new academic experience. Therefore, there is a crucial need to adapt to this new technology. Also, the process of familiarizing was relatively convenient for certain lecturers, while for others, particularly the senior lecturers, the process was extremely stressful, as many were not prepared. This finding contributed to Mohamad, Salleh, and Salam’s [16] studies, where the use of information technology to enhance teaching and learning activities was very limited.

There were different methods in becoming familiar with the new shift. In this study, a majority of the lecturers voluntarily joined a study group formed by colleagues, to master the platform. This report supported Somerville and Bruce’s [35] study, where learning, a product of a collaborative, peer-oriented environment, was regarded as essential in certain cultures. Based on Lloyd [36], it became evident that people in local communities create an information landscape within the environment and develop social connections at work. The lecturers have begun to comprehend the emergence of vital information from anywhere or any individual. This finding matched the report by Sayyad Abdi et al. [26], as information literacy was also experienced by participating in similar learning communities, where information sharing breeds valuable engagement and mutual studying.

Pertaining to information repackaging into video format, the results of this research showed that faculties not only attempted to devise ways to deliver lectures effectively, but also endeavored to customize the content to match students’ characteristics. Current learners were identified as “digital natives”, as denoted by Prensky [37], which referred to persons born in or after 1980. In addition to this category and due to wide exposure to technology, new learning styles were easily developed, with knowledge in multiple media types and by appreciating the different forms of ICT currently utilized for learning. Under these circumstances, several participants opted to record the lectures and upload to YouTube, while others searched for relevant videos as teaching materials. The subsequent finding confirmed the results of Johnston, Barton, Williams-Pritchard, and Todorovic [38], where the majority of the undergraduates regained confidence and properly engaged YouTube videos, due to the extent of accessible and interactive information in small measures. These reports also supported Burke and Snyder’s study [39], where social media tend to provide an alternative route for teachers to engage students in higher education with quality and interactive course content.

Furthermore, the results of this study contributed to Johnson, Veletsianos, and Seaman’s [6] reports involving lecturers with no experience in online teaching, who were required to use the new teaching approach. Participants observed the use of various delivery methods, including new techniques not previously utilized. Interestingly, several means to stimulate student interactions during virtual classes were devised, as simple as merely using text chat.

The lecturers demonstrated the awareness of information literacy and identified the students’ preference of learning tools, including YouTube videos. These channels served as a motivation to explore other available learning materials. Also, sufficient comprehension of student interactions was developed and, more importantly, the best means of engaging these “digital native” learners. Moreover, the present study contributed to Moghavvemi, Sulaiman, Jaafar, and Kasem’s [40] investigations by providing insights on the use of YouTube as a complementary tool for teaching and learning, as also reported by Johnson et al. [6], where lecturers were expected to employ synchronous and asynchronous video sessions.

Furthermore, by exploring a specific group of academic staff in higher education, this study is believed to enrich the investigation of information literacy by a specific group of people, in a particular workplace and profession e.g., lecturers [41, 42].

Conclusion

This study provided new insights into lecturers’ information literacy experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are believed to contribute significantly to the Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University and other tertiary institutions in Indonesia. These circumstances tend to enhance teaching and learning activities, as well as offer adequate student support. Also, the results may influence theoretical comprehension of information literacy, to create viable opportunities for further research in the field of emergency remote teaching and information literacy.

The interview guide.

(DOCX)

Click here for additional data file.

(DOC)

Click here for additional data file.

(DOCX)

Click here for additional data file.

(DOCX)

Click here for additional data file.

17 Feb 2021

PONE-D-20-39011

Investigation into the information literacy experience of lecturers when teaching from home during the COVID-19 Outbreak

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Heriyanto,

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 agree with the two reviewers that this study is timely and relevant. There are still some areas that need further clarification or improvement.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 03 2021 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:

A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

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.

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: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Mingming Zhou, Ph.D.

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

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 (1) whether consent was informed and (2) 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.

If you are reporting a retrospective study of medical records or archived samples, please ensure that you have discussed whether all data were fully anonymized before you accessed them and/or whether the IRB or ethics committee waived the requirement for informed consent. If patients provided informed written consent to have data from their medical records used in research, please include this information.

3. When reporting the results of qualitative research, we suggest consulting the COREQ guidelines: http://intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/6/349. In this case, please consider including more information on the number of interviewers, their training and characteristics. Moreover, please describe in more detail the methodology used for data analysis, and please provide the interview guides used as a Supplementary file.

[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: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

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: Your research is especially relevant and important in the current pandemic. I like that you opted to research lecturers, who often don't attain the same professional development as tenure and tenure track, professors. However, I would have liked to know more about how these lecturers were recruited; also it would have been good to have more information on each lecturer - such as years teaching, age, comfort with technology.

I also suggest a more thorough literature review. Other research exists in the area of teaching online, though perhaps without the focus on information literacy.

I also question your use of thematic analysis. From my own experience, thematic analysis does not include the use of codes. I am also not seeing any explanation of how you derived those specific codes.

Your findings are very interesting but some parts are vague. For example, "some lecturers commented that 30 minute lectures were at times to short," "most lecturers encouraged students to allocate their own timeframes," "the lecturers found that they could encourage self-study..." Can you be more specific with these findings? What do you mean by "most," or "some?" Did all lecturers find that they could encourage self-study?

Last, there are grammatical errors throughout, so this needs to be edited.

Thank you for exploring this timely issue!

Reviewer #2: Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to review this manuscript. I think given the transition of almost all higher education institutions around the world to online learning over the past year, this is a topical and relevant study. It was well written and organized logically. I do have significant concerns with the framework used to study your findings. Please see below for my suggested revisions:

1) I'm not sure you've sufficiently demonstrated why this is connected to information literacy. Although I appreciate the literature review, this doesn't highlight any formal standards or frameworks (e.g. IFLA or, in the U.S. context ACRL). It seems to me what you're describing is information behavior of lecturers? That would require a different lit review and

2) I wasn't entirely clear on the research questions - I know you were investigating how the lecturers changed their teaching based on the transition to online education, but it wasn't clear to me how this fits into the overall research framework of either information literacy or online teaching. Again, for the latter, a different or supplemental lit review and framework would be needed.

3) How do these particular lecturers represent the wider population? What were your questions? Methods need to be more specific.

Ultimately this is a good overview of a particular change in teaching due to COVID, but it wasn't especially clear to me how it fits into a larger research framework or investigation.

**********

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.

14 Apr 2021

Editor Remarks

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming

The manuscript has been revise following PLOS ONE’s style requirement as stated in https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

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 (1) whether consent was informed and (2) 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.

Information about participant consent has been provided in the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission form. The written consent was informed to the participants when the participants agreed to be interviewed and before they were interviewed.

3. When reporting the results of qualitative research, we suggest consulting the COREQ guidelines: http://intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/6/349. In this case, please consider including more information on the number of interviewers, their training and characteristics. Moreover, please describe in more detail the methodology used for data analysis, and please provide the interview guides used as a Supplementary file.

• Additional information about number of interviewer, the interviewer training and characteristic have been provided following COREQ guidelines

• The data analysis method has been described in details in the Methods section. Thematic analysis was employed in the study to interpret the qualitative data obtained from the interviews.

• The interview guide is provided as a supplementary file.

Reviewer 1

• I would have liked to know more about how these lecturers were recruited; also it would have been good to have more information on each lecturer - such as years teaching, age, comfort with technology.

The participants recruitments technique and additional information about each lecturer have been added to the Methods section

• I also suggest a more thorough literature review. Other research exists in the area of teaching online, though perhaps without the focus on information literacy.

Thank you, this is really great suggestion. We have followed this suggestion by providing research in the area of emergency remote teaching. These researches considered relevant to this study as the context of the study is emergency remote teaching and information literacy.

• I also question your use of thematic analysis. From my own experience, thematic analysis does not include the use of codes. I am also not seeing any explanation of how you derived those specific codes.

This study employing thematic analysis introduced by Braun & Clarke which it involves generating codes as its second phase for the data analysis. I have provided details about code generations in Method section. In addition, the details of Braun & Clarke publication on thematic analysis that employed in this study is available here Virginia Braun & Victoria Clarke (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3:2, 77-101

• Your findings are very interesting but some parts are vague. For example, "some lecturers commented that 30-minute lectures were at times to short," "most lecturers encouraged students to allocate their own timeframes," "the lecturers found that they could encourage self-study..." Can you be more specific with these findings? What do you mean by "most," or "some?" Did all lecturers find that they could encourage self-study?

Thank you for this. The sentences have been revised with the suggested wording to be more specific with the participants.

• Last, there are grammatical errors throughout, so this needs to be edited.

Thank you for this. The revised version of the manuscript has been proofread by professional proofreading services to improve the clarity and readability.

Reviewer 2 Remarks

• I'm not sure you've sufficiently demonstrated why this is connected to information literacy. Although I appreciate the literature review, this doesn't highlight any formal standards or frameworks (e.g. IFLA or, in the U.S. context ACRL). It seems to me what you're describing is information behavior of lecturers? That would require a different lit review

This study employed the relational perspective of information literacy which emphasis the experience of individuals with their information world. This experience would enable them "to draw upon in new situations", which can be translated as the way they learnt from that situation and applying them to a new situation. Bruce described the information literate person as being “one who experiences information literacy in a range of ways, and is able to determine the nature of experience it is necessary to draw upon in new situations” (1997a, p. 169). Therefore, information literacy is connected to this new situation experienced by the lecturers of this study. Moreover, the relational perspective of information literacy framework is adopted in this study and have been mentioned in the literature review section.

• I wasn't entirely clear on the research questions - I know you were investigating how the lecturers changed their teaching based on the transition to online education, but it wasn't clear to me how this fits into the overall research framework of either information literacy or online teaching. Again, for the latter, a different or supplemental lit review and framework would be needed

Thank you for point this up. The literature review section has been revised as suggested emphasizing the emergency remote teaching and information literacy framework.

• How do these particular lecturers represent the wider population? What were your questions? Methods need to be more specific.

This qualitative study revealed the perspective of lecturers in the Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Diponegoro regarding their online teaching experience. The findings of the study do not aim to generalize the whole population of lecturers. However, the Methods section has been revised as suggested by providing research question

Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx

Click here for additional data file.

29 Jun 2021

PONE-D-20-39011R1

Lecturers' information literacy experience in remote teaching during COVID-19 pandemic

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Heriyanto,

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.

As suggested by the second reviewer, still more work is expected in reporting the analysis process of the qualitative data.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 13 2021 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:

A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

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.

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:  http://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,

Mingming Zhou, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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 #3: (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: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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 #3: No

**********

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 #3: 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: I appreciate the changes to this manuscript. My concerns were addressed and the research question more clearly answered. While the data support the conclusion, there were instances where only one participant's concerns were addressed. It would have been helpful to see the questions from semi-structured interviews to get a better perspective.

Overall, however, I believe this manuscript is suitable for publication. Thank you for your extensive revisions!

Reviewer #3: Thank you for the opportunity to review this submission, and for the work you have done on this project. The manuscript reviewed focused on interview research meant to generate findings about the "information literacy experiences" of lecturers during the COVID-19 Pandemic. While I found several aspects of the manuscript interesting, including the introduction of research in the area of online teaching and learning that I was not quite as familiar with, there are several issues, including those raised by previous reviewers, that must be addressed before this manuscript is ready for publication.

Firstly, as reviewer 2 remarked, a much stronger conceptualization of information literacy must not only be developing in the introductory pages of the manuscript, but it must also be shown to have clearly guided the data analytic procedure. A good conceptual definition, at the very least, should provide a guideline for what DOES count as information literacy, as well as a clear demarcation of what is NOT information literacy. The relational framing provided, while interesting, is too broad to provide inclusion and exclusion criteria that will help focus and develop rigor in the data analysis.

On a related note, the discussion of "qualitative research" in the methodology is also quite broad; in some cases, this broadness is a mischaracterization of the diversity of methodological thought within research traditions who have been historically grouped together as "qualitative" (e.g. discourse analysis, grounded theory, phenomenology, narrative analysis, etc.) but are, in reality, founded in very different epistemological and ontological assumptions. My advice would be to clarify the particulars of the qualitative approach that you are taking (the thematic approach you refer to seems to draw on certain traditions of grounded theory, or at the least, constant-comparative analysis), but you should make these distinctions more clear in your discussion.

Finally, related to the comments of other reviewers, one challenge in presenting thematically analyzed research is making transparent the rigor and systematic nature of your analysis. If this is not clear to readers (or reviewers), then the findings of your work are called into question. My suggestion here would be to provide more clear examples of how you developed codes from your open readings of the data (stage 1), how those codes were revised, refined, and reapplied to the data (stage 2), and how those codes where them "thematized" to provide your findings (stage 3). It would help, in this case, to make some of your own assumptions and prior experiences (what some refer to as positionality) as interpretive researchers transparent so as to increase readers' ability to evaluate your claims and their subjectivities. In these cases, drawing on passive constructions of language in the hope of maintaining "objectivity" actually serves to obscure, rather than clarify your analysis.

I do think the study COULD warrant publication in this journal, but not until the above issues, as well as some of the concerns of other reviewers are more rigorously addressed. Thank you again for the opportunity to review this submission.

**********

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 #3: 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.

1 Jul 2021

Reviewer 1:

I appreciate the changes to this manuscript. My concerns were addressed and the research question more clearly answered. While the data support the conclusion, there were instances where only one participant's concerns were addressed. It would have been helpful to see the questions from semi-structured interviews to get a better perspective.

Overall, however, I believe this manuscript is suitable for publication. Thank you for your extensive revisions!

Author comments

Thank you for the suggestion. We have followed this suggestion by providing the questions from semi-structured interviews in the method section.

Reviewer 3:

Firstly, as reviewer 2 remarked, a much stronger conceptualization of information literacy must not only be developing in the introductory pages of the manuscript, but it must also be shown to have clearly guided the data analytic procedure. A good conceptual definition, at the very least, should provide a guideline for what DOES count as information literacy, as well as a clear demarcation of what is NOT information literacy. The relational framing provided, while interesting, is too broad to provide inclusion and exclusion criteria that will help focus and develop rigour in the data analysis

Author comment:

Thank you for the suggestion. A more specific conceptual definition of relational perspective information literacy has been added to the literature review section as recommended.

Reviewer 3:

On a related note, the discussion of "qualitative research" in the methodology is also quite broad; in some cases, this broadness is a mischaracterization of the diversity of methodological thought within research traditions who have been historically grouped together as "qualitative" (e.g. discourse analysis, grounded theory, phenomenology, narrative analysis, etc.) but are, in reality, founded in very different epistemological and ontological assumptions. My advice would be to clarify the particulars of the qualitative approach that you are taking (the thematic approach you refer to seems to draw on certain traditions of grounded theory, or at the least, constant-comparative analysis), but you should make these distinctions more clear in your discussion

Author comment:

Agree. This study employed basic qualitative approach following the recommendation by Merriam (2009). As the characteristic of basic qualitative is similar with all of qualitative research, other types of qualitative studies have additional dimension. For example, a grounded theory study seeks not just to understand, but also to build a substantive theory about the phenomenon being studied.

Reviewer 3:

Finally, related to the comments of other reviewers, one challenge in presenting thematically analyzed research is making transparent the rigor and systematic nature of your analysis. If this is not clear to readers (or reviewers), then the findings of your work are called into question. My suggestion here would be to provide more clear examples of how you developed codes from your open readings of the data (stage 1), how those codes were revised, refined, and reapplied to the data (stage 2), and how those codes where them "thematized" to provide your findings (stage 3). It would help, in this case, to make some of your own assumptions and prior experiences (what some refer to as positionality) as interpretive researchers transparent so as to increase readers' ability to evaluate your claims and their subjectivities. In these cases, drawing on passive constructions of language in the hope of maintaining "objectivity" actually serves to obscure, rather than clarify your analysis

Author comment:

Thank you for the valuable suggestion. A detailed description of thematic analysis process has been added to the method section for making transparent the rigor and systematic nature of the data analysis.

Submitted filename: Response to reviewers 2.docx

Click here for additional data file.

10 Aug 2021

PONE-D-20-39011R2

Lecturers' information literacy experience in remote teaching during COVID-19 pandemic

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Heriyanto,

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.

While one reviewer is happy with the revision, the other reviewer proposed further questions for the authors to think and revise. Further, having the manuscript proofread by a language editor would also help.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 24 2021 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:

A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

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.

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:  http://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,

Mingming Zhou, Ph.D.

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.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: 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: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #3: 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: No

Reviewer #3: 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 #3: 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: This is an interesting and timely study, particularly since the conditions were unique.

I do believe, however, that the findings are rather vague and confusing. Below are some issues that I noted throughout the paper:

The first sentence of the introduction needs a citation.

In the literature review, it says that the current study investigated the subject matter, rather than issues. Then later it says they are investigating the lecturers’ information literacy experience. This doesn’t make sense to me.

The authors frequently refer to the perspectives of the “majority of lecturers.” Why not give exact numbers since there were only 15 participants?

I’m confused by your statement that lecturers invited students to text discussions after video meetings. Do you mean text questions? Then you stated that students exhibited various behaviors during the online session. Can you be more specific? What behaviors do you mean? If you are referring to whether or not they participated in the chat or asked questions, you should specify that.

While you used thematic analysis for your methodology, I’m not seeing any clear explanation of themes. You describe the perspectives of individual or “majority” of lecturers, but do not connect those to any type of theme.

I do not see the results to be significant since they seem to align with past research.

Last, there are many grammatical errors throughout, possibly because of translations. However, these errors make the manuscript difficult to follow.

Reviewer #3: I appreciate the careful work the authors have done to address my concerns. I look forward to seeing this in print and discussing with my graduate students.

**********

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 #3: Yes: Earl Aguilera

[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.

21 Aug 2021

The reference list has been reviewed. As suggested, I have not cited the retracted paper. However, I have removed the preprint paper and replaced it with a relevant paper. The new paper listed in the reference list is

• Pal D, Vanijja V. Perceived usability evaluation of Microsoft Teams as an online learning platform during COVID-19 using system usability scale and technology acceptance model in India. Child Youth Serv Rev [Internet]. 2020;119(October):105535. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105535

1. Thank you for raising this point up. The sentence has been revised and a relevant citation has been added.

2. Yes, I agree with the reviewer that the statements are a bit confusing. The first statement has been revised in order to cohere with the second statement that the study is about investigating lecturers’ information literacy experience.

3. The word ‘majority’ has been replaced with the exact name or number of the participants

4. I read the sentence again and I agree with you that this sentence should be more specific. More specific statements have been provided to the paragraph. It explains the behavior of students during the online conversation and text discussions, where some students contribute actively during the video meeting but some prefer to be active in the text discussion.

5. A description of each theme has been provided to the results section. Further, the significance of the results has also been provided to the discussion section.

6. The revised version of the manuscript has been proofread by professional proofreading services to improve the clarity and readability.

Submitted filename: Response to reviewers 3.docx

Click here for additional data file.

2 Nov 2021

Lecturers' information literacy experience in remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic

PONE-D-20-39011R3

Dear Dr. Heriyanto,

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,

Mingming Zhou, Ph.D.

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 #3: 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 #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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 #3: 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 #3: 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 #3: I appreciate the changes to this manuscript. My concerns were addressed and the research question more clearly answered.

Overall, I believe this manuscript is suitable for publication. Thank you for your extensive revisions.

**********

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 #3: No

10 Mar 2022

PONE-D-20-39011R3

Lecturers’ information literacy experience in remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic

Dear Dr. -:

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. Mingming Zhou

Section Editor

PLOS ONE