Overall, this provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges faced by online visual arts students and the importance of instructor-created video tutorials and best online teaching practices. There are instances where the wording could be more concise by avoiding redundant phrases. For example, "one which may lead a frustrated student who may become an ex-student" could be revised to "which may lead to student attrition While the text appears to be generally well-written, there may be some minor spelling or grammatical errors that could be addressed through careful proofreading. For example, "bare" should be "bear" in the context of "The instructor, explains Dick (2020) bares a responsibility..." Some sentences could be rephrased to improve clarity and flow. For instance, the sentence "Decreased student engagement and increasing student dropout rates continue to be of concern in higher education with the student-student and student-instructor relationship being at the root cause" could be revised for better clarity. 

The paper on creating online videos and tutorials for students included several great ideas and reasons for developing these teaching aids. The focus of the paper is relevant and important. I believe these practices could be incorporated into any class – not just for first year students. Not all students learn in the same way and keeping them engaged can be a challenge. The majority of our students grew up using computers, tablets, and phones with Facebook, YouTube, and other streaming services and games – all visual and interactive. In many of my classes, I add a video introduction, a video overview of the syllabus, and provide links to interesting topics during the course. Students have different learning styles. Some are visual learners; some are auditory learners. I find that by providing the videos with transcripts, students are more likely to access these resources and stay engaged in the class. One topic that the author did not include is the use of AI in developing resources for the students. Overall, the author added value to our knowledge of the field.

This is an outstanding, much needed study. My recommendations are to augment the discussion by bringing it up to date with current educational technology in machine learning relevant to video. As you may know, video has been a stepchild in machine learning due to load restrictions in processing frames. This is now being surpassed with unprecedented speed.

The missing elements in the study might still be included in recommendations for further research. Please contact me at [email protected] if you need specific studies, trends, details, or math. In brief, both interactive video and video in model simulation need to be added, as well as very recent developments in AI. Simulation in particular is an amazingly fertile ground in educational technology. New models (there are thousands, Harvard has over 300 with several hundred more at Cap Sim) integrate video "AI Professors" in programmed learning perceptual control loops, for example, in a model I am developing for a chess instruction study that includes an interactive video engine.

Finally, this does not need to impede the path or schedule of your publication in any way if it is simply added to further research ideas, gaps, recommendations, needs etc. and in fact I'd be happy to anonymously research and help with that in any way you deem helpful.

This study sparked my interest in a topic relevant to online instructors to more effectively reach students. A few observations I have are: 

• The review of existing literature provides good background to support the study goals. You have set a good foundation for context of the study.
• Table 1 indicates the number of courses; however, the number of students would also be helpful. The number of students in a course may introduce other variables to content mastery such as level of engagement.
• The results effectively explained the statistical measures used to analyze the data. I noticed a few instances in which the choice of language could be adjusted to reflect empirical foundation of the study. Phrases like “without a doubt” and “the researchers felt” seem out of place when describing quantitative results.
•  You have identified 4 groups who may benefit from this study. To clarify the discussion for the reader, it would be helpful for the section headers to read “Recommendations for Administrators” or “Implications for Administrators.”
• The discussion and implications for stakeholder provided some insightful ideas. Discussion points are relevant and timely which add to higher education practices. I am interested in the connection between these detailed suggestions to the study that was conducted. Were these recommendations born out of strengths, weaknesses, or limitations of the study?

Overall, this manuscript addresses a topic relevant to online courses in higher education. The data collected over time supports the findings. The discussion presents details for increasing effectiveness of video content across contexts, not just for the online instructor. The implications and recommendations are practical and contribute to the field.

The focus of the manuscript, integrating video technology into the classroom, is important and relevant to online education. The value to the reader lies in hearing how other educators are incorporating technology into the classroom. The information about C students is particularly interesting.

The manuscript seems like two articles are being squashed into one lengthy article. While the first part of the article aligns to APA manuscript form, the focus and format seems to veer off course after the findings when it delves into information for administrators which may not be relevant to all readers.

I would have liked to see how the findings address the points made in the literature review (ex. communities of learning). Adding the study hypothesis to the method section would be a nice touch. APA documentation errors should be corrected (ex. in-text citations) and the manuscript proofed for grammar.

Overall, the manuscript gives educators a glimpse into the effectiveness of incorporating a video component to the online asynchronous classroom and the potential for it to increase student engagement and learning. Great topic! 

The main focus of this manuscript is to study the effects of incorporating instructor video tutorials and best online practices on student outcomes in the field of visual arts. I think it's most certainly valid, important, and relevant particularly in the online learning and teaching environment, which began to take root in the early 2000s with the evolution of the Internet and Web 2.0, later moved further ahead with the advancement of social media and web-based applications, and then accelerated in the 2020s during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Granted, the transition from in-person to online learning was not necessarily an easy one for all educational institutions, administrators, faculty, and students. The inclusion of instructor made video tutorials may well be of benefit to students in online classes geared less toward web and game design, such as in the visual arts. I think this manuscript does an overall decent job in addressing this and related points. I think you provided a spot-on review of the literature for this research, and I really enjoyed reading the connections with communities of practice and project-based learning being some of the important pedagogical components to consider in this paper. Some grammar and clarity issues, including whether to write in third person, can be easily fixed, and I think the side comments in the draft will definitely help in improving the manuscript. Finally, the conclusion sums up everything neatly, and I think the information contained in the manuscript doesn't just add value, but in fact, gives added value, to our knowledge of the field in consideration! This paper certainly has the potential of successful publication, in my view.

Coming from a background in educational technology and performing arts education, this is very valuable work. Since much of the transition to online learning has taken place it has posed greater and greater challenges for students studying the visual and performing arts. Much of what has been taking place in these learning environments cannot be replicated in an online setting. Although there were many advantages to an online approach, namely building a strong Community of Practice that can include a vast amount of artists from around the world who could be included in another phase of this work. 

Also due to the transition to utilizing social media and a grassroots approach, the days are fading when such videos were created using high-tech equipment. Students and faculty are seeking ways to develop support materials and tutorials that are steeped in real-world applications that can be aligned with the project-based learning approach. 

Lastly, there were very good points made in this work regarding creating an awareness of these resources. In many areas of the arts, education, and faculty-created tools and supports, there need to be channels of communication and visibility to create awareness of their existence. We are fortunate now also with the accessibility of data analytics that provides us with a better understanding of audience and viewership. 

Because students (and people in general) spend so much time on technological devices these days, these tutorials could assist any professional involved in the Visual Arts.

Applied knowledge might be the best teacher. There are practical applications to building knowledge for those in the same field as the author of this paper.

The review of the literature is rich! After reading the introduction and literature review, one gains a solid understanding of the phenomena being examined, even if not a design-oriented scholar.

With some minor changes, this text will make for a valuable addition to JIR.  

You have created a very appealing study that is both relevant and timely. Much of your paper is outside traditional research paradigms. More specific the formatting is different, and it seems to lack tremendous amounts of data to claims and assertions. 

Again, a timely and very relevant topic that actually is appropriate across multiple disciplines and areas of study. I fear such good efforts may be ignored without specific evidence.

Thank you for the opportunity to read.  

Overall, great job! As an online instructor I know the challenges of classroom engagement and using technology to our advantage. Just a couple of items listed below:

On page 5 need to add a space between Facebook and that: This is evidenced by the widespread use of social networking sites such as Facebookthat has

On page 6 you reference Twitter which now goes by the name of X

On page 6 you start a sentence with an abbreviation whereas previously you spelled out abbreviations if it was at the start of a sentence. You should be consistent: PBL has its origins in the seminal work of John Dewey. You also spelled it out and then included it as an abbreviation later in the same paragraph. Just an abbreviation can be used as since you have spelled it out previously (experiences with project-based learning (PBL).

On page 11 discussing the statistical analysis of the data and what test was used and why was difficult to follow.

No p-value was reported in the results which would confirm the lack of statistical significance. 

It would be nice to also know number of students in each class or even their demographic data to see if that plays a part in the results as well. I am also curious if you identified any limitations and any further recommendations above looking at the "C" students. Since multiple instructors were making the videos, were there any consistencies in the video content? Was it the same instructor for the same class?

I was confused by the end that started with Administrators. Not sure what that section was supposed to be about.

Thank you for allowing me to participate in the review!