Proposal of Design and Innovation in the Creation of the Internet of Medical Things Based on the CDIO Model through the Methodology of Problem-Based Learning

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript Proposal of Design and innovation in creating the inter-  net of medical things based on the CDIO model through the methodology of problem-based learning investigated a very important practice problem. The author presented a sufficient introduction, including research questions and contributions. The goal of the work with the constraints is explained in the best way and is easy to understand. The related work and proposed scenario are clean and well explained. However, the paper can be improved in the following.

1. All related work should be defined in Tabular form with constraints and parameters for the same problem.

2. All the cases in the figures are not aligned; please design the algorithms in which all steps in different figures must have alignment. 

3. All sensors, ECG, and Oxygen data not cleared in the paper

4. The paper must have some numeric values of sensors and infrastructure information for the scenarios as discussed in the Figures. 

5. The finding and limitations of the works must be defined before the conclusion in different sections. 

6. Future work must be defined in a clear way 

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for taking the time to evaluate our revised manuscript and for their positive and insightful comments. The reviews have been of benefit to the manuscript, allowing us to improve it significantly and we greatly appreciate them. The following text lists each of the issues raised by the reviewers and the corresponding actions/answers (in blue). The revised manuscript has all its changes clearly marked also in blue to identify them easily.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article “Proposal of Design and innovation in the creation of the internet of medical things based on the CDIO model through the methodology of problem-based learning” propose a CDIO study framework for IoT applied in the health sector, for a biomedical engineering program.

The correlation with the topics of the Sensors journal is not clear. The article merely presents an educational program, and does not contain any technical or scientific research.

The outcome of the program is not compared to other outcomes from any other study frameworks.

Figure 6 is the same as figure 5, Modules 7-14 are missing; . before of (line 316) “n short” (line 395) “all areas of worked” (not clear), “in this same one” (line 402)

The initials I+D+i do not correspond with the explanation in brackets (line 67)

The acronym ABP is not explained in the text.

The text should be further processed: 2.2 does not start with a capital letter and there is an extra line before it.

 The page  https://iot.urosario.edu.co/designiot/ is not available (line 290)

There is an error in the acronym: Stream based programming (PBF) (in table 1)

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for taking the time to evaluate our revised manuscript and for their positive and insightful comments. The reviews have been of benefit to the manuscript, allowing us to improve it significantly and we greatly appreciate them. The following text lists each of the issues raised by the reviewers and the corresponding actions/answers (in blue). The revised manuscript has all its changes clearly marked also in blue to identify them easily.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The papers have several flaws, which must be corrected in the next round.

1. The abstract is divided into several paragraphs. It should be written in one paragraph.

2. Introduction and Related work have been merged. The introduction section should be separated from the literature survey. Please add section 2 as "Related Work" and cite some up-to-date and relevant references. In the current version, only 18 papers have been cited, and those are also from 2015 to 2019 except a few ones. Since IoMT is an emerging field wherein several researchers are working in the field. A few of them are provided as example:

i. NeuroTrust—Artificial-Neural-Network-Based Intelligent Trust Management Mechanism for Large-Scale Internet of Medical Things, IEEE Internet of Things Journal 8 (21), 15672-15682

ii. Ftm-iomt: Fuzzy-based trust management for preventing sybil attacks in internet of medical things, IEEE Internet of Things Journal 8 (6), 4485-4497

Besides, the evaluation part should be improved by adding some resulting figures or tables.

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for taking the time to evaluate our revised manuscript and for their positive and insightful comments. The reviews have been of benefit to the manuscript, allowing us to improve it significantly and we greatly appreciate them. The following text lists each of the issues raised by the reviewers and the corresponding actions/answers (in blue). The revised manuscript has all its changes clearly marked also in blue to identify them easily.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In the current version of the manuscript, the authors addressed all previous comments; the current version is much improved. However, the manuscript still needs to improve in the following way. 

1. The time complexity is not considered during the implementation

2. There must be an algorithm flowchart, on how the system is working. 

3. Some more cases studies should be added after algorithm design.

Author Response

1. The time complexity is not considered during the implementation

Thanks for this suggestion, we provided additional information and reported the time complexity in figure 4, as follows:

“Figure 4 depicts each of the sections of the 14 modules of our subject with a dedicated time of 3 hours for the whole module. In addition, figure 4 presents the activities and the time, but with an option to schedule tutoring hours if they need additional supervision or the lab setting to test or finish the assignments of the lab guides proposed.”

Figure 4. Pipeline reporting the modules’ structure proposed.

2. There must be an algorithm flowchart, on how the system is working.

Thanks for your comment, we provided additional information and reported the time complexity in figure 4, as follows:

“The laboratory guides cover the development of programming and hardware assembly activities that are particularly challenging for students. In particular, the designed algorithm for one of the guides with greater student interest is presented in Figure 5. Specifically, the guide deals with IoMT applications, where biomedical sensors are used to capture cardiac signals, pulse oximetry, electromyography, and electrodermal activity. In that order of ideas, the flowchart of one of the exercises proposed in the IoMT application guide is presented, where the pulse oximeter and heart-rate sensors for Arduino were used for the acquisition of physiological variables through microcontrollers. In this way, the main goal of the sessions is centered on the use of electronic devices (sensors/microcontrollers) widely used in real-world situations. Moreover, our students may be motivated to develop initiatives in the area of Biomedical Engineering with the integration of the Internet of Things applied to the medical field.”

Figure 5. Pipeline for the assignment related to IoMT applications

3. Some more cases studies should be added after algorithm design.

Thanks for pointing out this detail, we include more case studies and we include a paragraph explaining them and the issues that the research as our proposed method may tackle.

The paper added to related works are:

[16] Radcliffe, P. J., & Kumar, D. (2016). Is problem-based learning suitable for engineering?. Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, 21(2), 81-88.

[17] de Araújo, R. G. B., da Costa, M. V. A., Joseph, B., & Sánchez, J. L. G. (2020). Developing professional and entrepreneurship skills of engineering students through problem-based learning: A case study in brazil. The International journal of engineering education, 36(1), 155-169.

[18] Burd, B., Barker, L., Pérez, F. A. F., Russell, I., Siever, B., Tudor, L., ... & Pollock, I. (2018, July). The internet of things in undergraduate computer and information science education: exploring curricula and pedagogy. In Proceedings Companion of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (pp. 200-216).

[19] Edström, K., & Kolmos, A. (2014). PBL and CDIO: complementary models for engineering education development. European Journal of Engineering Education, 39(5), 539-555.

[20] Tamaki, K., Arakawa, M., Arame, M., & One, Y. (2019). Development of educational programs for system creators and business producers in future strategy design based on action project group activities through industry-university cooperation. J. Mech. Eng. Autom, 9, 243-247.

[21] Svane, T. E., Zhu, M., Johansson, L. O., & Ebbesson, E. (2017, July). Like a snowball: Adding layers of knowledge Enchanting student work with student input. In 2017 16th International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Although PBL is more suitable for teaching engineering, the need to set up requirements for specific populations and issues is vital before the PBL method moves forward in a class [16]. Besides, Araújo et al. reported the importance of a proper methodology to ensure good outcomes in the classroom and the engineering programs [17]. In contrast, other authors modified the curriculum with topics relevant to the industry and to train people as IoT specialists, but through interviews and industry needed to adjust the teaching process [18]. Some authors innovate with the integration of two or more teaching methodologies.  Edström and Kolmos studied the importance of combining PBL and CDIO methodologies as complementary models for teaching basic engineering courses [19]. Tamaki et al. documented the need of integrating PBL with active learning to ensure hands-on training programs and new educational methods to bring academia closer to industry [20]. Finally, Svane et al. reported other methodologies such as Bloom's taxonomy (especially the revised set), and Knowledge-Skills-Abilities (KSA) combined in a snowball strategy but the main limitation is related to the time needed to get fair results [21]. However, the choice of the best teaching strategy is not an easy task and it requires interdisciplinary research, the implementation of different new alternatives, and the follow-up of preliminary results.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This reviewer still lacks to see the scientific research presented in this paper.

The special issue title is "IoT Sensors and Technologies for Education" with an emphasis on the IoT Sensors, not on education styles. I fail to see the research efforts presented in this paper regarding this direction. The article's main contribution regards a teaching method, not research about sensors.

Author Response

Thanks for this remark, which makes us realize that there might be a misunderstanding in the way
we have presented our work. We focused our work on the topics of the special issue: “IoT best
practices in education” and “IoT education for Industry 4.0” as you can check on the website:
https://0-www-mdpi-com.brum.beds.ac.uk/journal/sensors/special_issues/iot_sensors_technologies_education.
The teaching of IoT in developing countries requires two big challenges: the lack of IT resources and
staff to teach this kind of relevant topics; and the lack of motivation to innovate in new ways that
integrate different methodologies to involve students and deal with real-world problems, similar to
issues in work. Besides, these two problems help to increase the lack of interest in engineering
programs demonstrated by different studies in the literature.
Thus, we have proposed a new alternative to teach IoT courses that include the design and
implementation of a website, combined with different components, electronic kits, programming
skills and tools, laboratory guides, and last and no less important, the inclusion of the students in
solving real-world problems needed to improve the relationship among industry-academy and
society.
“…Moreover, undergraduate students in the biomedical engineering area acquired new knowledge
about IoT but at the same time, they may develop skills in the field of programming and structuring
different architectures to solve real-world problems. Finally, traditional models of education require
new teaching initiatives in the field of biomedical engineering concerning the current challenges and
needs of the labor market.”

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for addressing the recommendations. 

I've no further comments. 

Author Response

Many thanks for your comments in Round 1, indeed, your comments helped to improve a lot the first version of the paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf