The Vocational School of Sintra and Its Contribution to Heritage Education
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper describes the educational Portuguese professional course for "Assistant in Conservation-Restoration" in the School of Sintra Heritage, that is a professional course intended to prepare an assistant-conservator. The topic can be of some interest, but the structure and content of the paper should be deeply revised, for a scientific Journal such as Heritage.
The AA should improve the description of the course, the educational context in Portugal and abroad especially in Europe, and should try to put in evidence the novelty of the choices carried out by the School in the last years. Finally the description of the onsite work, the focus of the paper, is really poor and should be completely revised. The References of the paper are scarce.
Change the Keywords.
instead of Vocational: Professional School; instead of Sintra: Heritage of Sintra; instead of work-place: onsite work learning;
In the Introduction, the AA present the study plan before a general description of the professional profile that the School is intended to prepare. I suggest to divide the Introduction into 2 parts: 1) a short part of History of the School and location, and 2) a second part of the concept of the specific education program for "Assistant in Conservation-Restoration" since 2006, with the presentation of the main teaching lines, and particularly presenting the onsite-working.
I also suggest to insert a comparison of this Educational program in a general framework about similar programs in Portugal and/or abroad, particularly in Europe.
For the description of the curricular program the AA have used two Tables (Table1 and Table 2): the first one describes a 3 years course that is no longer active and has been substituted by the second one described in Table 2. In this last Table the division in the different years is no more reported. My first comment is that all over Europe the courses are measured and valued by credits instead of hours; the different schools indicate an average number of hours per credit. I suggest to cancel Table 1 and revise Table 2, describing better the structure of the curricular program and highlighting the theory part, and the training onsite-working.
What are the indications of the pages like "(pp.542)"? Is it referred to the citation? They should be deleted and indicated in the references or adding some footnotes.
Line 129-133 This sentence is not clear. What the AA mean with professionalization? Of course outside of Portugal at international level, it is not known what is the standard qualification needed for teaching in this type of professional courses in Portugal. This period can be improved, explaining the required qualification of teachers, using international standard terms, and what has been achieved; the provenance of teachers is quite important.
Chapter 2 Line This paragraph should be carefully revised. It is necessary to explain what is training in working context, in a general sense. What type of conservation works the students can face. Then, according to the different phases of the conservation work the AA could use some specific examples for the decsription of the practical work.
For what concerns the "diagnostic" phase that is preliminary and necessary for all the conservation projects, this first step should be detailed better. There is a wide literature in this regard, and it will be interesting to understand what level of diagnostic investigations the students can perform, which are the aim of diagnostics, and if the students are called to do simple onsite diagnostic analyses, mapping of the deterioration forms, if they are using EN standard protocols, etc.
The Conclusions should be re-written after the revision of the paper, accordingly.
Author Response
Reviewer 1:
Taking into account the first point “This paper describes the educational Portuguese professional course for "Assistant in Conservation-Restoration" in the School of Sintra Heritage, that is a professional course intended to prepare an assistant-conservator. The topic can be of some interest, but the structure and content of the paper should be deeply revised, for a scientific Journal such as Heritage.” – The authors would like to acknowledge the reviewer.
Taking into account the second point “The AA should improve the description of the course, the educational context in Portugal and abroad especially in Europe, and should try to put in evidence the novelty of the choices carried out by the School in the last years. Finally, the description of the onsite work, the focus of the paper, is really poor and should be completely revised. The References of the paper are scarce.” – The authors would like add that additional educational context in Portugal of vocational teaching as a sub sub section at line 28; Information about vocational courses of the same EQF Level 4 in Europe, which is the correspondent level of this course was not found any information. The courses found were post-secondary level, which is not the same of this EQF Level 4; Information regarding the novelty of the choices carried out by this school in the last year was added at line 194; Additional description of the onsite work was added at line XXX; All the references, Figures and Tables were corrected to the new order, considering the added content.
Taking into account the keywords, the authors replaced for the revisers, for exception of Vocational school, taking into account the English native speaker reviewer.
Taking into account the “In the Introduction, the AA present the study plan before a general description of the professional profile that the School is intended to prepare. I suggest to divide the Introduction into 2 parts: 1) a short part of History of the School and location, and 2) a second part of the concept of the specific education program for "Assistant in Conservation-Restoration" since 2006, with the presentation of the main teaching lines, and particularly presenting the onsite-working.” – The authors divided and introduced the Portugal context before, taking into consideration the reviewer on the second point about the educational context in Portugal, giving the framework aspect from general to specific, which the AA take as more coherent taking into consideration the added content; References, Figures and Tables were reorder.
Taking into account the “I also suggest to insert a comparison of this Educational program in a general framework about similar programs in Portugal and/or abroad, particularly in Europe.” – The authors have difficulty in finding courses of EQF Level 4, and only found superior high degrees or post-secondary.
Taking into account the “ For the description of the curricular program the AA have used two Tables (Table1 and Table 2): the first one describes a 3 years course that is no longer active and has been substituted by the second one described in Table 2. In this last Table the division in the different years is no more reported. My first comment is that all over Europe the courses are measured and valued by credits instead of hours; the different schools indicate an average number of hours per credit. I suggest to cancel Table 1 and revise Table 2, describing better the structure of the curricular program and highlighting the theory part, and the training onsite-working.” – The authors would like to inform that this course is equivalent to a secondary or high school level, and does not correspond to credits, but it qualifies young students as Level 4, that grants them the high school level certification for immediate work in this field or access to higher degrees like Level 5 and 6 Professional courses or Universities in general.
Taking into account the “What are the indications of the pages like "(pp.542)"? Is it referred to the citation? They should be deleted and indicated in the references or adding some footnotes.” – The authors would like to add that it corresponds to reference number 7, that is a Portuguese paper about the 30 years of this course.
Taking into account the “Line 129-133 This sentence is not clear. What the AA mean with professionalization? Of course outside of Portugal at international level, it is not known what is the standard qualification needed for teaching in this type of professional courses in Portugal. This period can be improved, explaining the required qualification of teachers, using international standard terms, and what has been achieved; the provenance of teachers is quite important.” – The authors added information at line 192.
Taking into account the “Chapter 2 Line This paragraph should be carefully revised. It is necessary to explain what is training in working context, in a general sense. What type of conservation works the students can face. Then, according to the different phases of the conservation work the AA could use some specific examples for the decsription of the practical work.” – The authors added information at line 827.
Taking into account the “For what concerns the "diagnostic" phase that is preliminary and necessary for all the conservation projects, this first step should be detailed better. There is a wide literature in this regard, and it will be interesting to understand what level of diagnostic investigations the students can perform, which are the aim of diagnostics, and if the students are called to do simple onsite diagnostic analyses, mapping of the deterioration forms, if they are using EN standard protocols, etc.” – The authors added information at line 854.
Taking into account the “The Conclusions should be re-written after the revision of the paper, accordingly.” – The authors re-wrote the conclusions, accordingly with the added content.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 2 Report
In my opinion your paper do not fit the goals of the Special Issue YOCOCU 2020.
Author Response
Reviewer 2:
Please find attached the new version revised and the authors would like to know why, in your opinion, the paper does not fit the goals.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Reviewer 3 Report
- I recommend stating clearly the objectives sought with this teaching method and set its direct relation with the resuls obtained.
- It is necessary to explain other systems and programs.
- A comparison with other schools of the same kind would help to put in context the courses taught at this school.
- A revision of the scholarly publications on this matter would help frame the paper.
- A paragraph connecting parts 1 and 2 would be welcome.
Author Response
Reviewer 4:
Taking into account the “I recommend stating clearly the objectives sought with this teaching method and set its direct relation with the resuls obtained.” – The authors added information at line 27.
Taking into account the “It is necessary to explain other systems and programs.” – The authors added information at line 141.
Taking into account the “A comparison with other schools of the same kind would help to put in context the courses taught at this school.” - The authors would like to inform that this course is equivalent to a secondary or high school level, and does not correspond to credits, but it qualifies young students as Level 4, that grants them the high school level certification for immediate work in this field or access to higher degrees like Level 5 and 6 Professional courses or Universities in general. There are not equivalent degrees on this field.
Taking into account the “A revision of the scholarly publications on this matter would help frame the paper.” – The authors added content and reframed the paper.
Taking into account the “A paragraph connecting parts 1 and 2 would be welcome.” – The authors reframed the article and added a paragraph as suggested at line 241.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript has been improved, most of the required revision have been implemented.
Reviewer 2 Report
No comments
Reviewer 3 Report
No comments
