User registration as reviewer

For our conference we don’t have a certain group of reviewers yet. Instead we published a "Call for Reviewers".
Accordingly, we want to enable an option “registration as reviewer” for all ConfTool users who are interested in reviewing submissions.
Is there an option that allows users to sign up and register themselves as reviewers?

A German version of this article is available.

Yes, there is a way to let all users state that they want to be reviewers, but please let us give some general information first:

Most conference organizers invite specific persons whose professional expertise – especially regarding one or more topics or subject area -  is well known. In case ConfTool was used for the previous event, we can copy reviewers, or you can import data about persons you want to invite to participate in the review process using CSV files. Subsequently, you can use the Invitation Function.
Alternatively, there is a function to ask all authors during the submission process if they want to become reviewers.
Finally, there is also a function to invite persons to become reviewers if they are already uses of your system.

If you want to allow all users to state their interest in becoming a reviewer, we recommend using the function that allows all users to select their priority topics.

Please go to:
Overview => Settings => Main Settings for the Review Process
… and scroll down to the section "Reviewers Can Select Their Priority Topics" and set the option "Priority Topic Selection" to "Yes, ALL users can select their priority topics" (see image 1).

When enabled, every user can "Select Priority Topic" after login (see image 2).
Please keep in mind that the status as reviewer is not provided automatically by the selection.

To make the function clear to users, we recommend editing the phrase "Select Priority Topic".
Please go to:
Overview => Settings => Wording and Phrases
… and enter the search string “S_INDEX_CMD_TOPICS” as well as “S_INDEX_OPTION_TOPICS_NOPC” and edit the text as required (image 3).
We recommend the following two definitions:

• S_INDEX_CMD_TOPICS=Register as Reviewer
• S_INDEX_OPTION_TOPICS_NOPC=Here you can register to act as a reviewer. Please note that every author who submits a paper will automatically be assigned to review papers with matching topics. You will be expected to review around 2 to 4 papers.

To get an overview of all users who selected their priority topics, please go to:
Overview => User and Participant Management => List of All Users
… and use the "Special Filter" to display "All persons who have selected their priority topic" (see image 4).

Please note that conference organizers still have to edit the user status and confirm the role as "Reviewer" (see image 5). However, you can also contact us before the reviewing process and we can add the reviewer status to all users who have selected priority topics using a database command.