Response to peer reviews - allow authors to rate received reviews

We would like to allow authors to rate each review they have received. We are interested in getting an impression of the work of our reviewers and would like to provide them with feedback. Potentially, we think about allowing the reviewers to refine their reviews based on the authors’ remarks.

Does ConfTool Pro provide a corresponding function to rate reviews and how can we configure the form?

Moreover, we would like to get an overview of all review ratings.
How can we get that with ConfTool Pro?

ConfTool Pro provides two options which allows authors to provide feedback to reviews.
First, you can let authors reply to all reviews for one submission in a written statement when you activate the rebuttal function.
You can find more information here: Respond to peer review - let authors enter rebuttals.
Second, you can let authors rate each individual review based on a score with several factors and written comments.
Let’s take a look at this function in detail.

First of all, please go to:
Overview => Settings => Main Settings for the Review Process
… and enable the review rating function in the section "Enable Ratings of Reviews by Authors".
Then click on the switch for the option "Enable Module and Select Start and End Date" to enable it and set the start and ending dates (see image 1).
You can find the latter setting also in:
Overview => Settings => Conference Phases and Deadlines
(see image 2, second box).

If enabled, authors can submit a rating for each evaluation separately. It would make sense to activate this function only when the reviewing phase is over and all reviews have been received.

Please make sure that the phase that gives authors online access to the results of the reviewing procedure is activated (see image 2, first box). Otherwise they cannot submit their ratings. You can find more information here: Making review results entirely visible to authors.

For managing the elements of the review rating form please go to:
Overview => Settings => Manage Elements of the Review Rating Form for Authors
… and define the form that allows authors to rate each review they have received (see image 3).
You can configure different categories of the form and customize the default phrases according to your requirements. You can also set the range of scores for all ratings by selecting values for the minimum and maximum scores of the form (default: 0 - 10).
In the section “Text Fields of the Review Rating Form” you can enable comments from the author to the reviewer and/or internal comments to the chairs/program committee which will not be visible to reviewers.
Finally, please select one of the visibility options for the review rating results to the reviewers. Review ratings that have been entered by authors will immediately be shown to reviewers and visible to them on the page “Survey of Your Already Submitted Reviews” as long as the phase for the function is enabled.

Please remember to test your settings before you inform authors that they can start to rate the reviews they have received.

If you would like to get an overview of all review ratings, please use the data export function of ConfTool.
You can find the related function in ConfTool on this page:
Overview => Data Import and Export => Export Data

Please scroll down to "Export Submission and Review Information, Reviewers and Session Details", select "Export of Reviews" and additionally the option "Include ratings of reviews by authors." (see image 4).

Finally, click the button "Create Export File" and save the file on your hard disk.
You will then get a detailed Excel list of all reviews including all review ratings, which you can use to find the details you are looking for (see image 5), for example to identify the best reviewer.

Chairs can also simply navigate to the contribution details of each submission and examine the review ratings for each review.
Please go to:
Overview => Submissions & Reviews => Results of the Reviewing Procedure & Decision About Acceptance
…and click on the title of a contribution of your choice.
Below each review you will find the corresponding review rating of the submitting author (see image 6).