Table of Contents
1. Preparation and General Questions
2. Overview of the Submission Process
3. Survey of the Configuration Options
3.1. Main Parameters
3.2. Topics and Topic Groups
3.3. Submission Types / Conference Tracks
Configuration of the Submission Module
The key component of a successful conference is the quality of the presentations. To ensure a smooth submission and review process with the best possible evaluation and selection of new ideas, it is important that the corresponding ConfTool module is configured as closely as possible to the requirements of the conference organizers. This guide will help you to understand this process.
There are very many different ways and formats how to receive proposals, how to evaluate them by different groups of experts and how to create the printed proceedings. Therefore, the guide starts with a list of questions you will need to think about to specify your requirements as precisely as possible. It will then introduce the steps of a submission in ConfTool from the author's point of view, in order to explain the structure of the system. Furthermore, we provide an overview of the most important options and features of the submission module. You can take a look at several examples to illustrate some typical scenarios and configurations here: Examples for the Configuration of the Submission and Reviewing Functions. Please note that all options and settings are also described online on the settings pages of the system. There and in the online forum you will find more hints, also for less frequently required options.
1. Preparation and General Questions about the Requirements
One of the key components of ConfTool Pro is the module for submission and reviewing abstracts and papers. This module allows authors to submit their ideas in different digital formats, reviewers to enter their evaluations online, and organizers to create a conference agenda and export data for the conference proceedings.
A “typical” workflow is as follows: In a given time frame, users can submit different kinds of proposals (e.g. abstracts, posters or full papers) as defined by the conference organizers. The submitted abstracts and/or uploaded files are then usually assigned to experts for peer-reviewing. Chairs or members of the Program Committee then decide about acceptance based on the review results. Accepted submissions can be revised and final versions of these submissions can be uploaded by the authors. Finally, the organizers can create the conference agenda based on the accepted submissions. These submissions can be exported to be included in the conference proceedings. There are many other possible workflows for this process, depending on the kind, scientific field and size of the event.
As you can see from this short description, the submission process is closely connected to the review process, the creation of the conference agenda and the proceedings (book of abstracts). Before you start with the set-up of ConfTool, you should have finalized your general plans and time schedule for these tasks of the conference organization.
Some questions that determine the configuration are:
- Think about time frame and deadlines of your conference for the submission and review process as well as the creation of the conference agenda and the proceedings. It is always advisable to consider time buffers of 2-3 weeks in case some authors, reviewers or organizers cannot meet deadlines.
- What kind of submission types do you need? Does your conference have different types of submissions, e.g. poster, full paper, workshop proposal? Please make sure that you have set up the required submission types in the ConfTool system.
- How many submission and review phases does your conference have? For instance, do the chairs directly decide about acceptance of a contribution? Is one peer-reviewing phase enough or will authors of accepted abstracts be invited to submit full papers that have to be reviewed again in a second phase of peer reviewing?
- Will authors of accepted contributions get the chance to upload camera-ready copies for the conference proceedings? You can save yourself a lot of work if you prepare good templates and ask the authors to upload their files in different formats (e.g. as PDF file to see how the document should look like and as Word file to be able to edit the document, add headers and page numbers if necessary).
- What are the main conference topics? A sensible selection of topics can facilitate review assignments significantly.
- How and when will the members of the program committee and the reviewers be selected and invited? You can import lists of persons directly as ConfTool users if they are e.g. already established members of the program committee or you can import them as invitees if you want them to confirm their interest first.
- Do you require online communication options for reviewers or PC members? Do you have Meta-Reviewers (Expert Reviewers) supervising the review process of selected papers? ConfTool supports several different methods, but you should decide about a model early.
- How will the final decision regarding acceptance of a contribution to the conference be made, and by whom?
- What are the requirements for the conference flyers and the conference proceedings? It is useful to already ask for all necessary data (names, organizations, e-mails) in the ConfTool submission form, so that authors can enter this data online and you, as the organizer, do not have to collect it later from already uploaded files.
- Does your conference have sub-events like tracks, strands or workshops with separate reviewing committees? Then you will probably need the “Track-Chair Module” of ConfTool Pro (an additional license fee applies).
2. Overview of the Submission Process
The submission process in ConfTool consists of several steps. Many parameters of these steps can be configured by the conference organizers. Please also refer to the following instructions for authors: Instructions for submitting authors.
- Every author begins with the creation of a personal user account. It allows him or her to use the ConfTool system, to update their submissions and to access the review results. Here, authors enter their personal contact information as well as information for the user account. The same account will be used if the person is also a reviewer or wants to register as a conference participant.
- Authors will be directed to the “Your Submissions” page. It lists the available submission types / conference tracks. The options and wording shown here are defined by the conference organizers on this page:
Overview => Settings => Manage Submission Types / Conference Tracks
Each submission type or track can have different deadlines and requirements (see section 3.3 for more details). After selecting the preferred conference track or submission type, authors proceed with their submission.
- The first submission page asks authors to enter the general data (meta-data) about their submission. These are, for example, a list of all authors and their organizations as well as title, abstract, and topics of their proposal. Some fields are mandatory (like title or authors’ names), others can be configured individually by the organizers.
- The second page shows the entered information for verification. On this page, authors can upload files to the server as well. The upload of files can also be disabled or set as optional by the organizers. The supported file types as well as the required number of files (0 to 3) are defined separately for each submission type / conference track.
After upload and confirmation of the entered data, the author is returned to the “Your Submissions” page and will see all proposals already submitted, followed by the list of all submission types / conference tracks. The author can now submit another proposal, update the existing proposals or also withdraw them. Authors can access this page at any time once they have logged into their user account. Later, the submission page will give them access to the review results and allow them to upload their final versions to the ConfTool system, if this option has been activated by the organizers.
3. Survey of the Configuration Options
All parameters for setting up the submission and reviewing module can be accessed and edited from the “Settings” page. The following chapters will provide an overview of the most important options and concepts. You will find all relevant options for the submission module in the section “Conference Tracks, Submission Types and Topics”.
3.1. Main Parameters
We start with the “Main Settings for Abstract and Paper Submission”. This page allows you to set some main parameters. You can probably keep the default settings for most of these parameters, especially if you are not familiar with the options described here.
In the first section “Display Options”, enter the information you want to pass on to the authors on their “Your Submissions” page as introductory and footer texts. Please keep these texts short for usability reasons and refer to a page on your main website if you want to provide more detailed information regarding the submissions process, templates and required formats. If you enable the option “Expand Info Text of Each Track”, you can limit the initially displayed information text for each submission type / track to 80, 160, or 320 characters. By clicking on an icon, the display can be expanded to show the whole text.
You can set “Display Options for Lists”, such as the number of “Items per Page for Bidding/Assignment Pages”. If you enable the option “Show Organization of Submitting Author”, the organization or company of the submitting author will be displayed in the submission overview and review result lists. This option is primarily useful for commercial conferences where the authors' company details are of greater importance to the organizers.
In the section “Display Options for Contributions”, you can define a “Display Format for Authors”, among other things. Select a name format to determine how authors' names will be displayed. If no presenting author has been selected from the list of authors for a contribution, you can use the option “Default Presenting Author” to define who shall be marked as the presenting author.
The ConfTool system can run automatic “Tests for All Submissions”. If you activate the option “Test Case of Authors”, the upper and lower case of all author names will be tested (this also applies to sub-papers of symposium submissions). If you activate the option “Test Format of Title”, the upper and lower case of the title of all submissions will be tested automatically. The test effects all submission types / conference tracks.
In the section “Settings for Symposium Form Class” you can configure further settings – you may have to enable the “Expert Settings” at the bottom of the page to see this additional section. There are several design options for the submission form of the authors. The form class “Symposium” is designed for the submission of symposium contributions, i.e. one main topic is presented and supported by several smaller contributions covering different aspects of this topic and written by several authors. During the submission process, the submitting author designates all symposium paper authors (sub-authors), enters their ideas and can also nominate a chair and/or discussant for this symposium. You can find more information about submission form classes in the forum:
Submission forms: Detailed, Symposium, Application, Roundtable.
You can define a minimum number and a maximum number of discussants for the symposium form in this section. It is also possible to define a minimum number and a maximum number of sub-papers for the symposium form. If you need an abstract field for each sub-paper of the symposium, please activate the option “Abstract Field for Sub-Papers”. Furthermore, you can also define the “Maximum Length for Abstracts of Sub-Papers”.
In case your conference has separate tracks, networks or workshops, you can enable the selection of the “Submission Format” in the next section to use submission types / conference tracks to define different sub-events. If enabled, a new element for the submission form can be defined: the submission format. Authors are then able to, e.g., first choose a track and within this track decide on a submission format, e.g., full paper, symposium or poster. Please activate the “Expert Settings” on the bottom of the page to be able to have access to the option “Enable Selection of the ‘Submission Format’”. For this option you can choose between two settings: When you select “Yes”, the submission form settings of each submission format will be the same as for the conference track. You can decide for each track whether authors can select one or several submission formats. When you select the setting “Yes, and allow to specify submission form parameters for each submission format” you will be able to define numerous different submission form settings for each submission format which will override the conference track settings. Consequently, when using this setting, authors will only be able to choose one submission format per submission. For more information, please visit the ConfTool forum: How to split thematic tracks into different submission formats.
Once you have activated the selection of the submission format, a new menu “Manage Submission Formats” appears in the settings for the submission functions of ConfTool:
Overview => Settings => Manage Submission Format
Here you can create and edit different submission formats like “abstract”, “poster” and “oral presentation”. Please note that you have to enable submission formats also for each submission type / conference track for which they are required (see section 3.3). If you use the Track-Chair Module, you can also enable the assignment of submission formats to the submission types / tracks. Then you need to assign each submission format to the corresponding conference track on the page “Assign Formats to Conference Tracks”.
In the next section of the main settings for abstract and paper submission, another new element can be defined for the submission form: the presentation mode. Please enable the “Expert Settings” on the bottom of the page to see this additional option. With the option “Enable Selection of the ‘Presentation Mode’” you can, for instance, ask the authors about their preferred presentation form: online, on-site or, if applicable, no participation at all. This can be an important piece of information especially in a hybrid event, when some participants will be present on-site and others will join online. Please select an appropriate setting for the option “Enable Selection of the ‘Presentation Mode’”. You can select from three settings: select “No” and the presentation mode will not be enabled (default). Select “Yes” and the presentation mode will be enabled. An additional section asking for the presentation mode will appear on the submission form. With the third setting “Yes, and enable an extra page and phase to allow authors to select their presentation mode separately” the presentation mode will be enabled and appear on a separate page for each submission. This can be helpful if you want to have a separate phase during which you want to ask for the presentation mode or if you decide to ask for the presentation mode only after the submission phase is already over. You can find more information about this in the forum: Define a presentation mode for submissions.
Once you have activated the selection of the presentation mode, a new menu “Manage Presentation Modes” appears in the settings for the submission functions of ConfTool:
Overview => Settings => Manage Presentation Modes
Here you can create and update presentation modes like “online”, “on-site” or also “will not attend”. After that, please adjust the settings for each submission type / conference track individually:
Overview => Settings => Manage Submission Types / Conference Tracks
Now you can define further “Form Settings for all Submissions” in the main settings for abstract and paper submission. If you activate the option “Enable ORCID for Each Author”, a field for the ORCID-iD will be added for each author. ORCID-iDs are intended to facilitate the unique electronic attribution of publications and other research activities and products to researchers. With the option “Enable Online Editor for Title?” a selection box for title selection (Prof., Dr., no title) can be enabled in order to be able to select an academic title for each author, which then also appears in the conference agenda. There are more options available for the input mask if you enable the “Expert Settings” at the bottom of the page. Among other things, you can “Enable Topic Groups” to create several categories or types of topics. Each topic will then be assigned to a topic group. Authors select the appropriate topics for new submissions and reviewers use them to state their areas of expertise. Furthermore, you can add an input field for an external resource to the submission form with the setting “Add Field for ‘External Resource’?”. The content of this field will appear below the abstract in the ConfTool conference agenda.
If you want the authors to transfer the rights to use their intellectual property to you as the organizer, you can let them sign an electronic copyright form online. For this, you need to enable the option “Electronic Copyright Form” in the next section and select a setting that matches your requirements. Authors can be asked to sign the copyright form during initial submission, on the first upload form, after the submission has been accepted or during the final upload of accepted papers. For each of these options, authors can confirm the copyright terms either by selecting a check box or by entering their first and last name together with the current date. Please note that you also have to enable the module “Electronic Copyright Form” on the page “Conference Phases and Deadlines” and for each submission type or conference track on the page “Manage Submission Types and Conference Tracks”.
In the next section, you can define “Special Conditions for Paper Submission”, e.g. limit submission only to registered participants (who have already paid) or restrain the submission to users who are already presenters. If necessary, you can also limit the total maximum number of submissions per author. Furthermore, you can grant co-authors full access to the submissions, so that they can also edit their submissions - otherwise co-authors have only read access.
If you enable the “Copy Submission Option” in the following section, admins / conference chairs or even authors can use the existing submissions as templates to create another submission with the same or similar data (e.g. same authors, same title, etc.). Here you can also specify whether the title and abstract, as well as the uploaded files of the relevant submission, should also be copied. We usually recommend not to copy the title, abstract, and files of a submission, as it increases the risk of double submissions of the same paper.
In case your event is divided into several thematically different tracks and the Track-Chair Module has been installed for you (an extra fee applies), you will see an additional section “Options for the Track-Chair Module of ConfTool”. Enable the option “Assign Submission Formats to Tracks” if the different tracks of your event do not all have the same submission formats, for example authors can decide for each track whether they want to submit a poster or a short paper:
Overview => Settings => Assign Formats to Conference Tracks
The option “Assign Topics to Tracks” is required if the different tracks or submission types of your event do not share all topics. Please refer to Track-Chair Module: Assigning Persons, Topics and Submission Formats to Tracks for further information. If you activate this option, a new menu “Assign Topics to Tracks” will appear in the parameters for the submission functions of ConfTool, where each topic can (and has to) be assigned to a specific track or submission type:
Overview => Settings => Assign Topics to Conference Tracks
The following section “Defaults for Uploads and Downloads” allows you to define the scheme for generating filenames of uploaded files, the filename appendices in case of multiple uploads, the maximum size of an upload as well as the supported file types for uploads. Choose from a wide range of options in “Compose Format of Generated Filenames”. Your selected format will be used for the “Generated Format” in the list of submissions (Overview => Submissions & Reviews => List of Submissions) and for download links in the conference agenda, which you can make available for public view. Therefore, be diligent when setting the options for file names. You can update these settings at any time. The “File Appendix for Multiple Uploads” defines appendices for filenames if more than one file is to be uploaded per submission. They will be appended to all generated filenames. Please use only alphanumeric characters for the filenames and appendices, as some systems might have problems with special characters in filenames. The setting “Supported File Types” specifies the extensions of file names which will allowed for uploads. These are the default settings and you may define different file types for each submission type / conference track. If you do not enter specific file types there, the default settings will be used.
Finally, set all necessary “Conference Phases and Deadlines” for submission of contributions, editing of contribution details, file uploads, results of the reviewing procedure and final upload of accepted contributions. You can set alternative deadlines for each submission type / track and you can update deadlines or disable a phase at any time by unchecking the box “Enable Module and Set Start and End Date”. Please note that you can access all deadlines of the conference in:
Overview => Settings => Conference Phases and Deadlines
3.2. Topics and Topic Groups
A word regarding the use of topics in ConfTool: Authors choose them to classify their submissions thematically and reviewers use them to state their areas of expertise. Submissions are assigned to reviewers by matching topics in the ConfTool system. Therefore, we strongly recommend using topics for all conferences with a peer-review process, as they potentially increase the quality of the assignment and consequently of the reviews.
Usually, organizers define a set of topics and a maximum number of topics to be selected from this set. However, if you have different categories or groups of topics from which authors should independently select items, please go to:
Overview => Settings => Main Settings for Abstract and Paper Submission
First enable the “Expert Settings” on the bottom of the page. Now, in the section “Form Settings for all Submissions”, activate the newly available option “Enable Topic Groups”. You then will be able to create several titles for different categories / types of topics and assign each of your topics to one of these topic groups. The maximum number of selectable topics can be set for each topic group separately.
To define these topic groups, please proceed on the page:
Overview => Settings => Manage Topic Groups
Choose a “Short Title” (used for internal processes only) and a “Title” for each topic group. You might want to add an “Additional Info / Hint” that will be shown to the authors in the paper submission form above the list of topics. Within a topic group, you can also define the number of topics that have to be selected by authors on the submission form. You can then choose an assignment factor (weight) for review assignments for each topic of this topic group. ConfTool Pro will calculate the “weighted matches” between reviewers and submissions to identify the most suitable reviewers for each submission. Finally, decide whether the topics in this topic group should be displayed to reviewers and program committee members for topic selection.
Now continue by creating new topics on this page:
Overview => Settings => Manage Topics
First assign each new topic to a “Topic Group”, if applicable. Select the “Style / Display Method of Topic” from several choices: The “Normal text option (checkbox, default)” generates the topic name with a checkbox next to it. The “Bold text option (checkbox)” generates the topic name in bold letters with a checkbox next to it. The “Heading option (not selectable by author)” displays the topic name as a heading for other topics, but does not allow authors to select it. Finally, please enter the “Topic Title” which will be shown in front of a checkbox or serve as a heading.
3.3. Submission Types / Conference Tracks
The following section “Manage Submission Types and Conference Tracks” defines the structure of the page “Your Submissions” for the authors. Submission types / conference tracks are used for two different functions in the ConfTool system:
- If you have different types of submissions, e.g. poster, full-paper submissions, or symposium, and the decision about acceptance is made within one committee, you can use this function to create the submission types you need.
- If your conference is organized into thematic tracks, streams or workshops, you can use this function to represent the structure of your event. If these tracks have different program committees and/or chairs, the Track-Chair Module of ConfTool Pro is required (please refer to the guide Track-Chair-Module: Assigning Persons to Tracks for more information). If you need to sub-categorize the tracks into different submission types you can do so by creating additional tracks like “Track 1: Submission Type A”, “Track 1: Submission Type B”, “Track 2: Submission Type A” and “Track 2, Submission Type B” or you can make use of the option “Enable Selection of the 'Submission Format'”. With this option enabled, authors can pick a track as well as a submission format. You can activate this option here:
Overview => Settings => Main Settings for Abstract and Paper Submission
For more information on how to use submission formats, please visit the forum.
The submission types or conference tracks are one of the main concepts of the ConfTool system and represent the thematic structure of your event. They are defined on the following page:
Overview => Settings => Manage Submission Types / Conference Tracks
Start by creating a new submission type / track. Enter a full title, add “Contribution Details” and (optionally) enter the “E-Mail Address of Chair”. This information will be shown to the authors on the page “Your Submissions”. The “Short Title” is used for internal system purposes, e.g. for generating filenames. We recommend using a unique and understandable abbreviation or ID.
In the section “Alternative Deadlines of This Type / Track”, you can define alternative deadlines for each submission type / track in addition to the general deadlines configured on the page “Conference Phases and Deadlines”. You can choose not to show the deadlines to authors and reviewers per submission type / track in the option “Show deadlines?”. The option “Submission Enabled” allows you to determine whether or not this submission type is selectable on the page “Your Submissions” for normal users, regardless of the currently enabled phase. The following parameters allow you to realize different deadlines for different submission types. You can also set an “Alternative Deadline for Final Upload (Camera-Ready Copy)”.
Continue to define additional parameters in the section “Settings for the Submissions Form of this Type or Track”. Per default, the “E-mail Addresses of All Co-authors” have to be entered by the submitting author. The reason being that the ConfTool system uses these e-mail addresses to identify users as co-authors in order to give them access to their contributions as well as to invitation and confirmation letters, etc. If you want to disable this option anyway, first activate the “Expert Settings” at the bottom of the page and select “No” as the setting for this option.
We also recommend asking for the “Organization(s)” of the authors in the submission form, so that this information can be used for the conference agenda and proceedings. It is easier to process data if entered in the submission form than to extract it manually from uploaded files.
Regarding the “Presenting Author”, you have several options. Choose “No” if you do not require this information for your conference agenda. If you want to identify the presenters of the conference, choose “Yes” for this option. You can also allow submitting authors to select several presenters. Please note that besides explicitly marked presenting authors, all submitting authors whose contributions have been accepted are automatically considered as (potential) “Presenting Authors” in the ConfTool system, as long as the presenting author does not have an own user account.
For most conferences, the “Abstract” of the contribution is important, as it represents the key messages and main ideas of the submission. It can for instance be used in the conference agenda or the book of abstracts, even if you ask authors to upload their contributions as files. The input field for the abstract is enabled by default and you can choose from two different options here: plain text without formatting or the online WYSIWYG rich text editor, which allows some formatting like bold or italics as well as the creation of simple lists. Limit the length of the abstract by using the option “Maximum Length for Abstract” and by selecting a maximum number of words or characters (including spaces) allowed to be entered in this field. Please contact us if you need more than one input field for the abstract.
For each submission type / conference track you can activate different “Submission Formats” as a separate option. Authors are then able to, e.g., first choose a thematic track and within that track choose a submission format, e.g., full paper, symposium and / or poster. In most cases this option is more useful for organizers who have also installed the Track-Chair Module, but it can also be helpful for other conferences as well. You can choose whether submission formats should be enabled for the new submission type / conference track and define the maximum number of formats that can be selected for this track. Likewise, you can define the “Location of Format Input Field” on the submission form. For more information, please refer to the ConfTool forum: How to split thematic tracks into different submission formats.
If you have activated the selection of the “Presentation Mode” in the main settings for abstract and paper submission, you can now configure the settings for each individual submission type / conference track. Please select an appropriate setting for the option “Presentation Modes”. You have to enable the presentation modes for each submission type / conference track and can set the maximum number of selectable presentation modes in each case. Next, define the location of the presentation mode input field on the submission form. The “Location of Presentation Mode(s) Input Field” can be either before or after the input fields for the authors. You can also choose to show this option only on the separate presentation mode update form, so that authors can select their presentation mode separately. Please note that in this case the corresponding phase must be enabled as well:
Overview => Settings => Conference Phases and Deadlines
You can find more information about this in the forum: Define a presentation mode for submissions.
The option “Topics” can be used to require authors to select at least one or even several topics. If you have enabled “Topic Groups” for your event, you should select the default setting “Topic Groups: List topics as defined by their topic groups” here. If you select one of the other options here, only topics that have not been assigned to any topic group will be displayed on the submission form.
Furthermore, you can ask users to enter “Keywords” as an option or requirement and allow users to signal that a submission is a “Student Contribution” written solely by students. In addition, the authors may be asked to enter their “Bibliography” (this option can be made either obligatory or mandatory, or it can be fully disabled).
In case you require further information regarding the submission, you can add an “Extra Check Box?” to be selected voluntarily or obligatorily by the author. You can mark the check box as “required” if, e.g., the author has to confirm mandatory publication terms with it. You can also add an “Extra Text Field?”, e.g. to ask for the research method used by the author or other additional information.
If authors of submissions of this submission type / conference track have to transfer the rights to use their intellectual property to you as the organizer, please enable the checkbox in the section “Electronic Copyright Form”. Authors must then sign an electronic copyright form online. Please note that the option “Electronic Copyright Form” must first be activated on the page “Main Settings for Abstract and Paper Submission”. If you have selected a separate page for the copyright form, the link to the form must also be enabled on the page “Conference Phases and Deadlines”.
The next section deals with the “Upload Settings for This Submission Type / Track”. For the option “Number of Uploads Required for This Submission Type per Submitted Contribution” you can select from zero (no uploads required) to three uploads. Selecting “0” will disable this feature. Please note: In this case, the option for the “Abstract” submission should be enabled. It is useful to add some hints for authors regarding the file upload via the option “User Information for File No. X”. Continue to define the file types by using the option “File Extensions for File No. X”. In the subsection “Download Settings” you can use the option “Accessibility of File No. X” to define whether the uploaded file should be accessible for users, reviewers and PC members. This setting is valid during different phases of the conference: You can for instance use it during the review process to specify that the files are available to reviewers and later on also to normal users on the conference agenda page.
Once you have enabled the “Expert Settings” at the bottom of the page, you can additionally choose the “Upload Mode” for files. Uploads can be either mandatory (default) or optional. Furthermore, the new subsection “Further Upload Settings” appears. Here you can specify the “Upload Options for File No. X” and allow only new uploads, allow only file updates or close the upload slot altogether. This function is for instance useful if you want to allow authors to upload selected files only (e.g. let them upload presentation files, but not update the original submission).
In the section “Settings for Final Uploads” you can also define the number of files required for the final version (camera-ready copy) of the submissions. The final upload phase usually follows the review process. Only authors with accepted submissions are allowed to upload a final version of their submission. In the subsection “File Types” enter the permitted file types for all relevant upload slots. The three expert options “Final Upload Mode”, “Accessibility of File No. X” and “Upload Options for File No. X” (see description above) exist for final uploads as well.
The penultimate section “Review Options” deals with review settings specific only to the current submission type / conference track. The option “Enter and Edit Reviews” can be disabled for individual submission types / conference tracks, e.g. to allow invited speakers to upload their presentation without considering them for peer review. In the next subsection “Double-Blind Reviews”, you can define whether the review process should be double blind or single blind for reviewers. When the double-blind review process is activated, reviewers cannot see the authors' names nor can authors see the reviewers' names. Activate the “Expert Settings” at the bottom of the page to see more options.
The option “Review Results” allows you to disable the display of the reviews to authors. If disabled, only the status of the result (e.g. “Rejected” or “Accepted”) will be shown to authors, but not details of the peer review. This option is enabled by default and therefore the results of the peer review (rating, comments of the reviewers to the authors) are accessible to the authors as soon as the corresponding phase is activated. If “Bid for Contributions” is enabled, reviewers can indicate their preferred papers and possible conflicts of interest. The “Online Forum for the Program Committee” can also be enabled for each submission type / conference track individually. It allows users with the status “Program Committee Member” to access and discuss the corresponding submissions online.
You can enable and set “Alternative Deadlines for Different Review Options” of this submission type / track that may differ from the general deadlines of the overall system. The general deadlines for the different review functions are configured on the page “Conference Phases and Deadlines”. If necessary, you can now define an earlier deadline for review submission for this submission type / track, as well as a different deadline for meta-reviews or senior reviews. You can also define alternative deadlines for the submission of rebuttals, for the submission of review ratings by authors or for the publication of the review results.
Finally, you can choose from a number of additional options in the section “Further Settings”:
The option “Class Name of Submission Form” gives you four possibilities to define the overall appearance of the submission form for authors. Apart from the four available standard forms, customized form classes for paper submission can be developed upon request.
The default setting “Detailed” is sufficient for abstract, poster and full paper submissions of most conferences. Choose “Applications” for a simple form structure. It can for instance be used for applications for a scholarship or summer school grant. The submitting person has only limited options in this case: The author will only be able to submit one application including one author name, one organization, only an abstract, and topics and keywords, if enabled. Select “Symposium” if your conference is split into several symposia and authors are to enter an idea for a part of the conference. This includes suggesting chair members for the symposium and also a number of symposium papers. You can find additional settings for this class in the “Main Settings for Abstract and Paper Submission”. The form “Roundtable” can be used to submit proposals for panel discussions and similar formats, including information about the presenters or discussants as well as chairs or moderators. You will find more detailed information in the forum: Submission forms: Detailed, Symposium, Application, Roundtable.
The “Class Name of Review Form” is used to select the template for the review form for reviewers and PC members and defines the overall appearance of the form. Usually you can use the default form “Default_Form”. Then please make the further adjustments for the form on this page:
Overview => Settings => Review Form Options and Factors
You can find more explanations about the other form classes here: Configuration of the Review Forms in ConfTool Pro.
If you want to edit the following options, first enable the “Expert Settings” at the bottom of the page. The option “Comments for the Authors” allows you to either make the respective field in the review form mandatory (default setting), optional, or to fully disable it. The next option “Alternative Review Forms” lets you customize the factors and language definitions for the review form of this submission type only. Please refer to the forum for more information: Alternative labels, factors and/or weighting for review categories per submission type.
