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Are you hosting an academic conference or research event and feeling overwhelmed by the flood of abstracts?
You’re not alone. Many organizers face this challenge every day.
Managing abstracts involves juggling multiple tasks, such as organizing them, reviewing them, and communicating progress. It’s easy to get overwhelmed while making all the pieces flow together.
However, the good news is that with the right approach, abstract management can become smooth and stress-free.
This blog includes actionable ways to overcome all the challenges in abstract management so that you’re all set to organize hundreds of abstracts effortlessly, ensure a fair and square review process, and keep all the submitters informed all the time.
Let’s explore how to make the process easier!
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During abstract management, we’re not just dealing with a handful of submissions. Conferences and research events receive hundreds, and in some cases, even thousands of submissions.
It is a huge challenge to collect them in an organized way, where you can keep track of each submission’s status and details. The submissions can be in various formats, such as PDFs, presentations, etc., for different purposes, such as workshops, panel discussions, poster presentations, and more.
If not collected in a streamlined manner, there’s a big chance of:
Without the right tools in place, relying on basic systems like spreadsheets only increases the likelihood of these issues. They can compromise the integrity of the entire process, affecting your event’s success.
Our free template helps you stay on top of managing content, speakers, exhibitors, and all the details.
Set up an efficient system to collect, organize, and manage submissions.
Here’s how you can do it:
Instead of collecting submissions through emails or mainstream forms, opt for a dedicated Abstract Management Platform. These platforms allow you to build tailored abstract submission forms to collect submissions based on topic categories, session preferences, or different keywords.
They also enable submitters to upload their abstracts in various formats like documents, videos, pictures, presentations, and beyond.
Once received, you can manage and sort abstracts from a centralized dashboard. This way, you’re always in the know of the abstracts received, when they were received, what category they belong to, etc.
While the abstracts to review are numerous, time is usually short, and organizers have to make quick decisions, such as setting up review guidelines and assigning abstracts to reviewers.
Here’s the tough bit: Time constraints can very often lead to rushed assessments, overlooked details, or delayed decisions.
Set clear deadlines for all the tasks throughout the abstract submission process and instill mechanisms that enforce them. For example, set a timeframe during which submitting an abstract is allowed. But beyond that, it becomes impossible.
For important exceptions, you can set up access codes that allow submitters to bypass the cut-off and submit beyond the deadline. You can also set deadlines for reviewers to submit their feedback on time. With the flexibility to customize deadlines and access options, you can manage the process efficiently while still accommodating last-minute or exceptional cases.
A fair review process directly impacts your event’s credibility and trust.
But when you’re handling a high volume of paper submissions, ensuring consistency becomes a challenge. With multiple reviewers involved, how can you make sure the evaluations remain objective? While bias is a real risk in large teams, it’s manageable with the right strategies in place.
To ensure a fair review process, set clear abstract guidelines and evaluation criteria from the very start. Communicate it to all the reviewers clearly by providing them in writing and conducting a training session.
To make sure that the evaluator’s bias doesn’t come in the way, go for one-sided or double-sided blind reviews.
In a one-sided review, the reviewer doesn’t know who the author is, but the author knows who the reviewer is. While in a double-sided review, neither the reviewer nor the author knows the other’s identity.
Another great way to ensure fairness in the evaluation process is by assigning multiple reviewers to each abstract. By averaging the scores from all reviewers, you can determine a final score that reduces the impact of individual bias on the outcome.
You can also appoint a panel judge who has the authority to accept or reject the abstract once the reviewers have turned in their decision.
With abstract submissions flowing in, making sure the workload is equally and fairly distributed among all the reviewers is important. If the distribution of reviews is done haphazardly, then chances are that some will be bombarded with a lot of workload, while others will be available.
You can use an abstract management software that allows you to automatically assign papers to reviewers based on their availability and expertise. This way, the workload is fairly distributed without you having to do anything at all.
Make sure that the software allows you to manually assign reviewers whenever necessary as well. This is important because there might be rare situations where manual intervention is required. For example, if a particular reviewer is unavailable at the last minute, you need the ability to make quick adjustments on the go.
Another reason would be a conflict of interest. If a reviewer has a close personal or professional relationship with an author, has recently collaborated with an author, or works at the same institution as an author. Financial interests, such as stock ownership or funding from the same source, could also create a conflict. Having manual control ensures you can step in and reassign reviews to maintain fairness and integrity.
Submitters expect timely updates on the status of their abstracts. Was the paper received? Was it accepted or rejected?
But keeping everyone informed at every stage can be challenging, especially when managing a large volume of submissions.
Automate communication through email notifications. Set up email workflows for when someone submits their conference abstract, and when the abstract is rejected or accepted. This way, people will be informed about their progress from the get-go.
Plus, you can do the same for reviewers as well. You can set up workflows that automatically notify them when they’re assigned a review. This way, you’re making sure that they are well-informed, which helps them complete revisions promptly.
When people submit abstracts, they usually have to share personal information like their name, where they work, how to contact them, and sometimes even sensitive details about their research. If that kind of data isn’t handled properly, it can cause serious privacy issues or even lead to legal trouble, especially with regulations like GDPR and other data protection laws in place.
And it’s not just about collecting the info. There are so many people involved in the abstract submission process, like submitters, reviewers, and organizers. Managing who gets to see what can become complex and prone to errors.
Reviewers, for example, need access to the abstracts they’re evaluating, but they don’t need to see someone’s personal details unless it’s relevant. Trying to manage all these permissions manually takes time and can easily lead to mistakes.
Go for an abstract management software that encrypts data during submission and storage. This way, the data remains safe.
You can also double-check if the platform you’re using is reliable or not by reviewing if it complies with industry standards like GDPR, CCPA, etc.
Implement access controls where you have granular controls over who sees exactly what information. This way, you have more control over the process and make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Not all submitters follow the same standards. Some miss word limits, skip formatting rules, or leave out important details. When that happens, organizers and reviewers end up spending extra time fixing submissions and chasing missing info, slowing down the entire review process.
Provide detailed instructions on formatting, content, and submission expectations to ensure that all abstracts meet a consistent standard. You can also use tools that automatically check for issues like word count, formatting errors, or missing sections, reducing the time spent on manual verification.
Every event is different, so the abstract process needs to match. An academic conference might want detailed methods and results. An industry event might care more about new ideas and real-world impact. Setting up the right flow for each one can get tricky, especially with different tracks and categories.
The same goes for reviews. Some events may need a single review, others may require an extra set of eyes. In some cases, we have also seen two layers of reviews, i.e., reviewers evaluate the abstract, but the final decision is made by a panel judge.
The more complex the event, the harder it is to keep everything running smoothly.
And plans can change halfway through. You might need to update a deadline, add a new category, or change the rules. If your system can’t handle that easily, things get messy fast. That’s why being able to adjust things on the fly matters so much.
Choose a platform that allows for easy customization of submission forms, review stages, and communication processes based on the event type. It should also enable real-time changes to deadlines, submission criteria, or review processes, ensuring you can adapt quickly as needed without disrupting the workflow.
With vFairs, you can tweak every part of the abstract process to fit your event, no matter how simple or complex.
When managing abstract submissions, technical glitches can disrupt the flow of the entire process, not just for you as the organizer, but also for the submitters. These issues often arise due to various factors, including:
Technical glitches are common when managing abstract submissions, but they don’t have to slow you down. With the right fixes in place, you can keep things running smoothly for both you and your submitters.
Let’s look at how you can tackle these issues head-on!
Managing abstracts doesn’t have to be a headache. Yes, there are a lot of moving parts, but with the right tools, it all gets a whole lot easier.
Instead of juggling emails, spreadsheets, and last-minute panic, you can set up a system that takes care of submissions, reviews, updates, and even those tricky deadlines. That means less stress for you and a better experience for everyone involved.
So if you’re planning a conference or research event, don’t try to do it all the hard way. Streamline the process, automate the boring stuff, and focus on what really matters.
vFairs has a complete Abstract Management module built into their platform that does all this (and more). If you want to see how it works in action, book a demo and let their team walk you through it.
Use automated email notifications for key updates (submission received, review completed, decision made). Set clear deadlines and send reminders. Provide a central hub (like a portal) for real-time updates and communication.
Be clear and specific. Outline eligibility, formatting rules, word/character limits, submission deadlines, and review criteria. Include examples if possible, and make guidelines easily accessible on your website or submission portal.
Use a platform that automates reviewer assignments, enables scoring and commenting in one place, and provides deadlines and progress tracking. Standardize review criteria and communicate expectations clearly to reviewers.
Prioritize user-friendly submission forms, automated email notifications, reviewer management, customizable review workflows, version control, reporting tools, and integration capabilities (e.g., for schedules or publishing).
Offer clear support options like FAQs, live chat, and email/phone support. Create a troubleshooting guide for common issues. Monitor submissions actively to detect issues early and communicate solutions promptly to submitters.
Fiza Fatima
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