Conference Abstracts Review Process

Abstract Reviews: Enhancing Conference Reputation

The abstract review process is crucial for maintaining a conference's reputation and ensuring attendee satisfaction. By curating a high-quality program, organizers can elevate the attendee experience and strengthen the conference's reputation.

Why Reviews?

Increasing the number of lectures and posters benefits attendees and organizers by providing comprehensive coverage of the subject matter, attracting a larger audience, and offering more choices. However, due to limited time slots and prime locations, organizers must carefully evaluate abstracts to build a balanced agenda. The most promising abstracts are given prime-time slots and larger rooms, while lower-scoring abstracts are assigned to less prominent time slots and smaller rooms, or may even be rejected.

Reviewers Role

Expertise in the conference's scientific subjects is essential for selecting the most promising abstracts that align with the event's objectives. Conference organizers rely on a scientific committee and a chairperson to address this challenge. The scientific committee reviews and evaluates abstracts, while the chairperson oversees the process and develops the final conference agenda based on accepted submissions.

Why Abstract Management Software?

Abstract management software, such as Eventact, streamlines the entire process by automating abstract assignments, facilitating communication, calculating grades, monitoring progress, and providing the chairperson and organizers with easy control.

The Three Stages of the Abstract Review Process

The abstract review process typically has three stages:

Stage 1 - Call for Abstracts.

Researchers submit research and lecture abstracts using an online abstract submission form that enforces rules such as a word limit and required information.

The conference secretary inspects the received abstracts to ensure validity.

Stage 2 - Review

Abstracts are assigned to reviewers by the chairperson, secretary, or automatically by the Event Management System.

Reviewers assess the assigned abstract against defined criteria, including scientific importance, practical implications, and relevance to the conference topics. Also, reviewers can discuss the abstract with other reviewers, request that the submitter revise it, and change its topic.

Stage 3 - The final decision

A final grade for each abstract is calculated as a weighted average of scores given by reviewers. The chairperson decides on each abstract, including the topic and presentation format. If an abstract is accepted, additional details, such as poster slides, video, or an entire lecture, may be requested from the submitter.

Abstract Review Systems Features and Options

An abstract management platform provides features and functionality that support the requirements of different conference organizers.

Here are a few of them:

Review Form

Reviewers assess the abstract against criteria defined by the conference organizers and the chairperson. The Reviewers score the abstract for each criterion; the weighted average of the grades is calculated and serves as the final grade. In addition to scoring, depending on the chairperson and organizers, policy reviews can request modifications, subject to a different topic for which the abstract is more appropriate.

Peer Review, Blind Review, and Double-Blind Review

Peer review, blind review, and double-blind review are three commonly used approaches in the review process. As the name suggests, peer review involves committee members of the research community reviewing the submissions.

Commonly used approaches in the review process:

• Peer Review: Involves committee members from the research community.
• Single-Blind Review: Authors are unaware of the reviewers' identities, while reviewers know the authors.
• Double-Blind Review: Both authors and reviewers remain anonymous, minimizing biases based on reputation or affiliations.

Review Discussion

Some platforms allow reviewers to discuss abstracts and exchange feedback and insights.

Abstract Review Form, Criteria Examples

Evaluation criteria are the foundation of the abstract review process, ensuring abstracts meet conference standards, align with event objectives, and contribute to scientific discourse.

The specific criteria used in each conference vary based on the conference's focus, chairperson, and organizers.

Here are some common evaluation criteria used in scientific conferences:

• Significance: Significance indicates the importance and impact of a study and its findings. It is assessed based on the scientific value of the study, intriguing results, and the effect the results might have on future research and common practices.
• Relevance: The relevance grade indicates the extent to which the abstract and research are relevant to the conference topics.
• Originality: The originality score indicates how much the information, methods, or results discussed in the abstract are unique, novel, and innovative.
• Credibility: Indicates the level of trust in the information included in the abstract and the research. The credibility of an abstract depends on the authors' and the institutes' credibility and experience. Credibility is also affected by potential conflicts of interest between the authors and the subject, the trustworthiness of the references provided, and the methodology used.
• Relevance: Measures how closely the research aligns with conference topics.
• Quality: Quality is a score that indicates the quality of writing, construction, organization, and the resulting clarity of the abstract text.
• Diversity and Demographics: A grade commonly used as a bonus score to promote diversity and increase participation by underrepresented populations at the conference. For example, reviewers score abstracts based on the gender of authors, age, geographical region, and type of institute or research-related attributes.
• General Impression: A general, overall assessment or impression of the abstract as a whole. An opportunity for the reviewer to reflect a subjective impression of the abstract's contribution to the conference.

Low-scored and Rejected Abstracts

Conference organizers strive to include most abstracts, even if they are presented as posters rather than oral lectures.

However, some abstracts do face rejection based on the following reasons:

• Irrelevance: The abstract is not aligned with the conference themes.
• Plagiarism: The abstract is a copy of some other work.
• Lack of Details: The abstract lacks sufficient information.
• Late Submission: The abstract was submitted after the deadline.

The On-Site Competition: Transforming Abstracts into Awards

While the review process selects which abstracts will be presented at the conference, many organizers enhance the experience with an on-site competition, adding a dynamic layer of recognition and scholarly engagement to the event.

On-Site Evaluation and Scoring: Conference organizers utilize dedicated event apps or online judging tools to manage the evaluation process. Unlike the pre-event review, which focuses on the written submission, on-site evaluation shifts the focus to the live presentation, with judges using the digital platform to score performance across several criteria, including:

• Communication Skills: The presenter's ability to explain findings clearly and answer questions from expert attendees.
• Visual Delivery: The organization, readability, and design of the poster or digital display—ensuring the data is accessible at a glance.
• Engagement: The author's ability to summarize the research into a concise "lightning pitch" for fellow delegates.

Delegate Engagement: With little or no additional effort beyond having a limited number of judges, organizers may leverage a digital platform to conduct broader "Peer Choice" or "Delegate Award" voting. Opening the ranking platform to all registered attendees deepens engagement between presenters and attendees, fostering an interactive, high-level scientific exchange.

Top-Tier Recognition: Earning a place among the top-ranked presentations—whether in the top three, top ten, or within a specific category—carries professional prestige and serves as a valuable addition to a researcher's curriculum vitae. This recognition, which may include tangible rewards or publication opportunities, incentivizes participants to submit high-quality abstracts and continuously improve their presentation skills.

Summary

The abstract review process is a critical step in building a compelling conference agenda. It ensures that accepted abstracts are high-quality and relevant to the event's focus. Abstract management software can streamline and automate the review process, making it more efficient and transparent.

Let the conferences ahead be productive and enlightening.

See you there!