Paper submission and abstract review

The papers module in the SF-CONFERENCE system carries a submission from the moment a participant sends it, through reviewer assessment, all the way to the organizer's decision. Everything happens in a single panel, with no files exchanged by email and no deadlines to track by hand. In this article we take a closer look at its features.

Submitting papers

Participants submit papers from their own account, and every submission lands immediately on the list in the organizer panel. The submission form is fully configurable - you decide which fields are required to create a submission and which the participant can fill in later. Submissions can be assigned to topics, which keeps the list organized and makes it easier to route papers to the right reviewers.

Papers and review management panel (fictional data)

Abstract and full content

The submission process can be split into two stages. First the participant sends an abstract, and only once it is accepted do they add the full content of the paper. Each of the stages has its own notifications, so the organizer and reviewers know which stage a given paper has reached. This split works well at academic conferences, where the initial screening is done on the abstract alone.

Assigning reviewers

Reviewers are a separate role in the system - they can only access the papers assigned to them. You choose how the assignment works:

Manual assignment - the organizer picks the reviewers for each submission, which gives full control over papers that call for specific expertise.
Automatic assignment - the system routes submissions to reviewers on its own, which speeds up handling a large number of papers.
One review limit - an optional restriction under which each submission receives exactly one review.

Review visibility

The organizer decides whether the author sees the content of the review. Reviews can stay visible to the organizer only or be shared with the author together with the reasoning behind the score. This supports both an open review process and one in which authors learn only the final decision.

Notifications and correspondence

The system announces each step on its own - the organizer is notified of a new submission, the reviewer of an assigned paper, and the author of a completed review. You can also message the author directly from any submission, so questions about corrections and additions stay with the paper they concern instead of getting lost in an inbox.

Custom naming

Not every event talks about "papers". You can rename what participants see - to posters, abstracts or competition entries, for example - so the module speaks in the language of your conference. The change covers both the labels in the participant panel and the wording of messages and notifications, so participants never see terminology that does not fit the event.

Papers and reviews under control

The SF-CONFERENCE system handles the entire life cycle of a paper - from submission, through reviewer assignment and assessment, to passing the decision back to the author. A configurable form, topics and the choice between manual and automatic assignment let you match the process to the scale and character of your event.

The organizer sees the status of every submission in one place at all times, with no spreadsheets and no chasing individual people for their reviews.

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Submitted paper details (fictional data)

Papers and reviews - frequently asked questions

What format does an author submit in?

The submission itself is uploaded as a PDF and any supporting material as a ZIP archive. You build the submission form yourself, so alongside the files you can ask for anything else — keywords, an affiliation, co-authors.

Can submission happen in two stages?

Yes. The author first submits an abstract and the full content only once it has been accepted. Both stages have their own forms and their own statuses, so where each submission stands is visible at a glance.

Do reviewers see who the author is?

That is your call. The visibility of reviews and of the data around them is an event setting — you can run open review, or hide the author, the reviewer, or both sides.

Can reviewer assignment be automated?

Yes. Reviewers can be assigned by hand, or the system can distribute the submissions — by the topic a reviewer declared, for instance.

Does the author hear about the outcome?

Yes. Every status change can send the author a message, and all correspondence about a submission stays attached to it, so what was agreed and when remains visible later.