Peer review is the evaluation of an abstract or paper by work by other people with a competence on the topic in the same field of research. It is usually either single-blind reviewed, double-blind reviewed or open reviewed. Every reviewer commits to provide timely and detailed feedback for authors. The main goal of peer reviewing is to increase the…
When it comes to academic conferences, the general consensus is they are more reluctant to change compared to the general events industry. Some practices have been in place for decades. While technology is not necessarily a new phenomenon, the conference industry has not been known for embracing a lot of change. The question is, is…
Authors have spent endless hours solving problems, writing and rewriting their papers. The next step is getting their content reviewed in a conference setting. After all the arduous hours it took to put their paper together, the last thing they need is a long process of abstract submission or a mediocre reviewing standard. After the…
Trying to get funding for a trip to a conference is not easy, especially if you’re an early career researcher. We wondered what conference committees could do to ease the financial burden on these researchers. Tseen Khoo and Jonathan O’Donnell, who form the gestalt entity, the Research Whisperer, have kindly helped to shed some light on this…
The reviewing stage is fundamental to any conference. Without reviewing, there won’t be any good feedback loops, and without feedback loops, research communities cannot develop and improve. Reviewers are one of the hardest working groups of people behind the scenes at a conference, but do they get the recognition they deserve? More importantly, do they…
Networking at a conference is one of the most difficult aspects of attending a conference for many. It’s difficult to approach someone you’ve never spoken to and try to start a conversation. The growth in technology has helped this process somewhat with mobile apps. Here are some of the most popular mobile apps to help…
Before sending out your Call for Papers (CFP), you need to have a mailing list you can actually send the email to (the other option is promote via Conference Announcements sites). The best place to start is with the database of emails from the previous years conference. While this is the most up-to-date list to have,…
Academics can receive hundreds of Call for Paper (CFP) emails every year (as you can see in the image below!); but how do you as a chair make your CFP stand out from the crowd? Credit PhD Comics and Jorge Cham for the image (Follow him on Twitter here) Strong Subject Line…
The conference website is one of the first major milestones of the planning process (there is more information on all the milestones in our conference planning eBook). We have already discussed what to consider when implementing an effective conference website design in the first part of this blog post. It can be time consuming and costly. But…
As outlined in the conference planning ebook, the planning of the conference begins approximately 12 months before the conference is due to begin. The conference website is one of the first major milestones of the planning process. The website goes live approximately 8 months before the conference begins (when the Call for Papers is issued) in…