The success of a conference largely depends on the quality of the content that it offers. To provide attendees with relevant and interesting information, the abstract review process should be a top priority for event organizers. However, we know how time-consuming abstract review can be for your staff. Setting up and managing an effective review process that is easy and intuitive for both staff and reviewers is not an effortless task. But don’t panic; there is a simple solution to streamline the review process: a review management software.
To find the best review management software that meets your organization’s unique needs, it is essential to understand how it works and what features it offers. Ideally, your preferred provider should offer a comprehensive review management platform that allows you to manage the entire review process from a single location. This will simplify the assignment and overview of reviews and facilitate communication between staff and reviewers. And don’t forget about your reviewers! A user-friendly and intuitive platform will also make it easy for reviewers to complete their tasks and follow instructions.
You might be thinking that setting up an online review management software requires a lot of work (even though it’s easier that the fancy name may suggest) and your staff and reviewers can handle it pretty well with your current system. However, there is always room for improvement! This is why we came up with 11 reasons – although we could list many more – about why you should get an effective review management software now. Keep reading to know more.
1. Save Time And Effort For Your Staff
The review process can be a dreadful task for any organization, as it involves defining and setting up multiple steps before the reviewers can start their work. However, an effective review management software can make the process a lot easier for your staff.
With a reliable review management software, your staff can easily bulk assign abstract and sessions to appropriate reviewers. Other functions, such as setting the review types or criteria, can also be defined with a few clicks on the same online review platform. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and reduces the chances of errors, so, no more headaches for your team!
Another important feature of review management software is the ability to designate chairs to check if abstracts are in the right category before the reviewing process starts, and recategorize them if needed. This ensures that all submissions are assigned to the appropriate category and/or reviewers, streamlining the process and reducing the likelihood of mistakes.
In addition to these benefits, an automated and intuitive process also eliminates human errors, allowing your staff to focus on other important aspects of the review process. Moreover, the time saved in setting up the review steps means that your team can quickly review the process and identify and correct any errors that may have occurred.
Read more about effective review management platforms.
2. Easy To Use Platform
Making sure that reviewers can easily complete their assigned tasks is a crucial aspect of any successful review process. The best review management software should provide a user-friendly interface that allows reviewers to efficiently complete all tasks from a single online platform. This intuitive platform should enable reviewers to easily track their tasks and progress, check relevant deadlines and instructions, and access useful links without having to navigate different websites.
In addition, the software should offer features such as the ability to have a single profile for multiple review types, track conflicts of interest, and the option to complete reviews offline. Having these features available will make the review process more streamlined and less time-consuming for reviewers, ensuring that they are able to complete their tasks quickly and efficiently. Your reviewers will greatly appreciate the fact that you offer them an intuitive platform to work with!
3. Branding Opportunities
Customizable branding is an excellent way to enhance your organization’s visibility, even in the reviewer’s platform. By choosing a provider that offers this feature, you can customize the look, banner, criteria, or defined comments in the reviewer portal to match your company’s branding. By doing this, you will be able to offer a more personalized experience for your reviewers, which can have a positive impact on their engagement and overall satisfaction with the process. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to give your organization higher visibility!
4. Blind Review Option
To ensure that your abstract review process is as fair as possible, you may want to consider enabling the blind review option. Your preferred provider should offer both types of peer review.
In single blind review, the reviewers’ identities are hidden to authors. This gives reviewers more freedom to grade papers without any bias or outside influence, which leads to a more honest critique. This is the traditional way of peer review, and still the most used.
Double-blind review, on the other hand, hides the identity of both the authors and the reviewers. This is particularly useful if you want to avoid any potential biases or conflicts of interest that may arise from the author or reviewers’ identities being known.
It’s important to choose software that can facilitate both types of peer review to accommodate your organization’s unique needs. Enabling blind review options can lead to a more transparent and objective review process, ensuring that the best abstracts are selected for presentation at your conference.
Not sure which type of peer review to choose? Read more here.
5. Fully Configurable
When it comes to review management, customization is key. By choosing a platform that allows for a high degree of configurability, you can ensure that the review process meets the specific needs and criteria of your organization. One way to achieve this is by defining your review criteria and scoring options in advance.
This allows you to establish clear guidelines for your reviewers, ensuring that they are evaluating submissions based on the same set of criteria.
For instance, you may want to decide whether you want abstracts to be scored as a whole, or if you prefer them to be scored with different criteria such as originality, relevance, methodology, and quality of writing. If you opt for the multicriteria option, you can even add predefined comments that can help your reviewers score and check what is more important when reviewing papers.
By defining your criteria and scoring options, you can ensure that your reviewers are evaluating submissions fairly and accurately, and that the final result is highly relevant to the audience of the congress. This will not only improve the quality of the content presented at your event, but also enhance the overall experience for attendees, as they will be able to engage with high-quality and relevant material.
6. Quick overview
Having a user-friendly review platform will allow reviewers to quickly check the number of papers assigned to them, their completion status, and any important deadlines. They can also browse through the scoring criteria at any point, all from one place.
Administrators can get an overview of the reviewer demographics as well. With advanced filters, they can quickly filter by name, type, completion status, and other criteria. This allows them to stay on top of the review process, and to identify potential issues. In addition, they can also pull detailed reports and check statistics and charts, giving them a comprehensive view of the entire process and its progress.
By using a review management software, your staff can save valuable time that would otherwise be spent on manual tasks. With all the information and tools they need readily available in one place, they can focus on more important tasks and ensure that the review process runs smoothly and efficiently.
7. Online And Offline Reviews
The process of reviewing and scoring abstracts is a critical aspect of conference planning, but it can also be time-consuming for reviewers. Additionally, reviewers may not always have access to a reliable internet connection, making it difficult to access the review Portal. That’s why it is important to look for review management software that offers offline reviewing options.
With the right software, reviewers can access their assigned abstracts at any time and from anywhere in the world, even without an internet connection. They can log into the platform and directly review and score papers online. Or, if they prefer to review offline, they can simply print the assigned abstracts and filter by category or type, allowing them to score specific papers at their own convenience.
Once the offline review is complete, reviewers can easily add their scores to the Portal when they are back online. This flexibility is especially beneficial for reviewers who may prefer to score papers during their commutes, while travelling to a conference, or during other periods when internet access might be limited. By offering both online and offline reviewing options, you can make sure that your reviewers have the flexibility they need to complete their tasks efficiently and accurately.
8. Effective Communication
Planning an event is a demanding task, and keeping track of all the timelines can be overwhelming. The last thing you want is reviewers not meeting their deadlines and slowing down the process. Fortunately, with the help of a review management software, you can easily send personalized notifications and reminders. This will help keep them on track and ensure that they submit their reviews on time.
With review management software, your staff can save time by sending notifications in bulk, setting separate deadlines for different types of submissions, and quickly checking if reviewers have viewed or completed the notifications. This allows them to follow up with reviewers who may have missed a deadline or send them a reminder to submit their reviews. Notifications can be entirely customized to fit the needs of your organization. You can create different templates for different types of submissions or reviewers, and add a multitier option if needed. The best part is that you can plan, edit, send, and review all notifications from the review platform itself!
9. Useful Tools For Organization
We have already discussed the basic tools that a review management software provides, but there are many others available that can make the lives of administrators and reviewers much easier. One such tool is “Conflicts of Interest (COI),” which allows reviewers to reject a paper assigned to them if it doesn’t fit their area of expertise or if they feel too involved with the authors or research. The system will automatically remove such abstracts from the reviewers’ portal and assign them to a different reviewer.
In addition to scoring criteria, reviewers can access a histogram scoring monitor that displays the distribution of their scores, that can be displayed for a selected category. This ensures score consistency and fairness.
These are just a few examples of the extra tools that a review management software can provide. It’s important to define which features are essential for your organization and choose a provider that offers them.
10. Detailed Analytics
Accessing important analytics is now just a few clicks away! Detailed reports on reviewer scores and comments can be obtained easily, and you can use the filtering option to get more specific information. Your chosen provider should also offer the option to export these documents and download them, giving you the option to check them from anywhere. This allows you to gain useful insights into the quality of the papers being submitted, the strengths and weaknesses of the review process, and the overall effectiveness of the reviewers. With this information, you can improve the quality of your conferences and the review process itself.
11. Professional Technical Support & Training
Having an efficient review management software can save you and your team a lot of headaches, however, technical issues can still arise. But don’t panic! Most software providers provide a reliable team of experts that will help you solve these technical problems in no time.
Additionally, a good software provider should continue to improve the platform and add new features as needed. To ensure that you are using the software to its fullest potential, look for a provider that offers ongoing training, which can provide your staff with a better understanding of the platform and prevent human errors that could negatively impact your participants’ experience.
With the right support and training, your team can use the software with confidence, knowing that any technical issues can be resolved quickly and that they have access to the latest features and tools to streamline the review process.
Wrapping It Up
As you can see, a reliable review management software can be a game-changer for your organization. It streamlines the review process, makes it easy for staff and reviewers, and provides a host of benefits that ultimately result in high-quality content and a better experience for attendees. Now, you should look for a software provider that caters to your organization’s needs and preferences.
Don’t forget that the main goal of a review management system is to ensure the accuracy and fairness of the review process, resulting in high-quality content and a better experience for attendees. As such, the software should provide an easy and intuitive experience for both staff and reviewers. This includes full control of the entire review process, the ability to customize workflows, set deadlines, and manage communication with reviewers. Additionally, the workspace for reviewers should be simple and user-friendly.
By implementing a review management software, your organization can take advantage of its endless opportunities. With streamlined processes and increased efficiency, you can ensure a successful conference and provide valuable content for attendees. So don’t wait any longer, start using a review management software today!
