The OpenWater Blog

The Newest Way to Collect Abstracts

Tell me for a moment if this looks like your current abstract submission workflow:

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PAPER PROPOSAL

• Send Email to jane.doe@example.com
• The deadline for abstract submission is December 4th, 2018
• There is a limit of two contributed submissions per registered author.
• All abstracts must be submitted and presented in English.
• Abstracts should be based on any of the topic areas listed in the section topics of this website or related areas.
• Abbreviations should be defined the first time they appear in your text. Example: HEA (Higher Education Area), before being used as an abbreviation only. Please, do not define or use abbreviations in the title.
• Tables, charts or other graphics may not be included and will be deleted by the editors.
• Abstracts may not be longer than 3500 characters including spaces.
• The minimum number of characters for an abstract to be reviewed is 900 including spaces
• Authors should indicate their presentation preference: oral, poster or virtual. The Programme Committee reserves the right to decide on the final allocation and presentation method.
• After registering your abstract, you will receive an email with your abstract id.
• If you wish to make any corrections to an already submitted abstract or if you wish to submit other abstracts, you should email us.
• The notification of acceptance/rejection of the abstracts submitted will be sent to you via email by December 29th, 2015.

If you are the Jane Doe that is published on the first line of the instructions text, you know you are in for a world of frustration.

• Your inbox will start filling up with a mix of proposals, and questions for clarification.
• You might manually check to make sure it complies with all the stated requirements
• You’ll have to save the proposals, potentially to dropbox or a shared folder
• The list can probably go on, but you already know this

In the cloud-based world we live in now, there is no reason to deal with the headaches that an email or even a form-to-email based system bring about.  Switching to an online cloud based abstract management software can streamline the work you are used to doing manually.

• All fields can be validated in advance for compliance with length requirements
• Scientific character support can be ensured
• Proposers can be alerted about missing information before they submit
• Centralized collection of images and other documents
• Collection of all co-presenter materials upfront

An online conference paper management system implifies work for both the proposer and the conference planner on the other side.  Intake is just the first of several steps it can help cut down time wasted on.

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