Setting up a conference

Any EDAS user can create a new conference by going to the Chairing tab. Once a conference has been set up, conference chairs can add and delete other chairs, change the conference configuration, add and edit tracks, letter templates, review forms and sessions.

Once you have set up a conference, you can then assign reviews and perform other typical chair tasks.

Conferences and master conferences:

You can create conferences, called sub-conferences, that are affiliated with a master conference. Each such sub-conference can have its own TPC, chairs, letters and the like. For example, if your conference has full papers, demos, short papers and posters, it is best if you create individual conferences for each and then associate them with a master conference. The master conference can either not have any paper submitted or it can be the main event (e.g., long papers). Sub-conferences are created in the same way as a conference and then associated with a master conference in Conference/Configure by assigning it to master conference. This can be done at any time, even after papers have been submitted.

Chairs:

Each conference must have at least one chair. Only chairs can add TPC members, change the conference configuration, add review forms and templates and perform other administrative duties. Thus, often assistants who are not really conference chairs are added to the list of EDAS chairs.

Chairs can submit papers at any time, even after track deadlines have passed.

Chairs are allowed to author papers, but if they are looking at their own papers, their privileges are reduced to that of normal authors. Thus, they cannot see reviewer names or make review assignments for these papers. However, it is possible that some other information may leak, so that a chair might be able to tell if a paper has been accepted or not before regular authors can. Obviously, like any author, chairs can temporarily remove themselves from the author list and thus get access to the paper information. Thus, these restrictions should be viewed as protections against accidentally seeing information, not as a insurance against nosy chairs.

Email templates:

Each conference needs email templates. These templates contain variables, escaped with $, that are replaced by the paper-specific information. By default, conferences inherit templates from a global configuration, but in most cases, you will need to tailor the templates to the local conference needs. You must create these templates before papers are submitted since the template is also used to respond to paper registrations and manuscript uploads. Authors may get empty or misleading emails if you do not configure the templates.

Tracks:

Papers can be submitted only to conferences that have one or more tracks. Each track can have its own paper registration and submission deadlines, acceptable paper formats (PDF, PowerPoint, etc.), maximum page count and margins, but all tracks within a conference share the same TPC, chairs and letters. (TPC members can be assigned to a specific track, however.) However, tracks within a conference share the same accept and reject notices, but each track can define a block of text for accepted and rejected papers that can be included in the author notification. Track information can also be used for creating a conference program. Thus, if you plan to have separate review processes or acceptance letters for, say, posters, long and short papers, you should put each such category into its own subconference.

Topics:

Each conference can define a list of up to 256 technical topics, across all tracks. Topics can be grouped into any number of topic groups, such as "methodology" and "technical area". Each paper is labeled with some number of topics, within a configurable range. For example, a conference may require that each paper has at least one and no more than four topics. (Each topic group can have a different cardinality requirement.) Topics are chosen by the author when registering a paper, but can be changed later. Topics are used for automated paper assignment, or to restrict the set of papers that a TPC member can claim for possible review.

Categories:

Papers can be divided into categories, e.g., short papers, demos and long papers. Each paper falls into exactly one category. Each track can contain papers from various categories. Topics and categories are independent. Categories can be listed and exported, and can be used for sorting. Category support is not particularly strong; for example, you cannot have different acceptance letters for each category yet. (However, you can include the category label in the acceptance letter.)

Technical Program Committee (TPC):

If your conference has a technical program committee (TPC), you can add, edit and delete names through People:TPC. Only TPC members can claim papers for possible review. TPC members are sent invitations by email, which they can accept or decline. The list of TPC members shows whether they have accepted or declined. TPC members can also declare whether they are attending the TPC meeting and any TPC dinner. Each TPC member can be assigned to at most one TPC group.

Review forms:

There are two kinds of review forms: for regular reviews and TPC reviews. Both types of reviews can be done by members of the TPC or by external persons not part of the technical program committee. If you have a one-level review system, where all reviews are the same, it does not much matter which one you use, as long as you assign reviewers or TPC members consistently to either the 'review' or 'TPC review' category.

Review forms are added and edited from Reviews:Configure.

From each question menu, you can preview the current review form. Numerical (scoring) questions are always shown first, followed by text (free-form) questions. Note that the summary score used for paper selection should be the review question marked "Summary". However, it is possible to use a combination of other scores to create the review average. Simply assign a non-zero weight to the other scoring items and reduce the weight of the 'summary' field correspondingly. (The system allows you to have weights that do not add up to one.) Numeric scoring questions for TPC members and reviewers should have the same numbering since the weights will be computed by item number. If you want to use a subset of questions for the TPC review form, simply omit the corresponding questions.

Reviewers will not be able to review papers until you add a review form. Be careful when changing review forms since EDAS remembers responses by question number. Thus, the meaning of existing reviews may change if you adjust the scale, for example.

Sessions:

Conference sessions are created via Conference/Sessions and can contain title and subtitle, date and time information, a session chair and room information. Sessions are primarily used to generate the conference program. Each paper belongs to no more than one conference session. You can postpone the creation of sessions until papers have been accepted.

Events:

Conference events are needed only if you want to use EDAS for conference registrations, paid or free. Conference events are set up via Conference/Events. Each event must have at least one registration option that defines who can register for what price. A typical event would be "Workshop 1", with registration options for students and early registration. Registration options can be created by clicking on the "plus" sign in the "Registration types" column under Conference/Events. Each event can be assigned a code for identification; it has no further significance.