Call for Papers

A Call for Papers collects paper and abstract submissions on a public form, lets your session chairs decide which are accepted, and lets you tell every author at once. Your Map D contact switches the feature on for a show; once it is on, a Call for Papers section appears in the show sidebar with Submissions, Setup and Reviewers.

Set up the call

Open Setup in the Call for Papers section. The call is created for you the first time you open it, and nobody can submit until you open it.

• Basics: the Title and Introduction authors see above the form, the Reference prefix every reference number starts with, and the dates: Opens, Closes, Edit deadline (authors can change their submission until then; leave it blank to use the closing time) and Review deadline (shown to chairs as the date to finish by).
• Sessions: what authors submit to and what chairs are assigned to, such as your technical sessions. Linked track and Place accepted talks under connect a session to your schedule.
• Presentation types: optional, for example Oral and Poster. Authors choose one, and chairs accept a submission as one.
• Limits: Max title characters, Max abstract words, Max authors and Max keywords (0 hides keywords).
• Paper upload: None, Optional or Required, with a Max file size (MB). Authors can upload a PDF or Word document.
• Questions: your own questions, such as "Are you a student?". Chairs see the answers next to the abstract.
• Consent: optional Consent text authors must tick, and a Privacy policy link.
• Reminders: with Remind reviewers automatically on, reviewers who have submissions waiting get an email before and after the Review deadline. The default schedule is 7 days before, 2 days before, on the deadline and 3 days after, each firmer than the last; the Overdue one copies you. Change the days and tone of each reminder, or Add reminder. Nobody is reminded once their work is done, and nobody gets more than one reminder a day. Reminders need a review deadline.
• Reviews: turn on Reviewers score submissions to let everyone on a session score each submission from 1 to 5 and recommend accept or decline. Chairs see the scores before deciding; the decision stays theirs. Blind review hides author names, affiliations and file names from reviewers, and Hide authors from session chairs too extends that to chairs.
• Notifications: under Tell me about decisions, choose Daily summary, Each decision or Off. Leave Notification emails empty to notify the show's owners and show managers.

Select Save setup, then Open call. Close call takes the form down again.

Share the form

On Submissions, Copy public link copies the form's address. Embed gives you a code snippet that puts the form on your own website, so authors can keep submitting where they always have.

Authors do not need an account. When they select Submit, the submission is saved and they see their reference number on screen straight away. A confirmation email follows with a private link where they can check the status, make changes until the edit deadline, or withdraw. If they lose the email, Email me my links at the bottom of the form sends their links again.

Add reviewers

Open Reviewers and select Add reviewer. Enter their name and email and choose the sessions they review, each as Chair or Reviewer. Chairs decide; reviewers can read. Several people can chair the same session, and the latest decision stands.

Adding a reviewer does not email them, so you can set everyone up first. Then select Invite from their row. Reviewers sign in at the usual sign-in page and only ever see the submissions in their own sessions, nothing else about your show. The Account column shows Not invited, Invited or Signed in, and Waiting on them counts the submissions they still need to decide.

When submissions are in, select Notify chairs: review is open to email each chair how many submissions are waiting, with a link to their queue. After that, the automatic reminders take over. To chase someone yourself, choose Send reminder from their row, or Send reminders now to remind everyone with something waiting; each person gets at most one a day. Last reminded shows when each reviewer was last emailed. A warning lists any session with No chair.

Chairs who think a submission is in the wrong session can mark it Not my session. It appears under the Needs reassignment filter, where you can move it.

How chairs review is described in Reviewing Call for Papers submissions.

Follow every submission

Submissions shows totals across the top (Submitted, Awaiting decision, Decided, not released, Released, Email problems, Withdrawn; select one to filter by it) and every submission below, with its session, type, decision and who made it.

Select a submission to open it. You see the abstract, authors, answers and file, the decision History, and every email sent to the author under Emails with its status. From the Actions menu you can:

• Move to session... another session.
• Send confirmation again if an author says they never got it. You can also Resend any single email.
• Reset author link if a private link went somewhere it should not. Old links stop working and a new one is emailed.
• Open author page to see exactly what the author sees.
• Withdraw on the author's behalf, or Archive a duplicate or test.

Under Decision, Change decision lets you accept, decline or reset a submission yourself. Under Reviewers you can exclude a chair with a conflict, such as their own student's abstract, or assign a submission to a reviewer from another session. Chairs are excluded from their own submissions automatically.

With reviews on, the Score column shows each submission's average score and how many reviews it has, and the submission's Reviews section shows every score, recommendation and comment.

By session shows, for each session, how many submissions came in, how many are pending, accepted and declined, the acceptance rate and how many days chairs take to decide on average. Export CSV downloads every submission, with its authors, abstract, decision, score and your questions' answers, to open in a spreadsheet.

Add submission enters one on an author's behalf, and Import CSV brings in submissions you already collected elsewhere. The file needs Title, Abstract, Name, Email and Session columns, and can also have Type, Authors, Keywords and Affiliation. Importing checks the whole file first and lists any problem lines; importing the same file twice adds nothing twice.

Tell authors

Authors hear nothing when a chair decides. You choose when they find out. Select Release decisions:

1. Choose All decided, not released or Only selected rows.
2. Check the Accepted and Declined emails. Each has a Subject and Body you can edit, and tokens such as {{First_Name}}, {{Submission_Title}}, {{Session}} and {{Decision_Note}} (the chair's note to the author). Preview shows the email for a real submission, and Send test to me emails it to you.
3. Select Continue, then confirm. Every author is emailed and their private link shows the decision. Your wording is kept for the next release.

If you change a decision after releasing it, the author keeps seeing the old one until you release again.

Add accepted talks to the schedule

If your show also has Speakers & Schedules, Add accepted to schedule on Submissions turns every accepted talk not yet in the schedule into a session. The presenting author becomes a speaker (or is matched to the speaker you already have with that email), and the session gets the talk's title and abstract. A session linked to a schedule header in Setup (Place accepted talks under) goes under that header on its day, and gets the session's Linked track; the rest are added without a time for you to place on the Schedule page. Sessions are visible to attendees straight away, so add talks once you are ready to publish them. Running it again only adds talks that are new since last time. If an author did not tick the consent box, their abstract is left out of the session.

The In schedule badge marks talks already added, and the Not in schedule yet filter shows the rest. A single talk can be added from its Schedule section. If an author withdraws a talk that is already in the schedule, it is marked Withdrawn, still in schedule so you can remove or change the session yourself.

Speaker bios and headshots

Once an author is told they are accepted, their private link shows Your speaker profile, where they add a biography and a headshot. These go onto their speaker profile, whether you add the talk to the schedule before or after. Profile missing marks accepted talks without both. Ask speakers for profiles emails those presenters a link to fill it in, at most once a day each.

Email problems

Every Call for Papers email is saved before it is sent, and one that cannot be delivered is retried automatically for about an hour. Anything still not delivered is counted under Email problems and marked on the submission, where Resend tries again.

Questions authors ask

• "Did you get my abstract?" Search Submissions by their name, email or reference number. Under Emails you can see when the confirmation was sent.
• "Has it been reviewed?" The decision and who made it are on the submission, even before you release it.
• "I lost my link." Point them to Email me my links on the form, or use Reset author link.

Next year

When you copy a show for next year, tick Call for Papers setup to bring the call with it: sessions, presentation types, questions, limits, wording and reminders. Dates are cleared and the call starts closed, ready for you to set new dates and open it. Submissions and reviewers stay with last year's show.