Abstract Management System: Call for Papers & Peer Reviews

InEvent's Abstract management system streamlines calls or papers, structrures peer reviews, and gives you visibility from submission to acceptance.

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Academic and medical conferences live or die on process. Submission volume spikes, reviewer capacity stretches thin, and organizers need clean data that flows from abstract intake to peer review to agenda publishing without retyping. Spreadsheets collapse under scale because they cannot enforce validation rules, hide identities for double-blind review, or keep acceptance decisions synchronized with speaker onboarding and session publication.

InEvent replaces that spreadsheet chaos with a structured, end-to-end call for papers workflow. InEvent Abstract Engine collects submissions through configurable forms, validates formatting rules, and stores content as structured records. InEvent Reviewer Portal assigns reviews by topic, enforces single-blind or Double-Blind Review, and calculates scoring automatically using defined Grading Criteria. InEvent Speaker Hub turns accepted authors into speakers who manage their own bios, headshots, posters, and slides. Then InEvent publishes accepted content into your agenda with one-click sync.



Why Abstract Management Is a Governance Problem, Not Just an Ops Task

For program chairs and scientific committees, abstract management is not just about collecting submissions—it is about protecting the integrity of the conference. Every decision must be fair, repeatable, auditable, and defensible months later when authors ask why a paper was rejected, when accreditation bodies request review records, or when sponsors evaluate the academic rigor of your program.

That’s why “good enough” systems eventually fail. Email folders, shared drives, and spreadsheets do not provide:

  • A tamper-proof record of what was submitted

  • A consistent framework for peer evaluation

  • A single source of truth for accepted content

  • Or a defensible audit trail for committee decisions

InEvent’s Abstract Engine treats call-for-papers management as a governance workflow, not a file-sharing problem. Every submission is stored as structured data. Every reviewer action is logged. Every decision is tied to scoring criteria. And every accepted abstract flows forward into your event program, speaker onboarding, and content distribution without rekeying.

This is why academic associations, medical congresses, and large universities rely on integrated event platforms rather than disconnected point tools. Abstracts are not just documents—they become sessions, speakers, learning assets, and compliance records inside your broader event management platform.

Section 1: The Submission Portal (Kill the Spreadsheet)

Email-based submissions and spreadsheet tracking work until they do not. Once you cross a few hundred abstracts, you start spending most of your time on operations instead of content quality.


The pain: managing large volumes through email attachments

Email submissions create predictable failure points:

  • Authors send wrong formats and versions

  • Attachments exceed size limits or get blocked

  • Abstract titles vary across files and emails

  • Co-authors submit duplicates

  • Organizers rename files manually to keep order

  • Missing fields cause follow-up back-and-forth

  • Spreadsheets drift out of sync with the actual files

At 1,000 submissions, manual systems generate operational debt:

  • Data entry work that introduces errors

  • Inconsistent metadata (topic, institution, disclosure)

  • Reviewer assignments based on incomplete information

  • Unclear source of truth when authors send corrections



The InEvent solution: InEvent Abstract Engine with custom submission forms

InEvent Abstract Engine replaces email intake with a structured submission portal. You collect abstracts as records, not as scattered attachments. Organizers configure InEvent Custom Submission Forms to match the conference’s submission requirements.

InEvent supports structured fields such as:

  • Title, short title, and track/topic

  • Author and co-author details (institution, department, country)

  • Presenting author designation

  • Disclosure and conflict-of-interest declarations

  • Abstract body text with formatting constraints

  • File uploads (PDFs, images, tables, supplementary files)

  • Preferred presentation type (oral, poster, workshop)

  • Keywords and research area tags

  • Ethics approvals, trial registration IDs, consent statements (for medical)

This structure matters because review quality depends on consistent inputs.



Validation: enforce clean data at the point of submission

Spreadsheets only detect errors after the fact. InEvent prevents errors before submission completes.

Use validation rules to enforce:

  • Word count limits for abstract body fields

  • Required fields for disclosures and ethics statements

  • File type restrictions (PDF only, image formats only)

  • Maximum file size thresholds

  • Required author roles (presenting author must exist)

  • Topic selection constraints (choose one primary track, up to three secondary keywords)

  • Custom acknowledgments and consent checkboxes

Validation protects reviewers. Reviewers score faster when the submission format stays consistent.



Submission workflow: controlled stages, not chaos

InEvent Abstract Engine supports a Submission Workflow that matches academic practice:

  • Draft state for authors to return and edit

  • Final submission lock to prevent last-minute changes after deadlines

  • Version control patterns (when your policy allows revisions)

  • Deadline enforcement by timezone

  • Administrative override tools for exceptions

This approach reduces “deadline week” operational load because the system enforces structure automatically.



Data ownership and traceability

Conferences need traceability:

  • Who submitted

  • When they submitted

  • What they changed

  • Which files attach to which abstract

InEvent tracks those submission events so you can resolve disputes without reconstructing email threads.



Internationalization, Accessibility, and Compliance at Submission

Large conferences are rarely single-country events. Authors submit from different regions, in different time zones, and under different regulatory requirements. Abstract intake must account for that complexity without increasing admin overhead.

InEvent’s submission framework supports:

  • Multi-language forms so international authors submit in their preferred language

  • Timezone-aware deadlines so cutoffs are enforced fairly across regions

  • Accessibility compliance (WCAG-aligned forms for screen readers and keyboard navigation)

  • Data privacy controls for GDPR, HIPAA, and institutional data handling

For medical and life-science events, this is critical. Ethics declarations, trial registration IDs, and patient consent statements are not optional fields—they are compliance requirements. InEvent enforces these conditions at the point of submission, eliminating the need for post-hoc audits.

This level of control ensures your call for papers aligns with broader organizational policies and legal standards, especially when abstracts later integrate into your event registration workflows and public-facing agenda.



What is abstract management software?

Answer: Abstract management software is a specialized tool that collects, reviews, and grades academic submissions for conferences. It automates the submission workflow, supports peer review assignments and scoring, and publishes accepted abstracts into the conference agenda without manual retyping or spreadsheets.

Section 2: The Review Process (Blind and Peer Review)Section 2: The Review Process (Blind and Peer Review)

The review phase requires fairness, specialization, and auditability. Organizers need to assign the right reviewers, enforce blinding rules, and compute results consistently across thousands of scores.



The requirement: fairness and specialized grading at scale

Academic integrity depends on:

  • Appropriate reviewer expertise by topic (oncology, cardiology, materials science, education research)

  • Consistent grading criteria across reviewers

  • Controlled visibility to reduce bias

  • Conflict-of-interest management

  • Transparent decision logic when chairs reconcile edge cases

Manual review systems fail because they cannot enforce process. They depend on people remembering rules under load.



The InEvent solution: InEvent Reviewer Portal

InEvent Reviewer Portal creates a dedicated environment for reviewers with controlled access and structured scoring.

Organizers assign reviewers based on:

  • Track and topic tags

  • Reviewer expertise profiles

  • Institutional conflicts

  • Workload limits (max abstracts per reviewer)

  • Geographic considerations (when relevant)

  • Seniority weighting (chairs versus reviewers)

InEvent routes the right abstracts to the right reviewers without emailing attachments.



Blind review modes: single-blind and double-blind

Different fields enforce different review standards. InEvent supports both common patterns:

Single-Blind Review

  • Reviewers see author identities.

  • Authors do not see reviewer identities.

  • Common when organizer committees prioritize transparency about institutions, prior work, or conflicts.

Double-Blind Review

  • Reviewers do not see author identities.

  • Authors do not see reviewer identities.

  • Common when conferences prioritize bias reduction and want scoring to focus on content quality.

InEvent enforces these modes by controlling which fields appear in the Reviewer Portal. When you run double-blind, InEvent hides author-identifying information from reviewer views and workflows you define.



Conflict of interest and recusal workflow

Fair review requires a mechanism for recusal that does not rely on manual policing. InEvent supports reviewer actions that allow:

  • Declaring a conflict of interest

  • Recusing from a specific abstract

  • Triggering reassignment to another qualified reviewer

  • Logging the recusal for audit integrity

Organizers maintain process credibility because the system records the reason and time of recusal.



Grading criteria: structured scoring with consistent definitions

Scoring fails when reviewers interpret a “7” differently. Define criteria explicitly.

InEvent supports Grading Criteria such as:

  • Novelty and contribution

  • Methodological rigor

  • Clinical relevance or translational value

  • Statistical validity

  • Clarity of writing and structure

  • Alignment to conference track

  • Ethical compliance and disclosures

You can run scoring as:

  • Single overall score (1–10)

  • Multi-criteria scoring (each criterion scored separately)

  • Weighted scoring (criteria carry different weights)

This structure matters because it turns acceptance decisions into defendable outcomes.



Automated scoring and reviewer comments

InEvent Abstract Engine calculates:

  • Average score across reviewers

  • Weighted scores based on criteria

  • Standard deviation to detect reviewer disagreement

  • Rank ordering within tracks

Reviewers can also leave:

  • Confidential comments for the committee

  • Optional feedback for authors (if you provide it)

InEvent keeps comments tied to the submission record and review stage so you avoid email side channels.



Handling high-volume review operations

Large conferences require operational controls:

  • Reviewer assignment balancing

  • Reminder automation for overdue reviews

  • Chair dashboards showing completion by track

  • Escalation workflows when reviewers drop out

  • Audit trails showing who scored what and when

InEvent supports these patterns with structured review states and centralized visibility.



Committee Oversight, Transparency, and Chair Governance

At scale, review quality depends on oversight—not just automation. Program chairs need real-time visibility into how scoring is progressing, where bottlenecks exist, and whether review distributions are balanced.

InEvent provides chair-level dashboards that show:

  • Review completion rates by track and reviewer

  • Abstracts with high score variance (flagging disagreement)

  • Submissions awaiting reassignment due to recusal or drop-off

  • Acceptance distribution across topics, regions, or institutions

This enables chairs to intervene early—before decisions are finalized—ensuring fairness across the program.

In addition, InEvent preserves a complete review audit trail:

  • Who reviewed what

  • Which criteria were applied

  • How final decisions were calculated

  • When communications were sent

That auditability is essential for accreditation bodies, ethics committees, and executive boards. It is also what allows your abstract process to integrate cleanly into enterprise-grade event analytics without compromising confidentiality.



Does InEvent support double-blind reviews?

Answer: Yes. InEvent supports double-blind peer review workflows where author and reviewer identities remain hidden from each other. The InEvent Reviewer Portal controls field visibility to reduce bias while still enabling structured scoring, comments, and audit-ready review tracking.

Section 3: The Acceptance Workflow (Automation)

After review, the hardest part becomes communication. Committees decide outcomes, then organizers must notify hundreds or thousands of authors without mistakes.


The task: notifying large volumes with consistent messaging

Manual notification fails because:

  • Organizers copy and paste decisions incorrectly

  • Authors receive the wrong template

  • Acceptance requires follow-up steps that get lost

  • Speakers do not confirm in time

  • Poster and oral assignments drift away from decisions



The InEvent solution: automated status emails

InEvent automates decision messaging inside the Abstract Engine.

A standard workflow:

  • Committee sets status: Accept, Reject, Waitlist, Revision Requested

  • InEvent sends the corresponding email template automatically

  • InEvent includes structured next steps and deadlines

  • InEvent logs communication in the submission record

This keeps communication consistent and reduces errors under time pressure.



The logic: decision triggers the right email

InEvent supports automation logic:

  • Click Accept → InEvent sends “Congratulations” with presenter instructions.

  • Click Reject → InEvent sends a rejection message with optional feedback.

  • Click Waitlist → InEvent sends a waitlist notice and timelines.

  • Click Revision Requested → InEvent sends revision instructions and re-submission rules.

Organizers maintain control through templates, timing rules, and approval gates when needed.



Confirmation: speakers must confirm attendance

Acceptance does not guarantee presentation. Organizers need confirmation to build a stable agenda.

InEvent supports confirmation workflows where:

  • Accepted presenters click a confirmation link

  • InEvent records confirmation status

  • InEvent triggers reminders before deadlines

  • Organizers see confirmation dashboards by track

This prevents last-minute schedule collapse.



Multi-Role Acceptance: Authors, Presenters, and Chairs

In many academic and scientific programs, acceptance does not simply convert an author into a speaker. There are multiple roles involved:

  • Corresponding author

  • Presenting author

  • Session chair or moderator

  • Co-authors with limited public visibility

InEvent supports role-based workflows where each participant receives only the actions relevant to their role. For example:

  • Presenting authors are prompted to confirm attendance and upload slides

  • Co-authors may only be asked to approve bios or disclosures

  • Session chairs receive moderation instructions and scheduling updates

This reduces confusion, prevents accidental edits, and ensures every participant interacts only with what they need. These roles then sync automatically into your speaker management system, eliminating duplicate data entry and reducing onboarding time.




Role conversion: submission becomes speaker data

Once accepted, the system should not require re-entry of speaker details. InEvent moves the author profile into speaker onboarding through InEvent Speaker Hub, which reduces duplication and keeps data consistent across the event.

The Sync (Abstract - Agenda)

Most conferences waste weeks retyping titles, copying abstracts into session descriptions, and rebuilding speaker profiles for the program. That manual step introduces errors and delays publication.


The magic: accepted abstracts publish without retyping

InEvent treats accepted abstracts as structured content. You can publish that content into the event program with controlled transformations.


The InEvent solution: one-click publishing

InEvent supports one-click publishing patterns where:

  • Abstract title becomes the session name

  • Abstract body becomes the session description

  • Author or presenting author becomes the speaker

  • Co-authors appear as additional contributors (based on your configuration)

  • Track/topic tags map to agenda categories

  • Presentation type maps to session formats (oral, poster, workshop)

This “sync” removes the most common content management failure in academic events: multiple sources of truth.


Poster sessions: structured scheduling and discovery

Poster sessions require special handling:

  • High volume (hundreds to thousands)

  • Session grouping by topic and time block

  • Digital poster uploads and browsing

  • Search and filtering by keywords and authors

  • Poster judging workflows for awards

InEvent can structure poster sessions as:

  • A searchable Poster Sessions directory

  • Time-blocked poster presentation windows

  • Virtual poster gallery experiences (when needed)

  • Poster-specific metadata (board number, hall, track)

This approach prevents poster content from becoming a PDF list that no one uses.


Program committee control: publish in stages

Academic conferences often publish in phases:

  • Preliminary program

  • Accepted abstract list

  • Full agenda with session times and rooms

  • Final speaker list with updated bios

InEvent supports staged publishing so you control what becomes visible and when.



Content Governance: One Source of Truth From Submission to Program

Most academic events break down at the point where reviewed content becomes public program content. Organizers copy titles, paste abstracts, reformat text, rebuild speaker profiles, and manually correct errors across multiple systems.

This is where credibility erodes.

InEvent’s structured publishing model enforces content governance:

  • The abstract record remains the canonical source of truth

  • Only approved fields are exposed to the agenda

  • Updates to speaker data propagate automatically

  • Session metadata stays consistent across web, mobile, and printed outputs

Because accepted abstracts flow directly into your agenda, they also integrate with your event website builder, your mobile app, and your attendee search experience. Attendees browse sessions using the same metadata your reviewers evaluated—no mismatches, no formatting drift.

This also means that post-event assets (recordings, slides, posters) remain linked to the original abstract record, creating a long-term knowledge archive rather than a one-off schedule.



Digital Poster Analytics and Award Scoring

Poster sessions are often the most content-rich part of a scientific conference—and the least measurable. Traditional halls offer no insight into which posters were viewed, discussed, or cited.

InEvent transforms poster sessions into structured digital content:

  • Attendees can filter by topic, institution, author, or keyword

  • Poster views, downloads, and bookmarks are tracked as engagement events

  • Judges score posters using the same Grading Criteria engine used for abstracts

  • Award shortlists are generated automatically based on weighted scoring

This not only improves the attendee experience but also provides engagement analytics that help organizers understand which research areas attract the most attention.

Because these signals feed into your broader event analytics and ROI reporting, poster sessions stop being invisible content and become measurable academic assets.

The Speaker Portal (Self-Service)

Once you accept speakers, operations shift from review to onboarding. Speaker management fails when organizers chase headshots and bios across email threads.


The feature: InEvent Speaker Hub

InEvent Speaker Hub gives speakers a self-service portal to manage their session assets and profile content.

Speakers can upload:

  • Headshots

  • Bios and credentials

  • Disclosures

  • Slide decks

  • Handouts and supplementary materials

  • Poster PDFs or images (for poster presenters)

  • Pre-recorded videos (for hybrid or virtual programs)

InEvent keeps these assets tied to the session record. Organizers stop acting as human file routers.


The benefit: reduce admin time and reduce errors

Speaker Hub improves operations because:

  • Speakers update their own bios, reducing stale information

  • Speakers own compliance documents, reducing missing disclosures

  • Organizers maintain one source of truth for all session assets

  • Speakers see deadlines and requirements clearly

This directly reduces last-minute program edits and print errors.


Session-level controls for compliance and quality

Medical and scientific conferences often require:

  • Disclosure statements

  • Conflict-of-interest forms

  • Ethics approvals

  • Slide review workflows

  • Deadline enforcement

InEvent supports structured requirements so speakers cannot “forget” critical documents without the system flagging it.




Speaker Experience as a Retention Strategy

For large academic associations, speaker experience directly impacts long-term participation. When presenters struggle with unclear requirements, missing deadlines, or lost uploads, they are less likely to submit again next year.

InEvent Speaker Hub improves retention by:

  • Giving presenters a single portal for all event assets

  • Showing deadlines, required documents, and compliance steps clearly

  • Allowing speakers to update their own bios and credentials

  • Providing confirmation status and upload validation

This creates a professional, low-friction experience that encourages repeat submissions and long-term engagement with your conference community.

It also ensures that speaker data remains consistent across your event app, website, and post-event content libraries—without additional admin work.




How Abstract Data Connects to the Rest of Your Event Ecosystem

Abstract management does not exist in isolation. For most academic and medical events, submission data becomes the foundation for multiple downstream systems:

  • Registration segmentation (presenters, chairs, judges)

  • Agenda publishing and track organization

  • Speaker onboarding and content delivery

  • Sponsor program alignment

  • Accreditation reporting and compliance audits

InEvent is designed as a connected ecosystem, not a standalone abstract tool. Abstract records flow into:

  • Event registration software (presenters receive role-based access)

  • Speaker management (bios, disclosures, and assets)

  • Agenda and session scheduling

  • Mobile apps and attendee search

  • Analytics dashboards and executive reporting

This eliminates the costly “rebuild” phase that happens when teams use disconnected systems for submission, review, scheduling, and content publishing.

Instead of exporting CSVs and reconciling mismatched data, your program becomes a continuous workflow—from call for papers to post-event reporting.

InEvent Abstract Engine: end-to-end control for academic content at scale

Academic conferences need process discipline. InEvent delivers a structured call for papers lifecycle that replaces spreadsheets with a controlled system:

  • InEvent Abstract Engine for validated submission intake and structured metadata

  • InEvent Reviewer Portal for topic-based assignment, blind review enforcement, and scoring

  • Support for Double-Blind Review, conflict of interest, and rubric-based Grading Criteria

  • Automated acceptance and rejection messaging with confirmation workflows

  • One-click sync from accepted abstracts to sessions, speakers, and agenda publishing

  • InEvent Speaker Hub for self-service bios, slides, handouts, and poster assets

  • Poster session management and digital poster gallery workflows for hybrid delivery

This is how medical associations, scientific organizers, and universities run high-volume call for papers programs without email chaos, spreadsheet drift, or retyping accepted content into the agenda.




Built for Scale: From 200 Abstracts to 20,000

Abstract volume grows quickly as conferences expand globally, introduce new tracks, or adopt hybrid formats. What works at 200 submissions collapses at 2,000.

InEvent is built to handle:

  • Tens of thousands of abstracts across multiple tracks

  • Distributed reviewer teams across regions

  • Tiered committees with chairs, co-chairs, and sub-reviewers

  • Parallel deadlines for different submission categories

  • Hybrid delivery (in-person, virtual, poster, workshop)

Because every step—submission, review, acceptance, publishing, speaker onboarding—is structured and automated, scale does not introduce chaos. It simply increases throughput.

This is why enterprise organizers, universities, and medical associations adopt unified platforms rather than stitching together forms, review tools, and agenda software.

FAQ for Academic Planners

1. Can we handle digital posters?

Answer: Yes. InEvent supports a virtual poster gallery workflow where presenters upload poster files and metadata, attendees browse by topic and author, and organizers structure poster sessions with searchable listings. This supports hybrid conferences and improves poster discoverability beyond printed halls.


2. Can reviewers recuse themselves?

Answer: Yes. InEvent Reviewer Portal supports conflict-of-interest workflows, including a recusal action that removes the abstract from the reviewer’s queue and triggers reassignment. InEvent logs recusals to maintain audit integrity and protect double-blind review fairness.


3. Do you support complex formulas for grading?

Answer: Yes. InEvent supports weighted scoring criteria, multi-criterion rubrics, and automated aggregation across reviewers. Organizers define grading criteria and weights, and InEvent Abstract Engine calculates totals, averages, and rankings to support consistent acceptance decisions across tracks.


4. Can we manage multiple tracks and committees?

Answer: Yes. InEvent Abstract Engine supports track-based segmentation so committees manage only their scope. You can assign track chairs, topic reviewers, and admin roles with controlled visibility, then publish accepted content by track into the agenda without cross-track data leakage.


5. Can we run awards and best-poster judging?

Answer: Yes. InEvent supports judging workflows using scoring criteria and reviewer assignments. Organizers can assign judges to poster sessions, calculate aggregate scores, and generate shortlists for awards. This keeps awards credible and reduces manual reconciliation.


6. Can we integrate abstracts into registration and access control?
Answer: Yes. Accepted authors, chairs, judges, and presenters can be assigned roles that sync directly into InEvent’s event registration system. This allows you to control access to speaker portals, judge dashboards, and restricted sessions without manual lists or duplicate accounts.

7. Can we analyze which abstracts drive attendance and engagement?
Answer: Yes. Once abstracts are published into sessions and posters, InEvent tracks engagement such as session attendance, poster views, downloads, and interactions. These metrics appear in your event analytics dashboards, helping you identify which topics, authors, and tracks generate the highest impact.

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