Chapter 11 · Path A

Notifying authors and collecting confirmations

Decisions are sent in batches, one outcome at a time, on your schedule. Then acceptance goes the other way: the submitter has to say yes.

Call for Abstracts Event manager Submitter

Sending a batch

Choose a decision type — accepted oral, accepted poster, accepted paper on demand, accepted as session, revisions requested, waitlisted or rejected — and send to everyone currently holding that staged decision who has not already been told. Each type has its own email template, which you can customize for the event or for the whole organization.

Options at send time, which change with the type you chose:

  • Include reviewer comments. The comments-to-author from completed reviews, attached unattributed. Committee notes are never included. Off by default — except on a revisions-requested batch, where it defaults on, because the feedback is the request.
  • Confirmation deadline. Acceptances only — the date by which the submitter must confirm they will present.
  • Revision deadline. Revisions-requested batches only — the date by which the revised abstract must be back. Leave it blank to use the event default of fourteen days.

How a submitter confirms

The email does not contain accept and decline buttons. It contains a link to the hub, and the submitter signs in to answer. This is intentional: a one-click "decline" sitting in a forwarded inbox is a liability, and an authenticated answer is a defensible record of who accepted what.

They confirm or decline; unanswered acceptances become overdue once the deadline passes. Rostrum reminds them automatically in the days before the deadline.

Waitlist promotion — stage a better decision over the sent one, send again Draft Submitted Decision staged submitter sees nothing Decision sent now visible Confirmed or declined Converted committee decides manager sends batch submitter answers Revisions requested editable again, deadline runs once only submitter resubmits Withdrawn submitter withdraws, at any point The gap between "staged" and "sent" is the whole design: the committee can change its mind freely, and one deliberate action publishes the result. A revision is the only route backwards. It can be taken once per abstract, and the next decision after it must be final. Nothing expires on its own: an overdue revision waits for a human, and no reminder chases it.
An abstract's life. The only step that reveals anything to the submitter is the notification batch. Promotion off the waitlist works by staging a better decision on top of one already sent; a revision round is the one path that returns an abstract to the pool for a second look, and it is available once.

Asking for revisions

Sending a revisions-requested batch does more than deliver a message: it reopens the abstract. The submitter can edit and resubmit until the deadline, whatever the review lock said and whether or not the submission window has closed. Rostrum keeps a copy of the version you sent back, so reviewers can see exactly what changed when it returns.

What happens to the existing reviews depends on the setting you chose in Chapter 06 — the same reviewers get it again with their earlier answers intact, or you assign fresh ones and the originals cannot be re-added.

One round, and nothing chases it

An abstract can be sent back once. After that the next decision must be final — Rostrum refuses a second revision request, and there is no override.

Revision deadlines stay in the committee's hands: an overdue revision is flagged revision overdue on the board and waits for a human decision rather than being auto-rejected. Put the revision deadline in your own calendar so the decision gets made while the program still has room for it.

Promoting from the waitlist

There is no automatic promotion. When a slot frees up, stage the new decision — Accept oral, say — over the waitlist decision the submitter already received, and send the acceptance batch. Rostrum treats any abstract whose staged decision differs from the one last sent as needing to be told again, so promotions naturally appear in the next batch.

Re-notifying resets their answer: a promoted submitter is asked to confirm the new outcome.

Changing a decision after it has been sent

You can restage any decision at any time, but the submitter has already read the old one. Rostrum will not let you convert an abstract whose staged decision no longer matches what was communicated — you must send the corrected decision first. The rule it enforces is simple: never put someone in the program under a verdict they were not told about.

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