The largest module in the catalog, and the one that lets Rostrum enter a society's annual cycle at the start rather than the middle. It runs the whole path from soliciting submissions to putting the accepted ones in the program.
What it is
One module covering the whole cycle: configure the call, invite people to it or publish a public link, collect submissions against a form you design, distribute them to reviewers for blind scoring, work a selection board, send decisions in batches — accepting, waitlisting, rejecting, or sending an abstract back for one round of revision — and convert the acceptances into presentations, posters and sessions. The full narrative of that path is chapters 6 to 12 of the operations guide; this entry is the configuration reference.
What it changes
The committee stops running the call on a separate vendor and hand-carrying the results into the program. Decisions stay private until you release them, scores from different scoring forms are never falsely compared, and an accepted abstract becomes a scheduled talk with its authors already attached — rather than a row someone retypes.
The closed society call
Invite-only, mailed from the organization's contact book, so the pool is known in advance and nobody outside the membership can submit.
The structured clinical abstract
Four sections — Background, Methods, Results, Conclusion — each with its own word limit, enforced as the submitter types.
The multi-track congress
Each track carries its own scoring questionnaire and its own capacity target, and the selection board ranks strictly within a track because the scores are not comparable across them.
The waitlist that moves
Send waitlist letters, then promote individuals later by staging a new decision over the one already sent and running another batch.
The proposed symposium
A chair proposes a four-talk panel with its speakers. The committee judges it whole, and if they decline it they can still lift the one talk they wanted into the general pool.
The open call on a newsletter
Generate a public link, put it in the society mailing and on the conference site. Submitters arrive, enter an email, get a code, and start drafting — no invitation, no registration form.
Revise and resubmit
Send an abstract back with the reviewers' comments attached, give it two weeks, and have the same reviewers score the revision with their earlier answers already in front of them.
What you can do
- Design the submission form: named sections with word limits, allowed presentation types, tracks, and an optional questionnaire for the submitter.
- Run the call open to anyone, or restricted to people you have invited.
- Mail invitations from an organization-wide contact book with lists, and track opens and acceptances.
- Collect per-author conflict-of-interest disclosures, and block submission until every author has completed theirs.
- Assign reviewers manually, by track, or automatically to the least-loaded qualified person.
- Run review blind, with permanent conflict-of-interest exclusion.
- Score against a questionnaire, normalized so a ten-point criterion cannot outweigh a five-point one.
- Work a track-grouped selection board with capacity targets, split-vote flags, and bulk accept-top-N.
- Accept session proposals — a chair proposing a whole session of linked talks, each with its own abstract and speakers, reviewed and decided as one unit.
- Allow supporting files on submissions, with control over whether reviewers see them on a blind call.
- Publish a public submission link for an open call — an unguessable address anyone can use without an invitation.
- Send accept, waitlist and reject letters in batches, optionally attaching unattributed reviewer comments.
- Send an abstract back for a revision round, once, with its own deadline and a choice of who re-reviews it.
- Require presenters to confirm by a per-batch deadline, with automatic reminders.
- Lift a single talk out of a rejected proposal into the general pool as a standalone abstract.
- Export an abstract book — typeset PDF proceedings with contents and an author index, or a spreadsheet.
- Convert acceptances into draft presentations, posters and sessions, once, irreversibly except by deletion.
Settings — the submission window
Kept separately from the rest, because it is a schedule rather than a configuration.
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Submissions open | When submitters can start. Shown and entered in venue time. | Not set |
| Submissions close | When they must be in by. Must be after the open date. | Not set |
Settings — the call
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Who can submit | Invitation only — a live invitation matching the account's email is required. Open — anyone who can sign in may submit. | Invitation only |
| Presentation types | Which formats a submitter may propose: oral, poster, or no preference. At least one. | All three |
| Max submissions per submitter | Cap per person. Blank is unlimited. | 3 |
| Abstract sections | The named text blocks every abstract must contain, in order, each with an optional word limit. Reorderable. | One: "Abstract", 300 words |
| Accepted tracks | Which of the event's tracks a submitter may file under. Empty means all of them. | All tracks |
| Late grace period | Minutes after the close during which submissions are still accepted, and flagged late. | 0 |
| Editing after submission | Whether a submitted abstract stays editable until the window closes. See the warning below. | Locked at submission |
| Submitter questionnaire | Extra questions asked as a step of submission. Answers are staff-only and never shown to reviewers. | None |
| Public submission link | Open calls only. Generates an unguessable public address for the call. Not typed — you generate, regenerate or disable it. Generating also saves the call as open submissions. | None |
Settings — review and selection
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Hide author identities | Blind review. Strips author names, affiliations, the submitter and their disclosures from everything a reviewer sees, including email. | Off |
| Reviewers per submission | The target each abstract is filled to, one to five. | 2 |
| Scoring questionnaire | The form reviewers complete. A questionnaire with no rating question is valid — the board then ranks by recommendation instead, and tells you so. | None |
| Auto-assign on submit | Distribute each arriving abstract immediately to the least-loaded qualified reviewers, preferring track-tag matches. | Off |
| Per-track questionnaires | Override the reviewer or submitter questionnaire for individual tracks. Anything left alone inherits the event default. | All inherit |
| Selection targets | Per track, how many orals and posters you expect to accept. Guidance only — going over is highlighted, never blocked. | None |
| Revision deadline | Days a submitter gets to revise after a revisions-requested notice, unless that batch sets its own date. One revision round maximum, per abstract, with no override. | 14 days |
| Who re-reviews a resubmission | Same reviewers — reset to pending, their earlier answers kept as a starting point. Fresh reviewers — assigned by hand; the originals cannot be re-added. | Same reviewers |
Settings — reminders
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Deadline reminders | One switch governing all three of the call's automatic nags: the deadline reminder to invitees and draft-holders, the reviewer reminder, and the confirmation reminder to accepted submitters. Nobody who has already submitted is ever reminded. | On |
| Days before the deadline | Which days a reminder goes out. Chosen from a fixed list down to closing day. | 14, 7, 1 |
| Send at | Hour of day in venue time. | 08:00 |
Settings — supporting files
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Allow file uploads | Submitters may attach supporting material — figures, tables, supplementary data. Gates the four settings below. | Off |
| Max files per submission | One to twenty. Re-uploading a file with the same name replaces it rather than using another slot. | 3 |
| Max file size | Per file, 1–500 MB. Independent of the Internet Uploads limit. | 10 MB |
| Accepted file types | Images, PDF, Office documents, MP4 video — any combination, at least one. | Images and PDF |
| Files under blind review | Reviewers see files — shown, and submitters are warned to keep identifying information out of them. Staff only — reviewers never see them. Applies only while blind review is on, but is remembered either way. | Reviewers see files |
Settings — session proposals
| Setting | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Accept session proposals | Chairs may propose a whole session rather than one abstract. Submitters choose which they are creating, and the choice is fixed. | Off |
| Offered formats | Coordinated papers, roundtable, panel, workshop — any combination, at least one. | All four |
| Minimum talks | Fewest talks a proposal may contain. | 3 |
| Maximum talks | Most it may contain. Cannot be below the minimum. | 4 |
| Word limit per talk abstract | Applies to each component talk. Clear it for no limit. | 300 words |
The first reviewer assignment permanently locks an abstract, whatever editing after submission says. So switching on auto-assign on submit together with editing after submission means submissions freeze the moment they arrive, and the editing window you thought you granted never exists. Rostrum warns you when both are on. Choose one.
Once two tracks use different scoring forms, their scores are not comparable, and the selection board will only ever rank within a track. If you want one league table across the whole call, use one questionnaire everywhere.
Changing the effective questionnaire while reviews are in progress warns you that partial answers will not carry over — but it never blocks the change.
Nothing else switched on. It does need tracks defined before the call opens, and a questionnaire if you want numeric scores.
There is one submission window per event. An abstract can be sent back for revision once, and revision deadlines stay in the committee's hands — an overdue revision waits on the board for a human decision. Withdrawal is available to submitters at any point until a decision is sent, and remains available to waitlisted submitters after.
On files: there is no bulk download of a call's attachments, and staff can view and download but cannot upload, replace or delete a submitter's files on their behalf.
On proposals: decisions are per proposal, never per talk — the only per-talk action is lifting one out of a rejected proposal. Bulk accept-top-N works on one submission shape at a time.
The proceedings export covers abstracts accepted as orals or posters; session proposals and their talks are outside its scope. If your call ran proposals, review the book before publishing.
Once a talk has been extracted from a rejected or waitlisted proposal, treat that proposal's decision as settled — accepting and converting the same proposal later would give the extracted talk two places in the program.