Instructions for Session Chair Initial Review of Abstracts

Please follow the steps precisely in order to successfully submit your reviewed abstracts and mock up of your session. At the top of your CONFEX review page you'll find a link to run/download a report of each individual abstract that was submitted to your session. Please use this report to help you review/rank your abstract submissions.

The deadline to complete this review process was May 27, 2021 11:59 EST.
There will be no extensions.

1. Using the link below to the Confex system, review each of the abstracts submitted to your session by clicking on their link.
2. Use the system to mark all oral and poster abstract submissions as 'Accepted' or ‘Rejected.’ Any submissions that do not fit within your session should be labeled 'Rejected’' and these will be returned to the program committee to determine the most appropriate place for them in the scientific program.
3. Use the drop down list to indicate which type/format you think would be best for each presentation, identifying anchor talks (note that these are either two 15-minute or one 30-minute talks) and five 5-minute summary talks. Note that the author’s preferred format (oral-anchor, oral-summary, or poster) is indicated.
   
   You DO NOT have to worry about making a completely full block by promoting an oral talk to a poster (or vice versa) at this time. 
   
   You should contact the lead authors whose talks you wish to promote to anchor talks at this time, noting to them that that your proposed session format is “draft” until reviewed and accepted by the SPC.
4. Rank the oral submissions from highest priority to lowest, where the number “1” designates highest priority. Your lowest ranked talks may be moved from your session in the event that you have too many talks for a single or multiple blocks. Poster Only abstracts are included on your review page, but their rank is irrelevant for your planning here and so no ranking is required.
5. Fill out the separate, preformatted excel spreadsheet to provide us with a mockup of your session. This will only be done for abstract submissions that have designated your session as "primary choice"- not "secondary choice." The excel spreadsheet has two pages. First, fill out  “summary information” for your session, including the name and email of the lead session convenor. You can determine the number of accepted oral talks and posters from the CONFEX information that you filled out (Step 2 above). Click HERE to download the preformatted spreadsheet On the page titled “Mockup of Oral Session Block(s)”, copy and paste the abstracts from Confex into the spreadsheet and move the talks to arrange them into the sequence that represents a proposed mockup of your oral session block(s), based on how you think they would best flow. Their order does not indicate priority rank that you entered in Confex. It is the order in which you would like to see them presented.Proceed through steps (a) and (b) below FOR EACH session block, using only the ORAL abstracts submitted that you marked as “accepted” in this session. If you have enough talks for multiple session blocks, please organize these blocks, even if you have a final block that cannot be fully filled with presentations. The SPC will decide if you can add additional presentations to fill the block or if those presentations will be changed to a poster presentation or moved to another session. Thus, generally, we suggest that you place your highest priority presentations in the first blocks you organize. However, your anchor talks in subsequent blocks are also likely to be high priority. You will have the opportunity to move them to summary talks if you are given fewer session blocks.

(a)  Designate the anchor talk and amount of time (15 or 30 minutes). If you choose 30-minutes, you will only have one talk designated, while choosing 15 minutes means that you will have two talks designated as “anchor.”

(b)  Now enter the 5 summary talks for this block.

IMPORTANT: The spreadsheet you send us constitutes a proposal that the SPC will consider within the context of arranging session blocks for the entire conference. We would expect some possible changes to your proposal, but we will work to accommodate your request as much as possible.

6. Save your spreadsheet with the file name format as follows:

“LeadConvenorLastName_CERF2021”

7.  Email your completed session block proposal to: [email protected]