Instructions for Reviewers and PC Members

Table of Contents
1. Your Reviewer Account 
2. Log in and Update Your Details 
3. Select Your Priority Topics 
4. Bid for Contributions 
5. Confirm the Confidentiality Agreement 
6. Enter Your Reviews 
7. Discuss in the PC Forum 
8. Register to Attend

This page explains how reviewers and program committee (PC) members use ConfTool, from receiving an account to entering reviews and registering for the conference.

Always follow the organizers' guidelines. 
These are general hints on how to use the ConfTool system. The organizers of your event may prefer a different process – their instructions always take precedence over this page.

ConfTool is used for submitting and reviewing conference contributions, and usually also for participant registration. You need a user account to use any part of the system.

As a reviewer or member of the program committee (PC member), you normally receive an e-mail invitation with your login details. The conference organizers set up your basic account data and your user role for you. Please use this account for all further access to the ConfTool system.

Once you have received your account data, go to the main ConfTool page and log in with your user name and password under "Registered Users". If you have lost your login details, you can recover them through the links to the right of the login fields ("Forgotten your user name?" and "Forgotten your password?").

After your first login, select "Edit User Account Details" to update your personal data. Please use this opportunity to set a new password, as you probably received the initial one by e-mail. Click "Submit User Data" to save your changes.

Depending on the current phase of the submission, review and registration process, you will see different options after logging in (see image 1).

One account for everything. 
If you also plan to submit a contribution, please use this same account for your submissions. Using a single account makes it easier for the system to detect conflicts of interest.

For all subsequent steps you have to be logged in.

As a reviewer or PC member, you are usually asked to state your areas of expertise. Use the link "Select Priority Topics" on the overview page to choose your main topics of interest. This information helps the conference chairs assign contributions that match your expertise, so it directly affects the quality of the review process.

Optional – ConfTool Pro only.

After the submission deadline, the conference organizers may contact you and give you the opportunity to "Bid for Contributions". Log in and select the corresponding link from the overview page. You will see a list of all submitted contributions of the conference (or of your conference track). Here you can mark the submissions you would prefer to review and indicate which ones fall outside your areas of expertise.

State your conflicts of interest. 
Use this function to flag contributions you cannot review objectively – for example, because you were involved in the research project or are affiliated with the authors.

It is recommended to take part in the bidding process, as it greatly increases the chance of being assigned papers that match your interests. Please note that you usually cannot decline a submission once it has been assigned to you for review.

Optional – ConfTool Pro only.

You may have to confirm the "Reviewer Confidentiality Agreement" before you can access the submissions assigned to you. To do so, click the corresponding link and confirm the agreement on the following page.

Based on the reviewers' fields of interest and their bids, the chairs assign submissions to the reviewers. After the assignment, they send an e-mail with the details and deadlines of the review process.

To access the contributions assigned to you, log in to your ConfTool account and select "Enter and Edit Reviews" (see image 2).

Here you can read the abstracts and download the manuscripts. To download several manuscripts at once, see this manual: Downloading Multiple Files from ConfTool.

After reading the contributions, enter your review in the online forms provided (see image 3). Each contribution is scored across several categories. You can use the print option of ConfTool together with your web browser to print out abstracts and review forms. Please note that different submission types (e.g. papers vs. posters) may use different review criteria and forms.

Save your review before the session times out. 
There is a session timeout (usually 2 hours), after which unsaved changes are lost. Save in good time – you can keep updating your review at any point before the deadline.

Reviews are not made visible to authors until the review process is finished and the chairs have decided the final acceptance status based on all evaluations.

Optional – ConfTool Pro only.

ConfTool Pro also offers an online forum to discuss the contributions and the review results. This forum is usually made available after the review process. You can leave comments on any contributions and reviews that are still undecided – for instance, because they received ambiguous ratings from different experts.

Reviewers and PC members are usually also expected to attend the conference. Please use your existing ConfTool account to register for participation as soon as the registration process has started.