Category Chair and Subcategory Chair Instructions

General Abstract Deadline- May 2nd
General Abstract Review Deadline- May 23rd 
Late Breaking Abstract Deadline- TBD
Late Breaking Review Deadline- TBD

Log into the Category Chair Site

1. Click the link here to go to the Category Chair Site. The Category Chair Site is the main hub to see all abstracts and completed reviews.

2. Watch the “Subcategory Chairs Help Video”. Note: this video was made in 2023. You will see instructions on how to access the abstracts and reviews in your subcategory.

3. Filter on your subcategory as shown in the video.  This will show you all the abstracts in your subcategory. Note: they will not be there until people submit abstracts. 

Reviewers 

1. It is your responsibility to recruit reviewers for your subcategory. Our goal is 600 reviewers, so each subcategory chair is encouraged to recruit 10 reviewers. Please select reviewers from your network as well as selecting those from the pool of volunteers that have signed up. Reviewers should be postdoctoral researchers or above – this ensures that the quality of the reviews is kept high.

2. All reviewers need to sign up using the volunteer form link, which can be found here.

3. This year we will do a rolling review. Volunteers signing up to review will indicate the months they are available to review (December -July) and will be assigned up to 15 reviews during that time period as abstracts are received. Reviewers will be asked to submit each review within a two week time frame.

4. Ashley will send you a reviewer report via email for your subcategory to see how many reviewers have volunteered. 

5. Check to see if you have enough reviewers in your subcategory. Each abstract will be reviewed by 7 reviewers.  Reviewers should have between 1-15 abstracts. Ashley Wren will confirm the list of reviewers for your subcategory.

6. If you do not have enough reviewers in your subcategory, please send an email to your category chair and Ashley Wren at awren@wmis.org.

Re-categorizing Abstracts

1. Reviewers are responsible for letting you, the Category Chair(s), or Ashley Wren know if an abstract needs to be recategorized. However, if you notice on the chair module that an abstract is in the wrong category, please email Ashley Wren and your Category Chair(s) with the ID number and the category and subcategory you recommend. The list of the categories/subcategories can be found here: https://www.wmis.org/abstract-categories-and-descriptions/.

Abstracts are reviewed – December-July

1. All reviewers will receive an email when they have been assigned an abstract to review. When they log into their profile home, they will see an access button for the reviewer report. The reviewer report will show the abstracts selected for them to review.

2. Reviewers will judge the abstracts based on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 and 2 signify top abstracts that have potential for an oral presentation and 5 signifies abstracts that should not be selected for WMIC. 

3. All reviews will be shown in the category chair site.

Help stay on top of reviews: General abstract reviews occur January-May 23rd.

We will contact you when all the reviews are final.

Recommending Acceptances/Rejections and Orals/Posters

1. Once reviews are completed for General abstracts, subcategory and category chairs will recommend acceptance/rejection for each abstract in their category/subcategory.
2. Once reviews are completed for both General and Late Breaking abstracts, subcategory and category chairs will recommend oral/poster/rejection designations for each abstract in their category/subcategory.
3. Ashley will send a full list of abstracts and their scores to subcategory chairs to use in their recommendations.

We will repeat the process for late breaking.

Timeline for Late Breaking : TBD