Online paper submission worked well in ’05, bumps to be smoothed in ‘06

By Frank Fee, Division Research Chair

As I was winding up my term as Newspaper Division head last year, my colleague Sri Kalyanaraman of Comm Tech (& Policy) showed me the system he was pioneering as research chair for the 2004 convention. It looked terrific, and we entered into an arrangement with ConfMaster, a German vendor that Comm Tech has now used twice and plans to use again in the coming year. The cost of the site was $450. With a few minor bumps that were easily resolved, I was delighted with ConfMaster and would recommend it to other divisions and to AEJMC as a whole. We will be using it again for next year ourselves.

ConfMaster allows scholars to submit papers to a dedicated Web site. From there, the research chair checks to ensure there are no identifying marks on the papers and converts them to pdf files. From there, the reviewers are enabled to download the papers to their computers, reading them either on the screen or on a printout if they chose. When the judge is ready, he or she can sign back in to the Web site and, using a template already created in the system, punch in the relevant numbers for closed-end questions, and, cutting and pasting from a pre-arranged document, make overall comments about the paper. It’s that simple!

Once the final decision has been made on a paper, the research chair identifies it and, on another keystroke notifies the researcher. Pre-written scripts for this and other steps give prompt acknowledgement to scholars about the fate of their papers, so we are also out of the postcard system as well.

Thanks to a key-word identifier system, which asks scholars and judges to list areas of interest or pertinence, we were fairy easily able to match papers to the corresponding researchers.

To be sure, not all those who used the system as a judge, scholar or administrator found ConfMaster to be the answer to their prayers. For instance, some judges disliked having to print out their own copies. A few refused to use the system at all.

But from people submitting papers, I had nothing but praise for the system. And from my perspective as research chair, the ability to have everything recorded, to know the status of every paper at any time, and to avoid stacks of paper for mailing in my office was a delight.

I also liked the fact that we could go international more easily. This year I had one judge in Ireland, and one of our accepted papers came from Singapore. All told, we had 86 submissions, which I believe if not a record is the highest we’ve had in several years.

The chief drawbacks in this system are that (1) while there is a pretty good instruction set in the help desk, the system is not intuitive and just finding the help desk comes as an afterthought. I need to get an instruction manual out before we start recruiting judges and receiving papers next year. I hope to do this in cooperation with Sri so that both divisions can have the instructions posted on their Web sites. (2) Right now we are getting the general-purpose Web site that is designed to accommodate all manner of research competitions. Until we have the critical mass of AEJMC ordering for us, we can expect very little tailoring of the software to our needs and about two-thirds of the system’s capabilities go unused and are just in the way until you learn to navigate the site.

We also ran into one school where the spam protections would not recognize our address as legitimate. Once we discovered this, though, and worked with the professor at that end, everything was fine.

Based on problems reported in other systems used by ICA and NCA, plus at least one division in AEJMC, I must say that ConfMaster had 99.99 percent reliability and in its proprietor, Thomas Pruess, the backup to make it run flawlessly this year. I must say that Thomas was extremely helpful and promptly solved every problem (usually pilot error on a judge’s part) with alacrity and grace. He was always available by e-mail but I also had his phone number and could have called if things got out of line.