Acceptance, Rejection, and Movement of Abstracts by Conveners

This document describes how Conveners can view the abstracts submitted to their session, accept or reject them, request that specific abstracts be moved to another session, utilize the one complimentary registration per twenty accepted abstracts benefit, indicate whether an abstract is for an invited or contributed paper, and provide the Section President and Program Committee with information on when you do and do not want your Session scheduled.

The planned abstract submission deadline is 12 February 2019. Reviews need to be completed and acceptance notifications sent by 26 March 2019 (see above for reasons). Please complete the review preferably by 12 March but no later than 19 March. This is so that Section Presidents can have time to rectify (if needed).

It is requested that you decide as soon as possible on the acceptance, rejection, and movement of the abstracts submitted to your Session. Because review decisions (accept or reject) are a compulsory requirement for determining funding support (AOGS Comps and Reduced Registration Fee), it is very important that Conveners complete their reviews on time. This will then allow the Treasurer and the Program Chair the maximum amount of time to perform their duties. These decisions should be made before or by 19 March 2019 at the latest.

This is NOT the time for the detailed time scheduling of your session, meaning deciding when a paper will be presented and whether it will be oral or poster.

Note: - Abstract Submission Policy (since AOGS2011)

From AOGS2011, authors will need to complete the payment of the abstract processing fee BEFORE an abstract can be further processed. Abstracts in the PENDING state are those whose abstract processing fees remain unpaid. These abstracts are not eligible for review or acceptance. Conveners can review abstracts in the ACTIVE state only. They are not duplicates, withdrawals and cleared abstract processing fee payment. Due to deadline extensions and whatever reasons, some abstract processing fees may take longer time to settle. These abstracts can only progress to the ACTIVE state and qualify for review later. Please make periodic checks to see if there are any new ACTIVE abstracts that need to be reviewed.

Viewing sessions / Updating session details
Please keep the session information up-to-date, including the session title, descriptions, and convener lists.

1. Log into MARS: https://meetmatt-svr.net"
2. Click “My Sessions” from the left menu. And you will see the My Sessions page.
3. Click on the session code (e.g., PS03) to view and edit session details. You will be able to
   • Update the session details such as title, description, expected duration, scheduling preferences.
   • Add / remove co-conveners, and change the main convener.

Viewing abstract statistics & list
Follow the steps below to view the abstracts submitted to your session(s).

1. Go to the My Sessions page.
2. Under the session summary is a section titled “Abstract Submission Summary”, which is a table that summarises the statistics of the abstracts in your Session.
3. Click the abstract count next to “Total Submitted” and you will see the Abstract List page. This page lists the abstracts that are submitted to your Session.

Accessing the abstract details
4.1 Go to the Abstract List page
4.2 Click one of the abstract IDs. This will bring you to the Abstract Details page.
On this page, you can view

1. The full abstract – title, author list, content.
2. Abstract Status (ACTIVE, PENDING, WITHDRAWN, or DUPLICATE). Note that you will only be able to review the ACTIVE abstracts.
3. Author’s preferred presentation mode (oral, poster, or either)
4. Payment status of the abstract processing fee If any of the author(s) have been offered complimentary registration by any session, including yours
5. Review decisions & comments
6. Decision (by Conveners and/or Section Presidents) the presentation mode and status (whether Invited or Contributed) of the paper

Reviewing an abstract so as to accept or reject it for the meeting
Note that the acceptance/rejection decisions you will enter online are TENTATIVE, i.e., they are NOT immediately visible to the authors. The review results will be FINALIZED on the acceptance notification date (26 Mar 2019), and after that the review results will be sent to and made visible to the authors.

You may change your decisions before the acceptance notification date.

1. Go to the Abstract Details page
2. On top of the page, click the link Review.
3. Fill up the review form. For the majority of the cases, you are required to enter
   • Review Decision: Accept / Reject
   • Comments to authors
4. Click Save to save the changes.

Moving an abstract to another session
If you want to do this then contact the Section President, first author, and Lead Convener of the other session with your request. If they agree then the Section President will arrange the abstract’s movement with the Secretariat by email to: info@asiaoceania.org. If the author does not agree, then the responsibility to accept or reject the abstract returns to you.

Deciding Complimentary Registrations (AOGS Comps)
Starting from 2012, a new funding support scheme is introduced – details here: http://www.asiaoceania.org/aogs2019/public.asp?page=funding.htm#comps

Complimentary Registration (AOGS Comps)
For every 20 accepted abstracts, 1 complimentary registration provided to the Session Convener for deciding the recipient. Total funding available is up to 200 complimentary registrations.

This is how Conveners can go about deciding the “AOGS Comps” recipient:

1. Go to the My Sessions page.
2. Click the link “Assign Complementary Registration” next to the abstract count, to view the page.
3. This page displays the session’s AOGS Comps quota calculated based on the number of abstracts that have been marked “To Accept” in the session. It also lists all the authors in the session, and if he/she is already an “AOGS Comps” recipient (by another Session), it will also show up here. Each person can only benefit once and the benefit is not transferable.
4. Always click the “Assign Complementary Registration” link to check any unconsumed quota. Click “Comps” to utilize the quota. Click “Clear Comps” if you would like to remove the AOGS Comps benefit to the author.

Entering scheduling preferences for your session
You may enter online your preferences for the scheduling of your Session, e.g., the time/date you prefer, times/dates you want to avoid, whether it should (or should not) be scheduled on the same day that another Session is scheduled. Your preferences will be visible to the Section Presidents at the time of scheduling / time allocation, but it is not guaranteed that they will be satisfied.

1. Go to the My Sessions page.
2. Click on the session code (e.g., PS03)
3. Click the link Edit above Session Details.
4. Enter Remarks and Special Requirements and save.

Indicating “Invited Speaker” mode
You may assign an abstract to “Invited” status for your own Session. By default, every abstract is “Contributed” at the time it is submitted. You may indicate abstracts are invited in the system if they are invited by the conveners.

Reminder Please! Rules - For invited abstracts:

1. Invited papers should not exceed one third of the papers in a given session, the only exception is for sessions of great timeliness (such as a recent natural disaster or the first reports from new international scientific programs or space missions).
   
2. Convener and Co-Conveners cannot present or be a co-author to an invited paper in their own session. Any paper with an overlap between the co-authors and the co-conveners cannot be designated as invited.
   
3. Duration of the presentation – typically this is 20 minutes (but sometimes may have to be 15 minutes) for an Invited Talk. For contributed talks, the standard presentation time is 15 minutes. In the program book, the word “Invited” will appear next to those invited abstracts.
   
4. Besides the above, invited abstracts are treated the same way as abstracts. That is,
   
5. Registration fees and abstract fees are applicable to authors of invited abstracts; if the authors wish to receive financial aid, they should also apply to pay reduced registration fee online.
   

There are two ways you may mark assign the invitation mode: individually, or in batches:

A. Individual Assignment

1. Go to the Abstract Details page
2. Under the section “Abstract Status”, row “Invited / Contributed” click the link “Mark as Invited” or “Mark as Contributed” where appropriate.

B. Batch Assignment

1. Go to the Abstract List page
2. Tick the checkboxes of the abstracts to be assigned as Invited, and press the button “Invited” at the top of the list. This will assign all the select abstracts as “Invited”. The procedure for assigning Contributed abstracts is similar.

Communication with Section Presidents

1. Conveners should inform their Section President by email when they have fulfilled their duties, or if they anticipate trouble doing so. You can find all email addresses on the “Committee Page” here:
   http://www.asiaoceania.org/aogs2019/public.asp?page=committee.htm
   
2. The next stage of the Convener’s responsibility involves scheduling the accepted abstracts, following such a schedule.
   
   By 05 March 2019
   1. Section Presidents allocate time slots to Conveners and copy the same to Program Chair by email to: satoh@stp.isas.jaxa.jp and Secretariat by email to info@asiaoceania.org
      
   2. Secretariat activates online scheduler (section by section) upon receiving the time slot allocation from the section’s President
   
   26 March 2019
   Conveners complete scheduling online