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Abstracts working group

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This is a working group of the Program Sub-Committee.  Its membership is ???  It is responsible for drafting abstract submission and review criteria and developing lists of reviewers.  As with the 'Big Structure' committee it meets between Program Sub-Committee meetings and reports to those meetings.

file_9496507_37715.xlsx
file_9496507_37598.docx

Comments

Submitted by cmorry on Tue, 10/31/2017 - 16:35 Permalink

Hi Everyone

For tomorrow's call.

Attched is a draft matrix for the reviewers.  As you'll recall from our last meeting we decided that we need to begin recruiting reviewers.  The process decided was to send out a request to those of us working on to conference to access our networks and solicit names of potential reviewers.  We will collate this list and then send out a request to each person to fill in a simple form we'll create on Survey Monkey.  This form will provide us with the information we need to create a matrix of reviewers that let's us know enough about each to determine if they are appropriate, what there areas of SBCC focus are, where they're based, what their expertise is etc.

You'll find an excell sheet attached that lists the areas we're looking for and suggests the questions we use for the online survey.  It is a draft and all feedback is welcome during the meeting.  We'll take the results from our meeting and share with the Secretariat.

Cheers

Chris

Submitted by cmorry on Tue, 11/07/2017 - 14:17 Permalink

Hi Everyone

We have had a number of comments come in on the abstract reviewer survey and I have incorporated them into a revised version.  We want to close this off by Friday Nov 10 so if any of you have comments submit directly on the survey comment form Abstract Reviewer Survey or if that doesn't work for you just respond to this email.  I'll use the survey link to provide an update tomorrow.

Submitted by cleofe.torres on Tue, 11/07/2017 - 21:38 Permalink

I think that it will be useful for us if we add a question if they have served as abstract reviewer before; will give us idea on the sesoned ones. 

Submitted by cmorry on Wed, 11/08/2017 - 08:56 Permalink

Hi Everyone,

Below is a note re the final round of survey input before we hand over to a more technical discussion related to making sure the data collected from the survey is compatible with that collected through the abstract process where we will set up a backend that allows the results from this survey to 'talk' to the abstract submission data.  This final step may involve a final revision to ensure data sets are compatible.

However, for now let's focus on getting the questions right.  When we tweak for technical compatibility we will keep within the spirit of our final list of questions and the comments you've all submited.

The revised survey test and comment form is still at the same link https://surveymonkey.com/tr/v1/te/akU_2BQc2vAhAsa_2B264x1g6_2FpF_2Fhy3E…

A few points on the new version:

Q2 There was some discussion about whether asking about education levels was necessary and that question has now been removed.  It did seem to me that some information on this would be useful in determining a persons overall skills for the task but if we leave the education level question out this one on from the abstract form on Professional Designation both matches with other online info we're collecting and will give us some education level background.

Q5 Some felt this isn't necessary but for now have left in this question re whether potential reviewers or their organisation have submited an abstract(s).  It seemed to me it would be useful to help us make sure we avoid conflicts of interest when we assign reviewers.  If this can be dealt with some other way I'm happy to cut it.

Q6 and Q7 are new and replace questions on specialisation and areas of professional focus.  They are drawn directly from the abstract submission check boxes on strategic approaches and engagement opportunities.

Q9 on development issues also draws from the abstract submission form using the main but not the sub-categories.

Q10 may need further tweaking as geography is going to be important we may need to revisit this list to make sure it is compatible with the abstract submission process.  However, this is a technical question that we can get advise on from those ensuring the data sets are compatible.

I look forward to your final comments.

Cheers

Chris

Hi Chris,

Thanks on your work in revising the survey monkey and for sharing the updated version.

For some reason I was unable to instert comments onto the survey this time round, so I'll writing them here:

- Question 2: I agree with the need for us to have an ideal of education level for when we assign abstracts to reviewers, in particular with regards to the reserach abstract. However, i'm not sure that this is the clearest way. How do these professional designations tranlsate in other languages? Would people from other countries understand them the way we do? Where I come from, for example, we call doctor anyone who has a bachelor's degree , not a Phd. If you say that it matches with ]information requirements from other templates then it may be okay, otherwise I wonder if we can think more creatively about how to give a sufficiently representative and diverse choice around education and professional development.

- Question 3: I don't understand why we need to ask for title. We are asking for professional designation for reasons that allow us to match reviewer to abstract better, but I'm not sure what the title is for. It's a small and quick question though so not so important

- Question 5: I think this is important and we should at least be shown to take steps to minimize potential conflict of interest.

- Question 6 amd Queston 7: I think it's good that they are taken directly from the abstract submission check boxes. Even if it looks like a long list, it should be easy to complete. One question, is it possible to add "ITC for Development"? or if too late that can just fall under "other"

- Question 10: I would rephrase the question as follows "On a scale of 1 to 3, where 1 represents highest interest and 3 represents lowest interest, please rank your level of interest in each of the conference themes. You can only use one ranking number once". It's  a small change but it makes it clear I think

- Question 12: we talk about 5 years, is that not too much? I think that 3 years is a good enough time for getting a sense of a country's context and we bring it down to 3 it may allow us to cover a broader range of regions. I am thinking of places (like UNICEF) where people rotate after 3 to 4 year maximum. Or conflict zones where peole rarely stay longer that 2 years but have a welath of knowledge an experience of the context. So my suggestion would be to reduce the 5 years to 3 or even 2 years.

Thanks again Chris and best wishes.

Alessia

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For your information. 

  1. In the review process, we can choose not to display author information during the review process for the submission, effectively making the review anonymous.
  2. People reviewing their own submissions: This isn’t actually possible in the Abstract product.  If you attempt to assign reviewers to submissions that they authored

Therefore I think we should remove question #5 about whether someone has submitted an abstract. 

Caroline

Submitted by Warren Feek on Wed, 11/22/2017 - 13:39 Permalink

Hi - again from me as Chris is away. Attached when you open this note online is the latest udpate on the responses to the Abstracts Reviewer survey. This time I have downloaded all data. Can I suggest you look through and if you see that some people you have suggested have not completed that you given them a bit of a prompt and a prod? Thanks - Warren

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Warren, 

Thanks for sharing the list of people who have responded.  For followup, it may be more helpful to have the list of people who haven't followed up.  Can you share that?

Best

Caroline

Submitted by cmorry on Tue, 12/05/2017 - 13:20 Permalink

Hello Program Subcommittee,

 

Per our conversation today,

1)     

Please find attached the rating scales for abstract review.  Please send any comments you may have to Doug before COB tomorrow (Thursday).  It is the same as what I sent before.

 

2)     

Here is the link to information about the abstracts submitted to date.   https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/xBTFpFChjunN7AKsoCeFKhob

The link will automatically be updated every Tuesday.  Kindly be reminded that the information is for subcommittee purposes only and is not to be shared.

 

I will send the previous SBCC Summit document separately.

 

Best

Caroline