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As Priscilla Peña Ovalle, the 2021 Conference Program Committee Chair, and her team of readers begin the task of reviewing over 1200 proposals, we want to shed some light on the evaluation process.
Step 1: Evaluation of Proposals:
Once the submission deadline has passed, proposals are clustered according to category (workshop, roundtables, pre-constituted panels, open call papers) and the open-call papers are then grouped according to their topics. Prior to the submission deadline, the Board of Directors appoints a Program Committee comprising pairs of readers for the various categories of proposals. The Program Committee Chair distributes the groups of proposals to the reading pairs for their independent evaluations. Proposals are then scored, and the readers send their averaged scores to the Program Chair. Open-call readers also suggest how accepted papers may fit together into panels.
Step 2: Panel/Workshop/Roundtable Capacity is Determined:
While the readers are hard at work, the SCMS office staff creates a conference grid of all the dates/times/sessions. The grid reflects the total number of panels, workshops, and roundtables that can be accommodated. Once the total number of panels and workshops is determined, this information is communicated to the Program Committee Chair.
Step 3: Proposals are Accepted or Declined:
As soon as the Program Committee Chair has finalized the proposal decisions, the SCMS Home Office notifies participants whether their submission was accepted or declined. These notifications are sent in early November.
Step 4: Conference Scheduling: The Conference Scheduler's Herculean task now gets under way in scheduling panels and workshops. As soon as the task is completed and reviewed by the Program Chair, a first draft of the schedule is posted at cmstudies.org
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