Speaker Submission Scoring

Overview

Abstract scoring gives your program committee a structured way to evaluate CFP submissions. Multiple reviewers score each abstract on weighted criteria — relevance, originality, presentation quality, or any custom dimensions you define. A ranked overview with aggregate scores makes it easy to finalize your program. Available on Pro plans (requires CFP to be enabled).

Setting Up Scoring Criteria

1. Go to Plan → Submissions in your event dashboard and click Call for Abstracts Settings. Criteria live in the Reviewer Rubric section.
2. No criteria are created for you. Until you add one, reviewers give a single overall score from 1 to 10.
3. To add a criterion, click + Add Criterion, then enter a label, weight, and maximum score (default 5).
4. Adjust weights to reflect how important each dimension is. A criterion with weight 2.0 counts twice as much as one with weight 1.0 in the overall weighted average.

Scoring Abstracts

1. Go to Plan → Scoring. The overview table shows all submitted abstracts with their current average scores, reviewer count, and recommendation breakdown.
2. Click Score → on any abstract to open it.
3. In the Scoring section, enter a score for each criterion, add an optional note, and click Save Score.

Reviewers you invite from the Reviewers page score through their own review link instead. They enter a score per criterion, choose a recommendation — Accept, Reject, or Maybe — and click Submit review.

Org members can score from the dashboard. Scores are saved per reviewer, and you can update your scores at any time.

Reading the Scoring Overview

The overview table is sorted by weighted average score (highest first) by default. Columns show:

• Abstract title and author
• Per-criterion average across all reviewers
• Overall weighted average score (and the normalized score, when there is enough data)
• Number of reviewers who have scored it
• Recommendation breakdown (how many Accept / Maybe / Reject votes)
• Current status

Filter by track, status, or submission type, and click the score column headers to sort. Use this view to identify clear accepts at the top, clear rejects at the bottom, and borderline submissions in the middle.

Blind Review and Conflicts of Interest

Turn on blind review to hide submitter names and affiliations from reviewers, so they score the work rather than the author. Reviewer identities stay anonymous to submitters as well.

Reviewers can flag a conflict of interest on any abstract they should not judge — a co-author, a colleague, their own institution. Conflicted reviewers are kept out of that abstract's scores, so a personal connection never inflates or depresses a result. Set up the review pool and assignments on the Reviewers page.

Score Normalization

Reviewers score differently — some run harsh, some generous. Score normalization adjusts for that so an abstract is not penalized simply for drawing a strict reviewer. The overview can rank by the normalized score next to the raw weighted average; use the normalized ranking when different reviewers scored different subsets of abstracts and you need them on a level footing.

Accepting Abstracts in Bulk

Once scoring is complete, select abstracts in the overview and use the Accept, Waitlist, Reject, or Request revision buttons to decide them all in a single action. You can still accept or reject individual abstracts manually from the overview or the abstract detail page.

Reviewer Anonymity

Invited reviewers see only their own scores in their review link. Org members see every reviewer's scores, with names, in the All Reviewer Scores table on the abstract page.

See Sessions and Speaker Submissions for submission types, poster logistics, ORCID and structured affiliations, register-to-present, and the abstract book export.