Conference management software

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Definition

Conference management software assists with the preparation of conferences.

Software for academic conferences can provide some or all of the following functions:

• Paper submission
• Assignment of papers to reviewers
• Email notifications to submitters and reviewers
• Registration management (for the whole conference plus extras)
• Schedule management
• Publication support (slides and talks before and after the conference)

In addition, such software now should include web 2.0 functionalities

• User blogs
• User profiles and budddy lists
• Support for BOF sessions

Non-academic conferences or academic events such as "open days", informal workshops etc. may use other kinds of software, e.g. social networking platforms that include an events manager.

One also could imagine using a conference management system in education, e.g. in a project-oriented class. It would allow for peer assessment for which good software is hard to find.

Software

Free conference management systems

This category includes Portalware that you will have to install or on-line services. None is tested or recommended by us. It's just a list of links !!! - Daniel K. Schneider September 2009 / Jan 2014

• EasyChair is a free conference management system that is flexible, easy to use, and has many features to make it suitable for various conference models. [According to the creators], it is currently probably the most commonly used conference management system.

• OpenConf Peer-Review, Abstract and Conference Management. Quote (1/2014): Known for its ease of use and clean interface, OpenConf has powered thousands of events in over 100 countries

• Open Conference Systems (OCS) s a free Web publishing tool that will create a complete Web presence for your scholarly conference.

• COMS s a Technical Conference management system. It provides a web interface for managing a conference. Some of the brief facilites include submission of papars by authors, reviewing those paper by reviewers and conference supervision by the chair.

• Conference Information System Stuttgart (ConfISS) is a conference management system to host conferences. It helps conference chairmen to administrate their conferences, reviewers to write their reviews and authors to easily submit their papers.]

• E-Conference is a simple web based management system for student conferences. Used only for learning, the project is a multilanguage system that offers an online office for the people involved in the conference. Last update: 2005 (as of 1/2014)

• YACOMAS (Yet another conference management system). A Conference management system written in PHP and MySQL

• WCMT is a PHP-MySQL based tool for the management of scientific conferences and congresses. It allows the convenor to manage the review process of a medium to big sized conference. Last update: 2009 (as of 1/2014)

• ConfTool Commercial Conference Management Software, but free version available on request.

• CMT (Microsoft’s Academic Conference Management Service, free for academia).

On line services

• PlugMyEvent (free for free events)

Other

Some social networks offer very light-weight services, e.g. an Event tool that allows to invite people and they can reply.

A good example is the Ning social network platform (free, if you can bear with Google ads). It includes an event manager with RSVP functionality. Facebook has a similar application.

Links

• Corbin Ball (2006) Column: Tech Support, Making information systems work for you. Meetings Industry Killer Apps, The Meeting Professional, 26 (12).

• Conference management system (Wikipedia)
• Abstract management (Wikipedia)
• Event planning (Wikipedia)

• Meeting and convention planner. Information about persons who supervise and coordinate.