There are many types of scientific and academic events.
When organizing a congress, you need a group of people responsible for the event’s scientific quality. That’s how an editorial board is formed.
But when building an editorial board, you need to carefully select who will take on this role.
In this article, we’ll talk about the importance and role of the Editorial Board at scientific events.
You’ll learn how to select members for this committee and how to set the paper submission rules for your event. Let’s get into it!
The Importance of the Editorial Board
Being invited to join an event’s Editorial Board is an honor for any professional.
This invitation recognizes the professional’s technical and scientific ability, qualifying them to critically evaluate the papers submitted by participants.
Their opinion will be the main criterion for selecting what gets presented at the event and published in the Event Proceedings. Committing to this task requires a lot of dedication.
After all, critically evaluating a paper means understanding the difficulties an author faces across many areas — finding references on the subject, documenting their work, and finding time to write it. Papers with a large number of issues require a lot of attention from the editorial board.
If you’re invited to join an Editorial Board, you need to be aware that you’ll have to carry out this responsibility seriously and with the efficiency expected of you.
What Is the Role of the Editorial Board?
Editorial Board members are researchers from different fields of knowledge.
Based on their expertise, they form a diverse group to review scientific papers based on academic and scientific criteria.
The editorial board has several functions. Among them is choosing the event’s reviewers — that is, who will be responsible for evaluating the papers submitted to your event!
Evaluating isn’t easy work.
You can simplify the process by using an evaluation system that speeds things up and adds more confidence to the evaluation used at your event.
Another function of the editorial board is formatting papers.
It’s the members’ responsibility to standardize the document’s layout and structure, so that at the time of presentation and publication, everything meets the established requirements.
This is also when your event’s brand gets applied to the layouts, among other things.
They also approve specific rules for certain types of papers, like oral presentations and posters, and define submission rules.
These are the standards participants must follow, since it’s a way to maintain the quality of the work at your event.
Selecting Editorial Board Members
An event’s Editorial Board can affect its quality. So when choosing who will be a member, consider the following tips:
Existing board members can suggest new members. This is a great way to get professionals of the same caliber working together.
You should keep an updated list of board members, including each one’s specific area of expertise, and keep notes on how useful they’ve been in the past.
Identifying Potential Candidates
The number of published scientific papers and academic standing are the main factors for joining an Editorial Board.
To represent the Editorial Board, it’s ideal for members to be appointed from relevant research institutions. This way, you already have some assurance that they’re relevant figures in the scientific community.
The top reviewers from previous editions can also be a good fit to become Editorial Board members. The authors of the top papers from past editions are also interesting candidates — after all, it’s a way to get the perspective of someone who’s already gone through the experience of submitting a scientific paper, now from within the committee.
When recruiting potential members for this committee, it’s helpful to provide a brief description of what they’ll need to do, outlining their main responsibilities.
Submission Rules
It’s the Editorial Board’s responsibility to define the submission rules.
These are the standards participants must follow, since it’s a way to maintain the quality of the work at your event.
In the submission rules, you’ll define both the number of papers each author can submit and how many authors each paper can have.
The Editorial Board should check whether proposed papers fit within or fall outside the thematic focus they’re associated with.
The submission rules should include the email address papers should be sent to, or which submission platform should be used.
Layout
Another aspect that should be included in the submission rules is the overall layout of papers.
What format should the full text of the paper be submitted in? Choose whether it’s DOC/DOCX or PDF.
Still on the topic of layout, you need to define top and bottom margins, along with font and alignment. It’s also important to establish where page numbers should appear.
Indicate how the paper’s title should look, and how authors’ names should appear.
Limit the character count for the abstract and the number of keywords. Define the character count, including spaces, for the full text.
There are templates for various types of papers, depending on what your event requires.
When the Editorial Board defines the types of papers accepted at the event — such as scientific articles, abstracts, and posters — they can also provide standardized templates that match the event’s layout. For events with poster presentations, you need to create specific rules for that type of paper, covering: structure, dimensions, and content of the poster, what should be sent to the Scientific Committee for evaluation, text length, abstract, and keywords.
Evaluation
The submission rules need to clearly state how paper evaluation will work.
Every submitted paper will be checked for formatting, requiring compliance with the established guidelines.
It’s important to indicate which criteria will be judged.
Finally, the submission rules document should also state when results will be announced, presentation dates (ideally alongside the scientific program), and the publication date of the Proceedings.
It’s important to make clear that only authors who follow these rules can be included in the event’s scientific program.
Ready to choose who will be the Editorial Board members for your next event? Let us know in the comments!
