Conf · conferences and workshops, by AgEcon
Your conference, from the call to the book of abstracts.
Open the call, collect abstracts and anonymous papers, send them to reviewers chosen among the authors and the researchers of the AgEcon Observatory, decide, then build sessions and calendar with the help of AI. The programme for phones and the book of abstracts come out by themselves, and the book can be published open access with a DOI on Zenodo, one for every abstract too.
Organizers, authors and reviewers sign in with ORCID. Free, with no limit on events or contributions.
Open calls
Call and submissions
Session topics, types of contribution, word and keyword limits, extra questions, deadline. Authors submit with co-authors, presenter and corresponding author, and can edit until the deadline.
Anonymous paper
An optional or required Word or PDF file: author names in the file properties, comments and tracked changes are removed on upload, and names, e-mails or ORCIDs left in the text are flagged.
Peer review
Single- or double-blind, your criteria scored 1–5, recommendation and confidence, comments to the authors and confidential ones to you.
Reviewers already there
The pool is the authors of the event and, if you want, the researchers of the AgEcon Observatory (agricultural economics, Italy), ranked by closeness to each paper. For events in other fields or international ones, keep just the authors and add your own reviewers. Co-authors of the last five years and colleagues of the same institution are flagged as conflicts. Each reviewer gets a personal link to accept or decline.
Decisions
Scores, recommendations and disagreements side by side, an AI summary of the reviews if you want it, and one click to e-mail decisions and reviewers’ comments to the authors.
Sessions with AI
Group accepted contributions by topic or let AI propose coherent sessions with titles and order; the chair is suggested from the Observatory.
Calendar
Days, time slots, rooms and parallel sessions, breaks and plenaries. Conf warns when a presenter is in two rooms at once and can fill the slots for you.
Programme for phones
One tab per day, search by author or keyword, the session in progress highlighted, abstracts on tap, and the whole programme in your calendar (.ics).
Book of abstracts
A PDF with cover, clickable contents, abstracts in programme order and an index of authors, rebuilt by itself whenever the programme changes.
Open access, with a DOI
If you choose it, the book is published on Zenodo (CERN) under CC BY 4.0, with a DOI for the book and one for each abstract: citable, permanent, and listed in the ORCID record of the authors who have one. Authors give their consent when they submit; Conf prepares the drafts for you to check, and nothing is final until you ask.
Linked to the Observatory
Authors recognised in the AgEcon Observatory link to their profile, in the programme and in the book.
Create the event
Name, dates, place and a short address such as agecon.org/conf/your-workshop. A new event becomes public once the platform has approved it.
Invite the organizers
A single-use link for each co-organizer: everyone has the same powers.
Open the call
Topics, types, limits, questions, the deadline and, if you want it, the anonymous Word paper.
Collect contributions
Authors sign in with ORCID, receive a receipt and can edit until the deadline. Export everything to a spreadsheet.
Assign reviewers
By hand, automatically or with AI, from the authors and the Observatory, without conflicts; then send the personal links.
Decide
Read the reviews, accept or reject, and send the decisions with the comments to the authors.
Build the programme
Sessions by topic or with AI, chairs, rooms and time slots, with a check of conflicts.
Publish
The programme for phones, the calendar file and the book of abstracts go online together; the book, if you want, open access on Zenodo with DOIs.
Who can create an event?
Anyone who signs in. To keep the platform clean, a new event is reviewed before it becomes public; in the meantime its organizers can prepare everything.
Do authors need an account?
They sign in with ORCID, which almost every researcher already has: this way only the person who submitted a contribution can edit or withdraw it.
Who sees the contributions?
The organizers, the person who submitted them and the reviewers of each one (without the authors’ names in double-blind review). Once the programme is published, title, authors and abstract of the accepted contributions become public; e-mails and ORCIDs never do.
Who can review?
Anyone the organizers choose: usually the authors of the other contributions and researchers of the AgEcon Observatory, but also anyone else with an e-mail address. There is nothing to sign up for: the reviewer opens the personal link, reads the abstract and accepts or declines.
What does the AI do, and what does it see?
Only what the organizers ask: re-rank reviewers, summarise the reviews of a contribution, propose sessions. It reads titles, keywords and abstracts, never the names of the authors, and it never decides anything.
Can the book of abstracts have a DOI?
Yes. Choose it in the call: authors are asked to agree to open-access publication under CC BY 4.0 when they submit. After the decisions, Conf deposits on Zenodo (the open repository run by CERN) the book and, if you want, every abstract, each with its own DOI and with the authors' ORCID. First as drafts you can check; then the platform publishes them, and they become permanent and citable. The full papers are never deposited.
Is there a fee?
No. Conf is part of the free tools of AgEcon for the research community.