EDAS: Features and Pricing

Overview

EDAS manages the paper submission, review and registration process for conferences, workshops and journals. It is a hosted and supported service, i.e., there is no softwware to install and support staff can help authors, reviewers and chairs with any problems. Users interact with EDAS using standard web browsers.

Beyond the normal functions required for managing paper submissions and reviews, EDAS supports many special features throughout the conference life cycle:

Web Pages and Publicity

• EDAS can host the conference web pages, with a configurable template and menu system. Hosting incurs no extra cost and the web pages are maintained indefinitely. EDAS can also set up a conference-specific domain name (e.g., XYZ2010.org) for $25 for one year and $16 for each additional year.
• Chairs can announce their conference to a subset of the about 200,000 EDAS users with similar technical interests.

Paper Submission

• Personal logins based on email address. Passwords can be emailed to forgetful reviewers and authors.
• Paper can be submitted by web upload or ftp.
• The system enforces deadlines for paper registration and submission, with separate deadlines for each conference track. The registration and submission deadlines can differ.
• The system checks for duplicate papers, based on the paper title.
• EDAS uses docoloc and iThenticate/CrossCheck (for IEEE conferences) to search other published papers for possible plagiarism.
• PDF files can be checked to make sure that font sizes, margins and page counts follow conference rules.
• The system can check for missing fonts and ensure proper PDF structure, according to IEEE PDF rules.
• EDAS is integrated with the IEEE electronic copyright form submission system, allowing authors to file copyright forms electronically (configuration required).
• EDAS can charge authors for extra conference pages, payable by credit card.
• Paper data can be exported into Excel-compatible files, with a selectable set of fields.
• Accepted papers can be output as BibTeX records.
• For an additional fee (see below), EDAS can generate content for a CD or USB memory stick, with auto-load features and PDF indexing.

Review Process

• Conferences can use a single-level or two-level (technical program committee plus external reviewers) review model.
• Conferences can be, but don't have to be, double-blind, where the reviewers do not see the author names.
• Authors can designate non-preferred reviewers for each paper. These reviewers are not assigned to review the paper.
• Review questions can be fully customized, for both numeric and textual review questions. TPC-only and chair-only review questions are supported.
• Reviews can be assigned automatically, based on requests made by TPC members ("claims"), or manually by the chairs. In a two-tiered system, reviews can also be assigned by TPC members. The system automatically checks for conflicts of interest, based on declarations by the TPC members, minimizing the number of inadvertent conflicts in double-blind conferences.
• Conferences can choose to use rebuttals, with a designated rebuttal period and maximum rebuttal length.
• Per-paper discussion threads are supposed, e.g., for on-line TPC meetings. The messages are visible on the paper web page, and are also distributed to the chairs, TPC members, TPC members assigned to the paper or reviewers for the paper, depending on the conference configuration. The chair can delete inappropriate messages. These messages are not included in the review sent back to the authors.
• Tardy reviewers can be reminded, with reminders spaced to minimize reviewer complaints.
• TPC members can indicate whether they want to attend the TPC meeting.
• EDAS allows to assign papers and TPC members to TPC groups.
• Conferences can ask authors to rate reviews.
• Review data can be exported into Excel-compatible files.

Registration, Travel Grants and Visas

• Conference registration, including payment by credit card, check or wire transfer.
• A conference can have any number of events, with different registration options, such as early/late registration, society member rates and student/non-student rates. Each registration type can designate whether it counts as an author registration and for how many papers, so that, for example, a conference can enforce that each paper has at least one non-student registration.
• EDAS can generate attendee badges as PDF files, including markers for specific events as colored dots.
• EDAS can manage travel grant competitions and selection.
• EDAS can generate visa request letters for attendees, based on a template.

Sessions

• EDAS can collect biographical sketches ("bios") and photos for paper presenters and can remind presenters if their paper does not have a designated presenter or if his or her bio is missing.
• Each session can have one or two session chairs who can view papers and, if configured, reviews and rebuttals.
• Presenters can upload presentations.

Program

• Papers can be assigned to conference sessions. A schedule is generated automatically, suitable for posting on a web page.
• Conference programs allow attendees to pick favorites.

CD-ROM or USB Proceedings

There are three ways EDAS can help with producing the conference proceedings:

1. The conference organizers can use EDAS functionality to number pages and to collect material commonly found in proceedings, such as TPC listings and author indices, as well as the IEEE eXpress collection, if applicable.
2. EDAS Conference Services can prepare the content of the proceedings, typically including the page-stamped papers, pages from the conference web site and EDAS-generated content, such as TPC listings or author indices, as well as the IEEE eXpress collection, if applicable.

(There is no extra charge for the first option.)

Producing PDFs and HTML files for a conference CD-ROM or USB includes:

• Auto-startup mechanism, so that the menu appears automatically when inserting the CD-ROM (Windows only)
• Checking for PDF IEEE Xplore compliance (this is done on upload into EDAS, but we assist authors that can't figure out font embedding, for example);
• If desired, converting paper titles to uniform title case ("This is Title Case");
• IEEE eCopyright collection (done automatically prior to submission of the final manuscript);
• Collect fees for overlength papers;
• Update the PDF files with appropriate meta information (authors and title);
• Front matter such as welcome messages, keynotes, TPC lists, committees, based on conference web pages or material provided by the conference;
• List of TPC members and reviewers;
• Alphabetical paper title list;
• Alphabetical author list;
• Full-text word indexing of all PDF papers;
• Stamping all papers with the page number, conference name and copyright line.

We can also provide the actual CD ROM or USB; pricing depends on volume, enclosure, time-to-delivery and shipping. A mimimum lead time of one month is required. We will prepare a proof version of the content within ten business days, and the actual CDs or USB sticks within another ten business days after receiving final confirmation that the content is acceptable.

Email

• All authors on a paper are notified by email when papers are uploaded, edited or withdrawn.
• All email notifications are generated from customizable templates. Email notifications are tracked.

All operations are performed via the web interface, so that the chairs do not have to have a login on the EDAS host. Unlike other conference management systems, all EDAS-managed conferences share the same database of reviewers and authors, currently about 80,000 individuals, so that most reviewers and authors will already have an EDAS account. This also increases the chances that email addresses are kept up-to-date. Only name, affiliation, country and email address are shared unless the user chooses to include additional contact information. A person's review and publication history are only visible to the user, not third parties. Details are contained in the privacy policy.

What Kind of Conferences does EDAS Support?

EDAS has been used for both small conferences with a few dozen papers as well as very large conferences consisting of multiple sub-conferences and workshops, each with their own chairs and TPC, with thousands of papers. EDAS has also been used for special issues for journals. As of April 2010, EDAS has managed roughly 240,000 papers across 2655 conferences, workshops, journal special issues and journals.

How Can I use EDAS for My Conference?

You can run the conference on our server at http://edas.info. This will give you access to the existing database of more than 100,000 reviewers and authors.

You can set up the conference via a web form.

After setup, the chair can then configure the conference as needed, adding TPC members, create additional tracks, eidit review questions, change mail messages and revise other information. You can start using the conference immediately after set-up.

Pricing

Overview

Only accepted and rejected papers are counted, not incomplete or papers that were withdrawn or where no manuscript has been submitted.

If you use EDAS to accept payment for registrations via credit card, checks or wire transfer, a charge of 5% of the registrations paid covers the credit card fees and handling. (Wire transfers generally need to be matched to registrations manually.) There is no charge for registration payments deposited directly into a conference account or collected by the conference (e.g., via a University merchant account). In addition, EDAS charges $10 for each incoming wire transfers to recover the corresponding bank charge. To cover our labor, we charge $10 for each outgoing domestic conference payment and $30 for international payments, e.g., for hotel and catering invoices, whether this is a check or domestic wire transfer.

The conference is responsible for any charge-backs due to cancellations by attendees, contested charges or credit card fraud.

The amount can be sent by US check (to US addresses, generally) or by electronic funds transfer (wire transfer), typically at the end of the registration period. Income For very large conferences, registration income can be transferred in several batches. International wire transfers incur a bank fee of $22. For convenience, we usually subtract the paper processing fee from the payment.

Detailed license and service conditions are available.