Experiences with web-based scientific collaboration: managing the submission and review process of scientific conferences

This paper discusses the logistics of the submission and review process of conference entries by means of a ?free?, web-based application. In the framework of the SciX-project - an acronym for ?Open, self organising repository for scientific information exchange?, SOPS (?SciX Open Publishing Services?) has been developed. The SciX-project framework has already been elaborated in the ELPUB 2002 contribution and on the occasion of ELPUB 2003 the creation of a Digital Library for ELPUB was presented. An outline of SOPS as an publishing aid for conference organizers will be worked out in this paper, using the case study ofthe IAPS 2004 conference. The SOPSconference application provides the functionality to support the organisation of a conference. It handles the registration of participants, submission and reviewing of abstracts, full-paper submission, reviewing and publishing. By means of other SOPS-services already a repository with previous conference papers has been realized for the IAPS-association