These guidelines correspond to the activities in the “Schedule and Deadlines for Divisions” table in Section 1: General Guidelines, linked through the main table of contents. All documents that are highlighted in uppercase have a corresponding template in Section 6: Document Library of the table of contents.
Distribute the Call for Papers
The Divisional Editor should send out the Call for Papers as broadly as possible in order to encourage attendance and participation in the ASAC conference. Some great “destinations” for the Call for Papers include:
- Members of the division
- Other faculty and doctoral students in your discipline within and outside Canada
- Canadian business schools (including colleges and technical institutes)
- Business schools outside Canada
- Mailing lists and discussion forums related to the division’s discipline
- Colleagues on your our own faculty
- Websites related to your division
In large part, the attendance of individuals at the conference is a function of divisional efforts to encourage participation in, and promotion of, the conference. So please get the word out as broadly as possible.
Distribute Request for Reviewers
The Divisional Editor should send an email to the division’s members to ask potential reviewers to join the review team using the REVIEWER INFORMATION FORM. An online version of this form has been created for each Division to invite reviewers to sign up electronically. There are, however, several other ways to recruit reviewers:
- Ask last year’s Divisional Editor for their list of reviewers, and contact those individuals to see if they would be willing to serve as reviewers this year.
- Contact the individuals who presented in your division at previous years’ conference (and especially the last year) and ask them to serve as reviewers.
- Invite session chairs from previous years’ conferences (and especially the last year).
- Invite your divisional members to participate.
- Contact the authors of currently submitted papers and invite them to review.
- Ask the other members of your divisional executive to forward the request for reviewers to their personal networks.
- Call in favours from colleagues within your own academic network.
- Write to respected scholars in your field, inviting them to serve as reviewers.
Attracting and recruiting reviewers is always a challenging process, and requires effort and focus to do successfully. Doing so requires repeated communication. Don’t rely on sending out one email and presuming you will get sufficient responses. Plan on sending out multiple emails and reminders. Think of web sites, bulletin boards (real and virtual), social media channels and other avenues where you can reach potential reviewers.
Personalize your communications wherever possible, rather than sending out blanket emails and bcc’ing invitees. Individual invitations are much harder to ignore, and more likely to result in a favourable response.
It is strongly recommended that you ask candidate reviewers the kinds of paper they would be most comfortable reviewing (by subject, research approach and research orientation).
Assemble List of Reviewers
The Divisional Editor is responsible for assembling a list of people who are willing to serve as reviewers for submissions to the division.
Each paper/symposium submitted to ASAC is typically reviewed by three reviewers, and each reviewer typically receives three manuscripts. Thus, you will need at least as many reviewers as there are papers submitted to your division. For an estimate of the total number of papers the division is likely to receive, check the number of papers accepted in recent years, or ask last year’s Divisional Editor about the number of submissions received. This information is also available in the ASAC 2020 Conference Report.
As individuals are identified as reviewers, they can be entered as a reviewer through the ASAC submission site – we will provide the necessary instructions to manage this closer to the submission deadline for the Call for Papers.
Prepare Forms and Messages for the Review Process
The online document library accompanying this Survival Guide includes templates for the emails and forms that you will need during the review process. Be sure to add divisional details to these forms (e.g. names of divisional officers, division name) as needed before sending them out. The areas that each division will have to fill out are highlighted in yellow on each document. There are several other documents that the Divisional Editor will use during the review process:
1. REVIEWER FORM
Reviewers evaluate each submission using a form with two parts. The first part (Part A) provides ratings which the Divisional Editor uses to help decide whether to accept or reject the submission. The second part (Part B) provides constructive feedback to the author(s). Only Part B of the form is returned to the author(s).
2. EMAIL TO REVIEWERS WHEN SENDING PAPERS
The email describes the review process and instructs the reviewer on how to complete the evaluation forms. The Divisional Editor will send this email with the papers that the reviewer is asked to review, along with the evaluation forms the reviewer will use. The Divisional Editor should send one evaluation form for each paper the reviewer is asked to review. The evaluation forms should be provided to the reviewers with identifying paper and reviewer numbers already filled in.
3. EMAIL TO REVIEWERS NOT REQUIRED
If the Divisional Editor has too many reviewers (you should be so lucky!), this email is sent to those individuals whose help is not needed during the review process, to provide some closure to their involvement.
4. EMAIL TO AUTHORS FOR PAPERS ACCEPTED FOR FULL-TEXT INCLUSION IN THE PROCEEDINGS
The Divisional Editor sends this email to the author(s) of papers accepted for full-text inclusion in the Proceedings, along with Part B of the reviewer forms.
5. EMAIL FOR MANUSCRIPTS ACCEPTED FOR PRESENTATION ONLY
The Divisional Editor sends this email to the author(s) of papers accepted for presentation at the conference, along with Part B of the reviewer forms.
6. EMAIL FOR ACCEPTED WORKS-IN-PROGRESS ACCEPTED
The Divisional Editor sends this email to the author(s) of works-in-progress accepted for inclusion in the Proceedings, along with Part B of the reviewer forms.
7. EMAIL FOR ACCEPTED SYMPOSIUM/ WORKSHOPS
The Divisional Editor sends this email to the author(s) of a symposium or workshop that has been accepted for inclusion in the divisional program, along with Part B of the reviewer forms.
8. EMAIL FOR REJECTED PAPERS
The Divisional Editor sends this email to the author(s) of a paper that has not been accepted for the conference, along with Part B of the reviewer forms.
9. THANK YOU TO REVIEWERS EMAIL
The Divisional Editor sends this to reviewers once the review process is complete. It also lets the reviewers know that their work will be acknowledged in the ASAC 2021 Proceedings.
Divisional Speaker Proposals
Divisions may submit a proposal for a divisional speaker to be included in the ASAC 2021 program. The proposal is submitted by the Division Chair on behalf of their division. The speaker may be proposed as part of the divisional program, as a presentation to several divisions simultaneously, or as an all-ASAC (plenary) speaker. The deadline for divisional speaker proposals is included in the table of Schedule and Deadlines for Divisions.
Divisional speaker proposals should be one page in length, and should briefly summarize:
- The speaker’s name, position, affiliation, and location.
- The speaker’s qualifications (e.g., research, teaching, or experience related to the proposed topic of their speech, or the conference topic).
- The proposed topic of the speech, its importance, and its relevance to the conference theme.
- The possibility of the proposed speaker addressing several divisions simultaneously.
- Any additional reasons why the proposed speaker should be considered.
A curriculum vitae for the proposed speaker (or, at the very least, a link to the person’s website) must be included with the proposal. Proposals should be submitted only if there is reasonable certainty that an invitation to speak at the conference would be accepted by the proposed speaker. Until the conference organizers have chosen speakers, it is important that divisions not formally invite the speakers or make any other commitments on behalf of ASAC.
In order for the proposed speaker to be considered for inclusion in the conference program, proposals must be submitted to Mark Mullaly, VP Program, at mark.mullaly@asac.ca before the proposal deadline in the table of Schedule and Deadlines for Divisions.. Late submissions will not be accepted.
Proposals for divisional speakers will be evaluated based on:
- The relevance of the speaker’s proposed topic to the conference theme.
- The number of divisions involved in the proposal (e.g. where two or more divisions collectively submit a proposal for one speaker). Speakers nominated by multiple divisions will receive preference because this suggests a speaker of higher relevance to the conference.
Divisions will be informed quickly (the date is included in the table of Schedule and Deadlines for Divisions) whether or not their proposal has been accepted. Divisions whose proposals have been accepted will then be required to confirm the divisional speaker’s participation to the VP Program (mark.mullaly@asac.ca) and the conference organizers (conference@asac.ca) by the deadline published in the table of Schedule and Deadlines for Divisions.
Other Divisional Events
We encourage divisions to plan program elements beyond paper sessions, symposia, and workshops. If you have ideas and/or proposals, please contact Mark Mullaly, VP Program, at mark.mullaly@asac.ca to discuss potential opportunities. Additional program elements must be approved in advance to ensure enough time to plan supporting logistics. Program elements that have not been approved in advance by the conference organizers will not be included in the divisional and/or conference program.