High level requirements - lockedata/rcms GitHub Wiki

Software

• Open source*
• Actively maintained*
• Well documented
• Extensible by proposal participants
• Integrates with third party payment providers to avoid PCI-DSS*
• Conferences only incur hosting costs if they run it themselves

Abstract management

• Handles abstract submission, with email notification*
• Allows markdown in abstracts
• Allows submitters to edit abstracts
• Abstracts can be assigned to reviewers automatically (e.g. by topic) and/or manually*
• Allows custom review decisions
• Handles special submissions, e.g. scholarship applications

Scheduling

• Tools to create conference schedule*
• Drag-and-drop scheduling
• Conflict management (of topics or people)
• Tools for assigning chairs to sessions
• Tools for chairs to communicate with session participants, regarding slides, schedule changes
• Tools to obtain video recording permission or permission to distribute slides
• Tools for assigning poster slots and identifiers
• Tools for taking room capacities into account

Participant management

• Register participants, including accepting payments*
• Participant accounts to make it easy to participate in multiple conferences
• Ability to email all participants
• Letter generation facility to request visa for international participants
• Personal schedules or integration with services such as Conference4me.

Conference management

• Template for conference website, suitable for different devices, secure and accessible to visually impaired*
• Hosting of presentation slides
• Ability to clone conference for recurring event
• Ability to poll participants on conference issues

Other benefits

Each system will likely have other non-essential benefits, e.g. event evaluation surveys, automated email reminders, time zone support, etc that could also be taken into account when comparing systems.