Questions
- What is the AMPC? Who serves on the AMPC and how do they get appointed?
- Can Trainee members serve on the AMPC?
- How long do AMPC members serve?
- Abstract scoring info coming soon
- How preliminary can the results presented in an abstract be?
- How important is it to select the most appropriate subject category for my abstract? What is the purpose of the secondary category?
- Who can be an abstract reviewer? How are reviewers chosen and what prior experience is necessary?
- How are reviewers for abstracts assigned to the specific subject categories?
- Do all categories require 5 reviewers per abstract?
- How is it determined which accepted abstract will be a talk, poster, or e-poster?
- Why did I get an e-poster if I asked for a traditional poster?
- Can a high ranking abstract end up as a poster?
- How is the total abstract acceptance rate decided?
- Can I receive the scores of my abstract review?
- How are abstract duplications identified and what are the consequences?
- Why are there no longer poster awards?
- Who gets Magna Cum Laude and Summa Cum Laude awards?
- How are the session topics determined? How are they distributed over the weekday sessions?
- Why do some oral sessions cover a wide-range of topics, i.e. a potpourri of abstracts?
- How are the session moderators determined?
- How are the topics and presenters for the Weekend Educational courses determined?
- How is the skill level for each Weekend and/or Sunrise Educational course determined?
- How can I propose a new topic for a Weekend and/or Sunrise Educational course, and is there a possibility that I could help organize it?
- How are the Mansfield and Lauterbur speakers chosen? How about the plenary lectures and speakers?
- How is the feedback from previous years used when planning new courses or sessions?
- Is there a way for ISMRM members to share their ideas for improvement to the AMPC?
- How are the locations for the annual meeting selected?
- How is the Local Organizing committee selected/formed? Also, which comes first, the meeting location or a proposal from a local organizing committee?
- How is the theme determined for the annual meeting each year?
- What does the meeting registration fee cover?
- At the annual meeting, the Internet connectivity is often slow and intermittent. Is anything being done to relieve this issue?
Answers
1. What is the AMPC? Who serves on the AMPC and how do they get appointed?
The Annual Meeting Program Committee is a group of about 60 volunteers from the ISMRM membership, charged with planning the scientific and educational component of each Annual meeting. New members of the AMPC are appointed by the incoming President early in the calendar year (while still Vice-President), in consultation with the current and two upcoming AMPC chairs. AMPC members serve a 3-year term.
2. Can Trainee members serve on the AMPC?
Trainee members of ISMRM cannot serve on the AMPC; however, Junior Fellow awardees are given an opportunity for appointment to the AMPC as Junior Fellow Observers.
3. How long do AMPC members serve?
The term for AMPC service is three years.
4. Abstract scoring info coming soon
5. How preliminary can the results presented in an abstract be?
Preliminary results are acceptable if the data in an abstract are substantive and support the statements in the abstract. However authors should keep in mind that ultimately reviewers are asked to judge the relative merits of different abstracts, so more data is usually an advantage.
6. How important is it to select the most appropriate subject category for my abstract? What is the purpose of the secondary category?
Selection of the subject category determines the expertise of the reviewers who score the abstract; this is the most important thing to consider when choosing the subject category. If non-experts in your field review the abstract, it is possible that it will receive a poor score. The chosen category also helps place the abstract in a session with similar research, thereby reaching the right audience at the meeting. There is an effort to exchange abstracts at the AMPC construction meeting, however this occurs after the review. The secondary category may be used to assign an abstract to a different reviewer (unlikely) or a different oral or poster session (more likely).
7. Who can be an abstract reviewer? How are reviewers chosen and what prior experience is necessary?
a. Any ISMRM member can volunteer to review abstracts. The call for volunteer reviewers goes out in September/October of each year.
b. The AMPC chair chooses reviewers from the pool of volunteers, based on information gathered as a result of the call for volunteer reviewers, such as how many abstracts and papers they have published, which categories they feel most capable to review, and if they have reviewed before. Priority is often given to more experienced reviewers, however each reviewer is generally only given up to 60 abstracts to review. Thus, there is typically need for less experienced reviewers as well. It is important that volunteers list up to five categories in which they are qualified to review to improve their chances of being selected.
8. How are reviewers for abstracts assigned to the specific subject categories?
a. Reviewers self-report the categories in which they feel they are most capable, and the AMPC chair uses this information in making their selection.
b. Starting with the 2012 meeting, a computer program was written to aid in reviewer selection. For a selected category, the AMPC chair is presented with the names of all reviewers who listed that category as their top pick, followed by all who listed it as their second pick, down to those who chose it for their 5th pick. For each reviewer, the chair is given their name and institution, type of membership, area of primary training and type of degree, unique PubMed identifier, number of PubMed articles, whether they have reviewed before, how many abstracts they have already been assigned to review, etc. The chair then picks four names to be added to the AMPC member already assigned to the category, and moves to the next category.
9. Do all categories require 5 reviewers per abstract?
Four reviewers and one AMPC member are assigned to each category. Sometimes there are fewer reviews that come in because (1) one of the reviewers has a conflict of interest (e.g. they are an author), or (2) sometimes a reviewer is not able to complete their assigned abstracts on time.
10. How is it determined which accepted abstract will be a talk, poster, or e-poster?
a. At the AMPC program construction meeting in January, each of roughly 12 tables (corresponding to the major categories of Neuro, Cancer, Engineering, etc.) receives a certain number of oral sessions and posters which they can assign – which abstracts they assign to each session is then completely up to that table. The number of sessions assigned to a table is typically proportional to the number of abstracts submitted for that table.
b. Typically, tables look at the best-scoring abstracts that requested an oral presentation, or abstracts which the members think would make a good talk, and develop an overall theme for each oral session, i.e. ” Alzheimer’s”, or “Novel Exogenous Contrast Agents for Cancer”. Once they have as many themed oral sessions as have been assigned to their table, they pick the appropriate number of