Conference organizers managing a high volume of abstract submissions need to start giving credit where credit is due. You see that abstract management software sitting at the center of your abstract review process? Well, that abstract management system matters much more than you come to believe it is capable of. Abstract review softwares are incredibly simple at work.
When you are using an abstract review software that sounds and works like it dates back to the early 2000s, abstract review is perhaps not a task you might look forward to. But if you are working with an abstract management system that is all-in-one, purpose-built, up-to-date and knows just exactly what to do, then you may be having a few dozen good days at work.
If you and your event management team have been working around the risks of using a legacy abstract review system for longer than feels comfortable to admit, it is about time to throw that vintage possession out the window for the greater good. In this blog, we’re taking you through 10 commonly reported consequences faced by event professionals clinging to outdated abstract review software.
1. Reviewers Gradually Disengage From Outdated Abstract Review Software
Most event planners would acknowledge just how tough of an endeavor it is to find reliable volunteer reviewers. Therefore, when you put your volunteers through the brunt of using a system that lags, they simply disengage. Some may quit and some others may perform their work, albeit unwillingly. They give their time and expertise without compensation and the least a conference can offer in return is a process that respects both.
The dangers of running on tech that has not kept pace with user expectations are something that we rarely discuss in operational terms, but these are the places where they first show up.
2. Data Security Becomes an Unmanaged Risk
A weakening reviewer base is a slow problem. A data breach, on the flipside, is a fast one and outdated systems breed the conditions for exactly this. Submission portals collect a meaningful amount of personal data, including author names, institutional affiliations, email addresses and in some cases even sensitive payment information.
All of that data sits under the protection of whatever security architecture your platform was built on. This, for older systems, may predate GDPR guidelines and other national data protection regulations by several years. A breach, should it occur, will severely damage the trust that your community has placed in your organization. And sometimes that trust is almost irrevocably damaged and almost impossible to rebuild. This is a kind of risk that emerging and established event management organizations simply cannot afford to take.
3. The Abstract Review Process Loses Consistency and Fairness
Security risks tend to be invisible until they are not. The decline in review quality creeps in quietly and shows up in patterns that are quite difficult for the average individual to spot without the right tools. Outdated abstract review software often lacks the conflict-of-interest detection, blind review enforcement and reviewer assignment logic that modern technologies have now made non-negotiable.
Without these safeguards in place, the same reviewer may repeatedly assess abstracts from their own institution without anyone ever flagging it down. Submissions could also be distributed unevenly across reviewers and your scoring rubrics may act up. They can be applied inconsistently because the abstract submission software, has no mechanism to standardize them. The dangers here are a result of a selection process that becomes harder to defend when questioned and even harder to trust over time. This is particularly true as research and academia are now growing more attentive to fairness in conference programming.
4. Staff Time Gets Absorbed by Manual Workarounds in Abstract Review
Any gap in abstract review that the software cannot fill becomes a task that a human being will have to sit down to manage instead. Exporting data to spreadsheets, chasing incomplete reviews by email, manually matching submissions to sessions and reconciling information across separate systems are each manageable in isolation. But when you are looking at potentially hundreds or thousands of abstract submissions, all you see are several working weeks going down the drain. And these are hours and human resources that should be going elsewhere.
This is one of the more invisible costs and consequences of using outdated technology because it rarely appears as a line item on any budget. It shows up instead in the form of staff fatigue, slower turnarounds and a team that is perpetually reactive.
5. First Impressions With An Outdated Abstract Review Software
When you are unable to make peace with your internal operations, inevitably, you see that your relationships with your submitters are strained. Your abstract portal is the first formal interaction that a researcher, practitioner or anyone with interest has with your organization. So when you greet them with a submission page that loads as slow as a sloth, you are making a poor first impression. Well, sometimes, not even a complete impression, because half of your viewers are heading right out by then.
Science says that the average human attention span today is only about 8 seconds. But for viewers browsing your event website, it takes only 5 seconds to form an opinion. So if your software lags, consider yourself out of the game.
6. Decision-Making Happens Without Adequate Data
Program chairs and review committees make better decisions when they have access to clean, timely data.
How are submissions distributed across tracks?Â
Which reviewers are behind on their assignments?Â
What does the score distribution look like across categories, and are there patterns worth investigating?Â
These are some valuable questions that modern systems can answer automatically and in real time. And outdated software cannot do this. Generating the same information requires manual extraction, reformatting and analysis, often by staff who are already stretched.
The risks of making high-stakes programming decisions without reliable data are significant, and they compound further when the underlying technology offers no mechanism for improvement. When data is difficult to access, decisions get made on instinct or incomplete information, and the program suffers for it in ways that are hard to trace back to their source.
7. Working With Other Tools is a Nightmarish Task
Poor data visibility also shows up in more unconventional ways, such as when your abstract management system is unable to communicate with the rest of your event tech stack. Registration platforms, communication tools, mobile event apps and session scheduling systems all need to exchange data with each other to function without friction. For modern technologies, this is handled through API connectivity that makes integration relatively straightforward.
Older systems were often built before these integration standards existed and are therefore now often rendered outdated. Connecting outdated software to newer tools needs custom development work that can be expensive, time-consuming and temporary, needing frequent service.
8. Accessibility Gaps Exclude Participants
Integration failures create operational disorder. Accessibility gaps create a different kind of problem, one that touches your organization’s values and its legal standing at the same time. Web accessibility standards, including WCAG compliance, screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation support and adequate color contrast, are baseline expectations for any public-facing technology, and in many jurisdictions they carry legal weight.
Older conference management systems were built before these standards were established or widely enforced. The security vulnerabilities this creates are procedural as much as technical, exposing organizations to legal risks they may not have fully considered.
Updating legacy systems to meet current accessibility requirements is difficult without a ground-up rebuild. Reviewers or submitters who rely on accessibility technologies may therefore find themselves unable to participate fully.
9. System Failures Happen at the Worst Possible Moment
Accessibility concerns affect who can participate, and any failures in scalability will affect whether your systems can function at all. Abstract submission deadlines create predictable surges in concurrent traffic. Reviewers completing assignments in the final days of a review window create another.
Any data that you lose when your outdated abstract review system acts up is sometimes irreversible. Things go completely untraceable and even your own reviewers may be unable to access the system at times. These are the kinds of incidents that make your system buzz with complaints and damage your team’s credibility severely. This is the sort of operational chaos that takes you months to recover from.
10. Reputation Erodes Quietly Over Time
No single failure from outdated conference management software is necessarily enough to define your conference’s reputation on its own. The cumulative effect of ongoing frustrations is another matter. When reviewer complaints, author dissatisfaction, program inconsistencies and even security vulnerabilities each leave an impression, you lose out on potential attendees for future events. Negative perceptions go around in no time and like wildfire. Sometimes, even a single negative review about your conference management software is enough to tip the scales toward your competitors.
Remember that the world today is incredibly small and professional communities are even smaller and connected. Word gets passed on quicker than ever. You cannot afford to have a few negative reviews, let alone a whole lot of grievances, as a result of using an outdated abstract review system.
Is It Still Worth It to Stick to an Outdated Abstract Review System?
This is a question for you to ponder upon and find the answer to. When you realize the challenges that come with outdated systems, it’s best to replace them with a modern alternative. Modern event technology is simpler, convenient and state-of-the-art. The point of it is to make abstract review software easier.
There is a common assumption that changing software carries more risk than keeping what already exists. For abstract review platforms, the evidence points the other way. The consequences of inaction are real and they are growing. The question worth sitting with is not if upgrading is worth your effort. Rather it is how much your organization has already absorbed in hidden costs and how much more you can stand to lose. Make the switch now with an all-in-one academic event platform. Sign up for a free demo with Dryfta today.