Event organizers can create a Call for Papers to collect talk proposals for their event and find interesting speakers. Depending on your subscription there are a variety of features you can use and in this article we’ll explain what is possible.
Free and Organizer Accounts
Users with a free, Premium or Organizer Plus account can use a Call for Paper or form service of choice and link to the application form from their Colloq event page.
We let you add an extensive, unlimited description that can be formatted via Markdown. This allows organizers to add all of their requirements, requests, notes, tips and other information to the Call for Papers page on Colloq. It’s a good idea to share as much information as possible up front, for example whether you cover expenses, travel costs, stay, or pay a honorarium. The description can also be used as a guide on how a proposal should be written, what kind of talks are expected and to encourage people to submit their ideas. Additionally to the description we require you to set a start and end date, to ensure it will be closed before the event starts and to indicate whether your event has an open Call for Papers or not.
If a Google doc or Typeform application works well enough for you, this free option allows you to host a Call for Papers with all the necessary information speakers need, at no additional cost.
If you are looking for more convenience and a all-in-one solution, our Organizer Pro plan is the right choice for you, allowing more options including the handling of submissions.
Organizer Pro Accounts
Users subscribed to an Organizer Pro account are able to host a Call for Papers entirely on Colloq. This way you won’t need an external form or service anymore (but of course you can still use any external URL if you prefer).
By hosting your Call for Papers on Colloq speakers can apply directly and provide their talk details to organizers without leaving the platform. The applicants’ user information will be shared with organizers automatically later on in the process.
Currently the Colloq-hosted Call for Papers’ submissions will be kept anonymously to guarantee that speakers are not chosen by their prominence but solely by the quality and topic of their proposed talk. This means that organizers won’t see any user details (unless explicitly provided by a user in the talk description or additional notes) until a talk proposal has been accepted. If a talk gets accepted, the related Colloq user profile is revealed to the event team and the available information can be used to plan and advertise the talk and its speaker.
To make it easier to decide which talk to accept or decline, every member of the event team is able to add a review note to a proposal. While it’s a non-public note section, these notes will be shared with the applicant once you decide whether a proposal is accepted or declined. Therefore these notes should be written in a helpful, constructive manner. It’s possible to edit the note at any time and remove sensitive information before confirming or declining a proposal and notifying the applicant.
As already mentioned, the review note will be attached to the user notification email, so the speaker can learn more about why a decision has been made and how to improve their proposal next time. We believe it’s important that event organizers help speakers to get better at what they’re doing to create a more diverse foundation for their events.
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This is a new feature. We’re constantly improving Colloq and will roll out additional functionality for the Call for Papers feature in the future.
