Database Management System for Conference Program Preparation.

A database management system for organizing the program of a conference is described. It runs on an IBM- compatible personal computer with hard disk using DBASEIII-PLUS. The system is used for logging papers submitted for review, writing letters of acknowledgement, distributing and tracking papers in the review process, writing letters that notify authors of paper disposition, communicating with session chairmen, and automatically compiling and printing the resultant camera-ready program and author mailing labels. The system has been successfully used for the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing of 1988, a conference of 1500 submitted papers with a program of 750 papers presented in 56 sessions over four days. Use of the system saved six weeks and about $3000 compared to the time and costs of this conference in 1987.