ABCM has decide to enforce registration in our database of all co-authors of papers submitted to our events. This has been done to fix a few problems we have experienced over the years. For instance:
1) Event databases used to have several entries for the same person, but with slightly different names and sometimes even different emails. A typical example is the one of different students from the same advisor adding this advisor to the system in different ways. This creates a lot of difficulties when trying to automatize a scientific and financial management system. Such a problem is especially true now, when the ABCM database has been unified with the databases of all our events. In any case, enforcing registration in the new unified ABCM database by CPF number for Brazilians solves this issue.
2) There used to be complaints of author names being added to a paper without their consent. Since this ethical issue would usually be discovered after the event had taken place and all its materials had been published, it would be difficult to do something about it. Once again, enforcing registration of all co-authors solves this issue, since our system can now send an email to all co-authors warning them that a work has been submitted to an event with their name in it.
3) There used to be a lot of information from each event lost throughout the years. Hence, unifying the database and requiring registration of all co-authors allows ABCM to keep an updated database of all people that participate, in any form, in its events, allowing us to reach an ever larger number of people in our community.
Enforcing registration of all co-authors is not a new procedure invented by ABCM. It was in fact copied from ASME, which does the same for its events. Furthermore, unifying the registration by CPF of all participants is also not a new procedure invented by ABCM, it has been used for a while by CNPq and several FAPEs in Brazil in the context of grant proposal submissions.
Nevertheless, ABCM understands that this new procedure may cause some difficulties. This is why our system allows you to 1) invite the co-author to register by sending him an email and 2) include a co-author later in the submission process. In other words, you can submit an abstract with only already registered co-authors, send the unregistered co-authors an email through the system asking them to register, and include all newly registered co-authors before the final paper is submitted.
The new ABCM system is being built based on the experience of its active members. It is now owned by ABCM, i.e. it is ours. If you have any constructive criticism and suggestions on how to improve it, we urge you to contact ABCM through the event website. Help us in this process of making our association even better.
