Session Proposal Criteria

Evaluators use Session Proposal Criteria to rate and score submitted proposals on characteristics such as relevance, readability, timeliness, etc. To create the Session Proposal Criteria, you first create the criterion and then create the criterion responses. For example, the criterion may be Relevance and the criterion responses may be Not Relevant, Relevant and Very Relevant.

Session Proposal Criteria Weights and Scoring

Session Proposal Criteria allows you to configure a weight for a criterion so you can place more importance on some criterion more than others. For example, you may put a higher weight on Relevance and less weight on Content Length as the relevance is more important to you than the length of the proposal.

You can also assign scores to the responses for a criterion. Scores allow you to create numerical values to represent how well the response matches the criterion. Using the Relevance criterion example above, you may create a response of Not Relevant with a score of 1, Relevant with a score of 10 and Very Relevant with a score of 20. 

The score for a response and the weight of the criterion are multiplied and then divided by the total number of criterion to create an overall total score for the criterion. This allows you to easily see which proposals received the best evaluations.

Once a submission is evaluated and receives a score, you see the score in a color to provide a quick representation of where it falls in the scale. The colors are defined by the system and based on the evaluations’ percentage score (score / max score).

• Red - Below 25%
• Orange - Between 25% and 50%
• Green - Between 50% and 99%
• Blue - 100%

Add Session Proposal Criteria and Responses

1. Click the Session Proposal Criteria link from the Main Menu. The Session Proposal Criteria page opens.
2. Click the Add button. The Add Session Proposal Criteria window opens.
3. Enter the necessary information for the criterion:
   • Description - Criterion name or a short statement for the criterion.
   • Weight - Numeric value for the criterion. A higher weight indicates the criterion is more important. 
   • Active - If checked, the criterion is available for selection.
4. Click the Add button in the Session Proposal Criteria Responses tab to create the responses to the evaluation criterion. The Add Session Proposal Criteria Response window opens.
   • Description - Name of the response.
   • Score - Numeric value for the response. A higher number indicates a better score. 
   • Active - If checked, the response is available for selection.
5. Repeat step 4 to create additional responses.
6. Click OK on the Edit Session Proposal Criteria window to save the criterion and responses.

Change Session Proposal Criteria and/or Responses

You can change the Session Proposal criteria and responses after you have already created them. When you change the evaluation criteria or responses, it updates in all existing Session Proposal configurations. If you don't want to update existing Session Proposal configurations, then you must add new evaluation criteria and/or responses using the steps in the Add Session Proposal Criteria and Responses section. If you change the weight of a criteria after a proposal is evaluated, the score is not recalculated.

1. Click the Session Proposal Criteria link from the Main Menu. The Evaluation Criteria - Session Proposals page opens.
2. Right-click on the Session Proposal criterion you want to change.
3. Select Edit. The Edit Session Proposal Criteria window opens.
4. Make the necessary changes to the evaluation criterion and/or responses.
5. Click OK.

Inactivate Session Proposal Criteria and/or Responses

If you no longer use a Session Proposal criterion and/or response but want to keep record of it for reporting or other purposes, you can make it inactive. If you make a session proposal criterion or response inactive, it is no longer available for selection when creating new session proposal configurations, and it is removed from existing session proposal configurations. It does not update existing proposals that have been evaluated.

1. Click the Session Proposal Criteria link from the Main Menu. The Session Proposal Criteria page opens.
2. Right-click on the session proposal criterion you want to change.
3. Select Edit. The Edit Session Proposal Criteria window opens.
4. To make the criterion inactive, uncheck the Active box in the top part of the screen. To make a criterion response inactive, uncheck the Active box for the response in the Session Proposal Criteria Responses tab.
5. Click OK.

Delete Session Proposal Criteria and/or Responses

If you no longer use a session proposal criteria and/or response and don't want to keep a record of it, you can delete it. If you delete evaluation criteria or responses, they are removed from existing session proposal configurations. This cannot be undone.

1. Click the Session Proposal Criteria link from the Main Menu. The Session Proposal Criteria page opens.
2. To delete an entire criterion, including all responses:
   • Right-click on the session proposal criterion you want to delete.
   • Select Mark for Delete.
   • Click Save.
3. To delete a criterion response:
   • Right-click on the session proposal criterion that contains the response.
   • Select Edit. The Edit Session Proposal Criteria window opens.
   • Right-click on the response to delete in the Session Proposal Criteria Responses tab.
   • Click OK.