Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be related to the theme: Food, fiber and family: Supporting agriculture’s mission to feed and clothe the world.

● Abstracts, posters and papers must be in English.

● Abstracts maximum length: 300 words.

● At least one author must be a USAIN member.

● All presenters must register for and attend the conference.

● An individual may be lead author and presenter on a maximum of two submissions - one contributed paper and one poster.

● Submissions must be properly identity-hidden. Any information in the title or body of the abstract identifying individuals or institutions must be redacted by the author upon submission. Unredacted submissions will be returned to the author prior to review.

● Upon acceptance, authors may be asked to finalize the abstracts.

Selection Criteria

The project should:

● Report on original research or project, or

● Demonstrate a new application of an existing technology, method, or thought

● Contribute to the knowledge of the field of agricultural information and education

● Relate to the conference theme: Food, fiber and family: supporting agriculture’s mission to feed and clothe the world.

● Be of broad interest to the USAIN audience

● Be of suitable scope and content for a poster or paper

● Add to the quality and diversity of the conference program.

Important Dates

Submission deadline: January 3, 2022 (sooner is preferable)

Notification of acceptance: by January 31, 2022

FAQ for Contributors

Submitting Abstracts

1. Should I submit my proposal as a paper or poster?

Papers are on a topic of interest to a large proportion of conference attendees, in general, or they may relate to a particular Interest Group. Papers are presented as oral presentations (not read) and should be no more than 12 minutes in length, with an additional 3 minutes for Q & A. If you submit an abstract to be considered as a paper, you may also have it considered as a poster.

Posters are suitable for sharing preliminary research, works in progress, short project reports, or projects that are narrower in scope.

The submission form will give you the option to check if you wish to have the reviewers “consider my proposal as a poster if it is not accepted as a paper.”

2. How should I format my abstract?

Abstracts should be written in English and be no more than 300 words in length. Use at least a 12-point font. Abstracts should not include figures, tables, or bibliographic references.

Abstracts should convey the objective of your project and its significance to the USAIN audience. Depending on the scope and status of your project, it is appropriate to include your methods, results and conclusions, if within the word limit.

Proposals should be tagged with keywords (minimum of two, maximum of five). At least three additional author keywords are also required. You will need to paste your abstract text into the Abstract field and also attach a PDF or Word file of the body of your abstract.

The title and abstract must be anonymous, with no identifying personal, institutional or address information.

3. How do I submit my abstract?
Abstracts can be submitted online using EasyChair . New users of the EasyChair software program will need to register for a free account. To submit an abstract for consideration for part of the general conference programming, select the USAIN 2022 Contributed Papers or Posters track; to submit an abstract for the Technology Trends Interest Group session, select the Interest Group’s papers track.
4. What are the requirements for Interest Group proposals?

The Technology Interest Group is hosting the lightning round. Contributors are not required to be Interest Group members. Topics relevant to technological developments in librarianship are welcome. Examples include assessment of useful mobile apps relating to food, agriculture and nutrition, faculty and students’ use of mobile apps or social media in their academic pursuits; assessment tools and measures that have been used in repositories or open access collections; data management tools in use, their assessments or effectiveness, new tools used for library instruction or for outreach to patrons, user preferences for e-book collections, evaluation of the impact of e-book collection, technology useful to help faculty increase their impact, new online tools, open source, etc. The IG will pick 6 proposals. Each lightning talk will last 8 minutes with 2 minutes for questions.

The Animal Health Information Interest Group will host a discussion session covering a wide variety of services to support animal and related subject areas. The presentation options for this session are:

5 minute lightning talk
12 minute mini-presentation (with additional 3 minutes for Q&A)
20 minute panel session (with additional 10 minutes for Q&A).

Please submit your proposal for AHIIG session here. You may submit multiple proposals. The AHIIG will review the proposals and contact those who have been accepted.

5. How should I make my abstract anonymous?

Do not include author names, institutional or company affiliations, or address information in the title or body of the abstract. Enter that information in the correct fields of the submission form only. The Contributed Papers and Posters Committee Chair reserves the right to edit abstracts for the purpose of eliminating any identifying information before sending them to reviewers. Authors are urged to deidentify their abstracts themselves, because USAIN cannot guarantee the resulting quality if changes must be made after submission.

6. How will my abstract be evaluated?

Your proposal will be evaluated based on whether it is an original project or research; or demonstrates a new application of an existing technology, method, or thought; contributes to the knowledge of and in the field of agricultural information and education; relates to the conference theme; is of broad interest to the USAIN audience; is appropriate for the format; and adds to the quality and diversity of the conference program. Abstracts submitted to Interest Group programs will be evaluated by the Interest Group’s conveners and/or their delegates.

7. How will I know if my abstract is accepted?

You will be notified by email of the Contributed Papers and Posters Committee’s decision by January 31, 2022.

8. Are there scholarships or registration discounts available for presenters?

There are no discounts or scholarships for presenters of contributed papers or posters.

9. Can I submit my proposal if it has been previously presented? Can I submit it to more than one meeting at the same time?

Yes, as long as the original research has been specifically adapted for the USAIN audience. Original research or projects presented at USAIN should include new data, perspective, or interpretation.

10. I am working on more than one project that is relevant to the USAIN audience. Can I submit proposals for all of them?

Yes, though in the interest of hearing from as many presenters as possible, an individual can only be lead author and presenter on one of each type of proposal: one paper and one poster. You may be a co-author on multiple proposals of any type, but you can only be a presenter for 2 of the sessions (should more than 2 be accepted).

11. Do presenters retain copyright to their work?

Yes. Authors retain copyright to their work.

Are the presentation materials archived?

Yes. Electronic versions of contributed paper and poster presentation materials are expected to be deposited in the USAIN Conference Proceedings repository hosted by Cornell University.

12. Are there opportunities to publish papers presented at USAIN?

Yes. Presenters will be invited to submit their papers for post-conference publication in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Information (JAFI). Information about the journal, as well as instructions for authors, can be found at: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wafi20. Contact Leslie Delserone at ldelserone2@unl.edu.