Guidelines for speakers
Presentation guidelines
- Regular oral presentations are scheduled for a total of 15 min. You should plan to speak for 12 min and leave 3 min for questions.
- The total time allotted for a keynote presentation is 60 min (including discussion).
- Session Chairs are asked to be very strict about respecting time limits!
- Please arrive at your session room at least 10 min in advance of your session. This will give you time to meet with your session chair and familiarise with the setting. One of our conference volunteers will be available to support the session and assist with the technical setup.
Technical information
- All the speakers presenting on Tuesday morning are requested to submit their presentation by Sunday 10.09.2023, 12:00 pm (lunch time)
- All the other speakers please upload your presentation 1 day before the day of the presentation, , e.g. if you present on Wednesday morning, submit your talk by Tuesday morning)!
- Please submit the presentation online, we have provided the details of the portal and the password in the instructions for speakers we had sent out to all the speakers.
- Format: All presentations should be saved either in Microsoft PowerPoint (pptx format preferred) or as a PDF file in 16:9 format (full read/write permissions).
- File name for open session speakers: Please use the following file name format: session number_ talk number_name.pptx, i.e., 1_T01_Smith.pptx. You can find the number for your presentation in the letter of acceptance and in the book of abstracts.
- File name for symposium speakers: Please use the following file name format: symposium number_name.pptx, e.g. S1_Miller.pptx
- Please note: Due to the very large number of talks, we cannot answer any individual questions related to the upload or quality of presentations. A brief technical check will be performed with each presentation and we will contact you in case of any issues. Should you have any questions or concerns, please approach the IT Desk at the conference venue in person.
- Each session room will be equipped with a projector and integrated Windows computer (Version Windows 10). There will be no Macintosh computer and it is not possible to use your own laptop! Please make sure that your PowerPoint presentation can run on a Windows computer and prepare a PDF to be sure.
- Laser pointers will be provided for each session.
Guidelines for poster presenters
Poster sessions are an important part of the conference as they provide an opportunity for in-depth discussion and networking. We have secured two attractive time windows for the poster sessions. Due to the large number of posters, there are two rounds of posters: Tuesday to Wednesday (poster session on Tuesday afternoon) as well as Thursday to Friday (Poster session on Thursday afternoon). Snacks and drinks will be provided during both poster sessions.
How to technically prepare your poster
- Consider using professional layout and/or vector graphics software rather than PowerPoint to create your poster. Commercial software includes QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator, CorelDraw or Freehand. Open source software includes Latex, Scribus, InkScape, Gimp or OmniGraffle (Mac only).
- Use color management to make sure that colors appear the way you want them to appear. Use a CMYK colorspace unless your printer supports RGB.
- Be sure to check you use your latest printer drivers and turn off any up-/downscaling or finishing on the printer side (use software printer controls instead).
General procedure
- As a poster presenter, you should be at your poster during the scheduled 90min poster session. This is the main time for feedback and interactions about your science! It’s fun!
- The assigned session and poster ID will be announced in the letter of acceptance and later in the detailed online programme.
- Optional: Poster may be uploaded to the Whova app to increase visibility throughout the conference. If you do so, your poster can be seen all days by all colleagues using the app and not only for two days, when it is displayed at the conference.
- Poster presenters are welcome to bring handouts such as A4 copies (or smaller) of their posters. It is often useful to attach a small plastic pocket to the bottom of your poster to provide handouts or a small version of the poster.
General procedure
All posters must fit on the available poster boards (200 cm tall x 100 cm wide). We recommend
portrait format A0 (120 cm tall x 85 cm wide).
How to structure & present a good research poster*
* These are partially personal opinions
General
- Don’t forget that there are several hundred posters to be seen.
- A poster is a great opportunity to get feedback and discuss content with colleagues, often with more time than in talk sessions.
- Readers have little time to see your poster and need to make a decision if they want to read further quite quickly.
- The text should be the teaser to start a conversation about your research.
- Posters that are too busy and contain too much information are less attractive to stop and read.
- Strive for a balance between attracting people to stop and start reading & having the right amount of research results & context to be understood in your poster.
- Be creative with layout (but not too much) to attract readers.
- Creating a good poster takes time.
- Don’t forget that posters will be displayed for two days, whereas most of the time you won’t be there. Thus, posters should be self-explanatory to some degree.
Presentation
- Be present at your poster during the official poster session.
- Be proactive and ask if you can explain anything if colleagues stop by and show some interest.
- Be prepared to briefly introduce your poster and to answer potential questions regarding your poster - if you present figures be able to explain them and be able to answer questions regarding concrete values.
- If applicable, have related publications at hand while presenting or even as handout.
- Some printed versions of the related publication are a great way to advertise your work. But keep a balance to avoid paper waste.
- You may use the Whova app to invite individual colleagues to your poster. Use it to attract e.g. senior colleagues. Use your work as advertisement for potential new collaborations or even future jobs!
Structure
- Have a picture of yourself on the poster - people might recognise you and start chatting with you on the floor. On large conferences, certain unique features might help to get recognized (e.g. “I’m the guy with the butterfly t-shirt”)
- Have your email address on the poster to give colleagues the chance to follow up.
- If you use a handout, make use of both pages. Add more info or other information to it than what is already on the poster.
- Your results and conclusions are the most important part! Don’t have them at the very bottom of your poster, where people won’t read them. Move them further up to make them visible!
- The introduction can be as short as just three bullet points. Nobody wants to read a very long intro!
- Have easily understandable graphics. If you need a 3-sentence caption to help people understand it, simplify the figure.
- Have one iconic central figure. This could be a main result figure or complicated workflow or conceptual figure.
- Present rather less but main or most exciting or novel results than all (you can still provide a handout or online material for further reading).
- Don’t use too small font sizes. You have enough space for everything.
- Less (text) is more! Try to avoid full sentences. Bullet points are easier to grasp in potentially a crowded, busy & loud atmosphere.
- Use easily visible (font type & size) section headers.
- Use colored boxes, shading or similar to distinguish the different sections.
- Don’t bother with references except for those the poster is based on (e.g no references in introduction needed).
- If it’s not a methodological focused poster story, don’t bother too much with methods on the poster. Methods are a way to create the results you want to talk about. Move them to a lower part. But be prepared to answer most method-related questions (because you might not be explaining this in detail on the poster). E.g. elaborate more on methods on the handout.
Poster set-up and removal
- The main poster location, the Paulinum, will be open for poster presenters from Tuesday morning at 8:00. Due to the large number of posters we have scheduled 2 poster sessions. You will be entitled to display your poster either Tuesday and Wednesday OR Thursday and Friday, depending on the session your poster is submitted to. Please refer to the acceptance letter for the timing of your poster presentation.
- From Monday onwards (11th September) you’ll find the information where exactly your poster (ID / name of presenter) should be displayed at the entrance of the Paulinum.
- Timing examples:
- If you submitted a poster for session 4 which takes place on Tuesday, you may display your poster Tuesday 8:00 until Wednesday 19:00. Posters should be removed by Wednesday 19:00.
- If you submitted a poster to session 9 which takes place on Thursday, you may display your poster Thursday 8:00 until Friday 17:00. Posters should be removed by Friday 17:00.
- Posters that have not been removed in a timely manner have to be disposed of.
- The poster boards are provided with the poster ID.
- Pins to fix the posters to the boards will be provided by the organizer.
