Thank you for chairing a session this year! Below are some helpful tips and information for your role as chair. Please take a few minutes to read all of this important information.
All rooms are equipped with a projector to which you can connect your own laptop with a standard HDMI cable, which is available in each room. Laptops/PCs are NOT installed in the rooms. To be on the safe side, please come with a laptop and the appropriate adapter (HDMI) to connect it to the projector. Please make sure your device can connect to HDMI.
Your Tasks as Session Chair
- Be in the room at least 20 minutes before the session starts. A member of the university staff will be there for technical support and can assist before/during each session.
- Bring your programme at a glance (available online or in the mobile app) to have the presenter names and titles of their talks ready.
- Bring a watch or phone or similar item for keeping the time.
- Prepare a list of the planned end-times of each talk. Pay attention to the schedule as some sessions are either 60 (two presentations) or 90 minutes (three or four presentations) long. Generally, each speaker has 30 minutes, of which 25 are intended for the talk and 5 for questions and changing speakers.
- If there are four presentations in a session, a single presentation should not exceed 20 minutes, leaving 2-3 minutes for discussion.
- Alternatively, the two, three or four presentations can be discussed together afterwards. Please arrange the procedure with the presenters beforehand.
In case there are less than the scheduled talks in your session (as indicated in the programme in advance or due to unexpected no-shows), do not extend the duration of the other presentations, but end the session earlier to allow the presenters and the audience to attend other sessions.
Tips for Session Chairs
- Welcome the presenters when they come into the room.
- Assist the presenters to copy their files to the laptop and show them how to use the equipment. (Plan to familiarize yourself before the speakers arrive.)
- Let presenters know how you will help them keep the time.
- When the session starts, briefly announce the plan for the session (e.g. “Welcome to the session on [topic]. We will allow 25 minutes per talk and up to 5 minutes for questions.”).
- If you have no-shows among the presenters, tell the audience that you were asked to bring forward the last presentation and end the session earlier.
- Briefly announce each presenter.
- Signal to the presenter when they are getting close to the end of their allotted time.
If there is time for questions:
- Invite the audience to ask questions.
- If the audience has no questions, consider asking one yourself. For this it is helpful that you note down potential questions during each talk in case you need them.
- Let the audience know when there is only time for one (more) question.
Thank you again for volunteering to chair this year. We hope you enjoy the conference!