Technical Information for Presenters

Room allocation

You can refer to the programme schedule to find your room allocation. We have tried to avoid scheduling conflicts, but if you notice any issues (such as one of your presenters being assigned to two different sessions simultaneously), please let us know as soon as possible.

Talks and Walkthroughs will mostly be scheduled in the lecture theatres. Workshops and BoF sessions are all in one of the classrooms.

Room (linked)	Description/layout	In-person capacity
OC1.05	Main theatre (fixed seating)	500
OC0.03	Smaller theatre (fixed seating)	250
OC0.02	Classroom (movable, default layout)	100
OC0.04	Classroom (movable, default layout)	80
OC0.01	Classroom (movable, default layout)	60

Session chairs

Session chairs will host sessions that include Talks and Walkthroughs. They are responsible for introducing the speakers and keeping the session on time. They will indicate when 5 and 2 minutes remain in the slot and will ask you to stop when time is up. They will also manage the Q&A.

Interactive sessions, including BoFs and Workshops, will not have a session chair. These sessions span an entire session block, and you are expected to manage your own introductions, timekeeping and questions.

For questions we will be using Slido. For Talks, these will be moderated by your session chair and shown to you to answer at the end of your talk. For Walkthroughs, you may wish to take questions throughout – make sure to inform the audience and to allow time for this in your planning! The session chair can support you in handling questions, but it is up to you to leave space for them. Workshops and BoFs will be given access to the platform to manage as you wish.

Uploading your Materials

You should have been provided with a link and instructions on how to upload slides by July 25th at latest.

If you have saved your content to our cloud storage, it will be loaded onto your room’s computer in advance of your session. If you want to check that your content is suitable for the room, or has been saved as you expected, you are welcome to approach a volunteer or committee member to ask to do a room check during one of the breaks. We suggest you do this with enough time that you can make changes before your session. Once your session starts, we will be unable to reload a new version of your content.

Presenting from your own Laptop

You are strongly encouraged to present using the PC in the room, but if you need to present something directly from your own laptop this will be possible using Zoom. You will need a Zoom account, and to have Zoom installed and configured to be able to share your screen. It will not be possible to connect to the room screens via HDMI.

For Talks and Walkthroughs this should be agreed with the session chair ahead of time – for other sessions we strongly recommend testing that everything works as expected before your session.

Recordings, streaming and material archiving

The content streamed across all five rooms will be captured as recordings. The recordings will be made available after the conference on the Society of RSE’s YouTube account. By presenting, you are agreeing to allow for streaming and recording of your material. Additionally, other resources and materials, such as presentation slides and repository links, will be made publicly accessible through an appropriate archiving platform, such as Zenodo.

Volunteers

There will be at least one volunteer allocated to each room for each session. Volunteers will be identifiable by their conference t-shirts. If you have any issues in your room, they will be your first point of contact for support. Please note that volunteers are not expected to rearrange furniture for you.

Additional guidance for BoFs and Workshops

In the email sent to corresponding authors in the week of 21st July we provided a link to a form, where we are collating details that will help us to support you to deliver your session. Items in this section that appear in bold are details that should be provided in that form. Please ensure that someone on your authorship or presenting group submits this form by 12th August for your content.

Ensuring participants can engage with your session

You may want to share information or instructions with participants before the start of the conference (e.g., installation instructions or system requirements). As mentioned in the form Information form with your guidance email, you can provide a single link by 12th August, which should direct conference attendees to all necessary information for engaging with your session. We will be sending out communications to all attendees in mid-August with conference information, which will include the locations of these preparatory materials. We will also add this link to your abstract within the online conference programme. Please ensure that your link and associated content are public and accessible to all attendees – we are not able to arrange for distribution of login credentials or passwords for you.

Please note that due to our communications timeline, this deadline of 12th August can not be extended.

Some examples of information that you may want to share include:

Equipment: Will an attendee needing equipment (e.g. a laptop) to take part or will you be providing everything (e.g. sticky-notes/paper)? This information is particularly relevant for international attendees who may have luggage restrictions.
Software Requirements: Provide detailed information so that delegates can fully engage with your session.
Repositories: Include links to repositories (e.g., GitHub) containing session materials, demo code, etc.
Sign-Up Instructions: Offer instructions for accessing virtual machines or other necessary account registrations.
Discussion questions: sharing a list of questions/prompts for discussion sessions so that each of the remote breakout groups can see them. Due to the remote setup, they may not be able to see the conference room screen when in the breakout Zoom rooms.
Notepad links: (e.g. Google docs) where you will be collating notes from discussion groups.

Some of this content will be crucial for delegates to know before travelling to the conference (e.g. equipment, software requirements). Other content you may wish to add closer to your session time (e.g. discussion questions, notepad links). You can update the content on your linked item at any point, but please note that we will only be issuing one communication to delegates about associated material, so make sure all of your preparatory content is linked in this communication.

Additional equipment

Let us know what additional equipment you will require (e.g. sheets of paper, pens). We cannot guarantee to be able to meet your requests but please ask and we can discuss this with you.

Room details

The room layouts are shown in the table in the general guidance above. You may reconfigure the room, but please note you will need to put the room back to the default layout at the end of your session.

Additional considerations for creating a positive hybrid experience

When delivering your session please expect to have both in-person and remote attendees. Please note that attendees may drop in or out of your session, and that your session is being recorded. We recommend that you:

Have a dedicated facilitator to monitor the conference platform and remote space. This person should not present and facilitate at the same time so you may wish to have a couple of your presenters share this role.
Manage expectations at the beginning of your session (e.g. use of hands/Zoom hands for questions) to indicate when you are happy to take comments and questions.
Ensure to give equal opportunity to all delegates to engage, for example during open floor for questions. Use your remote facilitator to advocate for remote participants by monitoring the questions and comments in the conference platform.
If you are seeking feedback throughout your delivery, for example if delegates are following a demonstration, ensure your feedback mechanism includes your online participants (e.g. the use of ticks/crosses in Zoom).
If comments or questions are asked in the physical room, please use the roaming mics wherever possible. In the instance when someone speaks without a mic, please summarise or repeat into a microphone so that it can be heard by your in-person and remote attendees.
Ensure that there is minimal additional noise at the end of discussion sessions before continuing with presentations.