Guidelines for chairpersons

Meeting participants may be nominated by the appropriate convener(s) or asked by the meeting organizers to act as chairperson of a particular scientific session. The quality of the scientific programme rests in great part in the hands of the session chairpersons. Below is a brief description of the duties of the chairpersons. Please also see the guidelines for oral presentations and the guidelines for poster presentations.

Photography/recording/copying

Due to author copyright privileges, it is prohibited to take photos of and/or to copy electronically any scientific material both during oral and at poster sessions, without the expressed permission of the author(s). Chairpersons and the conference assistants should be watchful that these rules are adhered to.

Technical assistance

A conference assistant will be present in the lecture rooms. These assistants will help the chairpersons and speakers in setting up the speakers' computers or installing the presentation files on the lecture room computer, and will help with slide shows if needed. All presentation files uploaded to the lecture room computer will be deleted after the end of the session time block.

Conducting the session

The chairperson is responsible for conducting the session on time (a timer device is available in the lecture room to help with this). The times indicated in the programme schedule for each presentation is the total time for presentation, discussions and change-over. The chairpersons should open and close the session on time. S/he should ensure that the speakers of the session are present and that they are able to give their presentations without disruption. The chairpersons should ensure that the speakers, and those asking questions/commenting, use the microphones available.

The chairpersons are also responsible for moderating the Q&A and discussions and should ensure that the time available is not dominated by one individual. Chairpersons are expected to ensure that participation in their session is diverse and representative of the whole research community. This includes asking men and women, of all career ages, to begin the questioning to ensure that the discussion that follows engages as much of the community as possible. While constructive criticism of presentations is welcome, the chairperson should not tolerate bullying or patronizing behaviour – early career researchers may be presenting for the first time, and every participant deserves to be treated fairly and with respect. Any poor behaviour can be closed down by courteously asking the individual to make their point and reminding them of the EPSC code of conduct.

Verification of presenting authors

Prior to each presentation the chairpersons should verify that the individual to speak is listed in the programme as one of the authors.

No-shows

The conference organizers should be informed about authors who have not withdrawn their abstract in the online programme and do not show up a at the session. Please either ask the conference assistant to take notes about this or send us an email to epsc2018@copernicus.org. No-shows will later be removed from the programme.

Time schedule

In view of the multiple parallel sessions, the time schedule of the session should be strictly kept. The conference assistants may help the chairpersons with the use of the timer device provided in the lecture room. Any disruption in the schedule is extremely annoying for those wishing to attend only selected presentations. Therefore, if a gap should occur in the time schedule, it is suggested that the chairpersons stimulate discussion on the previous talks or seek short oral introductions of relevant poster papers.

Electronic presentations

Each lecture room is equipped with an autonomous presentation set-up. Authors may either upload their electronic presentation to the lecture room laptop (preferred method) or they may use their own laptop for their presentation. Authors who wish to give a presentation using their own laptop should contact the conference assistant. Authors should test their presentations prior to the start of their session. Please avoid set ups or pull downs of personal notebooks during the session.

Poster sessions

Chairpersons of poster sessions should gather and guide the audience from poster to poster in the order of their appearance, and they should invite the authors to present their posters for some minutes and stimulate discussions afterwards.

Programme changes

Any programme changes received after the programme book has been prepared for printing will be included in the "daily programme": this revised session programme is shown outside of the corresponding lecture room well before the session starts. The chairperson will receive her/his copy from the assistant, and s/he is kindly asked to return it after the session. Any last minute modifications should be noted in these programmes by the chairperson.