Oral Session Chairperson's Guidelines

  1. Oral sessions take place at Moscone West and Moscone South. Please check the meeting program for building location.
  2. Please check the program and addendum for any changes or updates to your session.
  3. Use any reasonable means to stop a speaker who has exceeded the alloted time. The session must stay on schedule so that individuals who are presenting a paper or individuals who wish to hear a specific talk may do so at the time indicated in the program.
  4. If a paper has been withdrawn or a speaker does not appear, either call for discussion of previous papers in that session or call a recess. Do not start the next paper until the time listed in the program. Please note any no-show authors on the Chairperson's Evaluation.
  5. Familiarize yourself with the pronunciation of names and affiliations. This information is published in the at-meeting program.
  6. You may interrupt speakers in order to ask them to speak more audibly, slowly, or clearly; to face the audience; or to briefly explain the message of an illegible slide or transparency.
  7. The chairperson, not the speaker, conducts the discussion by recognizing participants on the floor. During discussions, ask participants to identify themselves and speak audibly so the audience can hear the questions as well as the replies.
  8. If a paper draws no questions from the floor, you are encouraged to ask questions in an attempt to stimulate discussion, if time allows. On the other hand, some papers elicit more than the usual number of comments; judge accordingly.
  9. To maintain the schedule, it may be necessary to defer lengthy discussions to the end of the session or to suggest that the discussion be continued in private, once the session has ended.
  10. No new presentations may be added to the session.
  11. Each oral session room is equipped with computer projection equipment. Authors using this equipment have been encouraged to bring a back up presentation in an alternate format in case of technical difficulties.
  12. Speakers cannot connect laptops into computer projectors in the meeting room. Speakers have been instructed to load their presentation in advance in the Speaker Ready Room.
  13. As Chair, you must keep the session on schedule. If there are problems with a computer presentation, advise the speaker immediately to switch to the back up format. Do not go to the next presentation, and do not allow session overruns while a projectionist is trying to solve these problems.