Guidelines for Session Chairs

Before your session
Please familiarise with the general Symposium schedule, and be aware of when and where your session(s), both oral and poster presentations, will be taking place. As you have assisted in ordering the talks in your session, you should be familiar with sequence of talks. However, note that not all Oral Presenters of accepted abstracts may show up during the Symposium, and even at your session(s).

Please prepare a short introduction for the session generally and for each Oral Presenter in your session.
If there are multiple Chairs, we suggest one of you be the main Chair for each block of talks, though all Chairs are encouraged to assist during the session.

You should be in the specific room for your session at least 10 minutes before the start of your session to check that the room is in order, the PowerPoint file for each of the presentations are ready, and that all Oral Presenters are present and ready to speak.

If you need assistance, please approach the Session Volunteer who will be at your session. The Session Volunteer will support you throughout your session, and an Audiovisual Supervisor will be physically at the Symposium venue to provide technical support where necessary.
During your session
Announce the title and short introduction of the session. Inform the Oral Presenters and audience the procedure for presentation.

All oral presentations are allocated a total length of 15 minutes, including the time for questions and answers that are moderated by the Session Chair(s). We stipulate that presenters speak for a maximum of 12 minutes.

To facilitate timekeeping, the Session Volunteer will show a printed sign alerting presenters at the 10 minute mark, and another printed sign alerting presenters at the 12 minute mark. You may stand up after that to signal that the presentation should end as soon as possible. The subsequent 2–3 minutes can be used for discussion moderated by you. In some cases, presentations may be slightly shorter or longer so that discussion time needs to be adjusted accordingly to keep within the 15 minute limit.

Once the allocated 15 minutes is over, please invite the Oral Presenter to step down for the next presenter. Timings shall be followed strictly to enable movement between concurrent sessions. If a talk finishes early, we will wait until the allocated time to start the next talk.

When appropriate, please announce details of the poster presentations during your session(s). The poster sessions are held at 6:30 PM on 19 June 2023 (Poster Presentation Session 1) and 6:00 PM on 20 June 2023 (Poster Presentation Session 2) at the Poster Hall (Dance Atelier 2, Level 3, Stephen Riady Centre). Throughout the day of each poster session, attendees will be able to view the posters at their own time. The posters are also available for viewing throughout the duration of the Symposium, via the Symposium app.