INSTRUCTIONS FOR SESSION CHAIRS
As a session chairperson, you are responsible for the time management of the presentations within your assigned session(s):
Before the session:
- Familiarize yourself with your sessions and speaker presentations ahead of time.
- Please make sure to look at your session’s content for any last-minute changes to your session.
- Collect each presenter’s short bio from their EDAS profile. The chair also has access to the presenter’s paper(s) through EDAS.
- Review the papers that will be presented.
- Prepare questions in advance to help stimulate discussion.
- Plan to arrive at your session at least 10-15 minutes before the designated session start time.
At the session:
- Obtain the Session Chair Report form from the Room Monitor.
- Check session room for necessary AV equipment and notify Room Monitor immediately if any assistance is needed.
- Check with each author to be sure they are familiar with the AV equipment.
- Remind the authors to sign the sign-in sheet to indicate they have presented
- Introduce yourself to the audience before the start time, please announce the session title and kindly request for attendees to take their seats quickly. Encourage the audience to take the front and center seats first.
- Kindly ask the attendees to set all cell phones on silent mode.
- Start the session on time.
- Introduce the speaker and paper title as displayed within the Program.
- In case there are no last-minute updates, please strictly adhere to the schedule within EDAS relating to the order of speakers, start and end times of each presentation. This is very important for the conference; we must allow all speakers their allotted time.
- Please note the designated time for Q&A and Discussion with the speakers is allocated at the end of each presentation.
“PRESENTATION,” is the overall allotted time for the presentation and Q&A. If the presenter does not leave time for questions (exceeded presentation time), please proceed immediately to the next presentation without the Q&A portion and invite the attendees to get in touch with the speaker during the coffee/lunch break.
- Please ensure that there are no disturbances during the presentations.
- At the end of the session, kindly thank the presenters and attendees for their participation.
- Complete the Session Chair Report entry for each paper presented.
- If the presenter is not an author/co-author, check the appropriate box.
- If the paper was not presented at all, indicate that clearly on the report.
- Hand your completed Session Chair Report to the Room Monitor as you leave.
Please be prepared for the unexpected. If the session ends early, do one or more of the following:
- Have questions prepared for the presenters.
- Solicit questions from the audience.
- If you finish before the allotted time, you may let the session out early, after attempting the above.
*** If one presenter does not show up, then the session chair should allow a pause in the session so that the next speaker can start as scheduled. This is in fairness to attendees who try to move from one session to another to attend talks that interest them. ***
In case of a No-Show (where there is no presenter) – please clearly indicate it on the Session Chair Report and also report it to: Matthew Valenti valenti@ieee.org; Chonggang Wang cgwang@ieee.org ; Wenye Wang <wwang@ncsu.edu>; and Melissa Torres (m.a.torres@comsoc.org)
Thank you for your contribution to this year’s conference success!
