Guidelines for Presenters

Presentation Guidelines

Please see below for guidelines for preparing a video file for an oral presentation and digital copy of your poster. If you would like to include the ISTS40 logo in your presentation or on your poster then you can download a portrait version here or a landscape version here.

With the exception of the keynote talks, all oral presentations within the sessions will be pre-recorded, requiring authors to prepare and submit a video of their presentation in advance of ISTS40. Note that there will be a live 15-minute Q+A interactive session with the oral presenters following each session (details for how this will work will be provided to all authors in advance of ISTS40).

Please read the following guidelines and information for the successful creation of your presentation video for ISTS40.

Guidelines

All oral presenters are required to follow these guidelines:

  • The presentation duration should be between 10:30 and 11:00 minutes. If your talk is longer than 11 minutes then the video file will be shortened and your talk cut off
  • Presentations have to be in English
  • Presentations slides should be in a 16:9 wide aspect ratio (see here for instructions for this)
  • Space should be allocated to the bottom right section of each slide for the overlaid video of you talking
  • All video presentations should be in an MPEG-4 (.mp4) or .MOV file format. Other formats will not be supported by ISTS40
  • Presentation video files should be no larger than 2GB
  • Please note that the submitting author is expected to deliver the presentation

Recording your Video Presentation

Preparing to Record

Ensure the environment around you is ideal for recording audio/video. An ideal environment will:

  • Be quiet enough to record audio/video with minimal interruptions
  • Be naturally lit or have the ability to control lighting
  • Have the camera setup to record your face squarely within view and at eye level (include the top of your shoulders and keep your eyes centered within the frame)
  • Have no visible distraction in the background

Practice your presentation as if you were doing it at an in-person venue. The confidence gained from preparation also translates on video. It will also increase the professionalism of the presentation and enhance its overall quality.

Use any kind of microphone, including those built into laptops, so long as the resulting audio is clear and easily understood. Check the volume and quality of the sound recording before you begin.

Recording

Follow these step-by-step instructions on recording your presentation as a video in PowerPoint. You should ensure Full HD (1080p) video quality when saving your video presentation.

Speak clearly and keep water nearby. It is likely you will do multiple takes and pause, so be sure to enunciate and stay hydrated to keep your voice strong. Here are some voice exercises that can help warm up the vocal cords or even try some Aussie lingo. Remember to remain still and do not sway, bounce or wave hands and arms around.

Use clear narration with a pause for transitions between slides. PowerPoint, for example, does not record audio during slide transitions.

Record your presentation multiple times. This will give you options to pick your final version or even edit multiple versions together.

Posters will be presented digitally and assigned their own virtual poster board for display. There will be three 1-hour long 'Meet the Author' poster sessions held throughout ISTS40, providing participants the opportunity to come and interact with the author(s) and ask questions.

Size and Orientation

The poster will not be physically printed and will instead be viewed on a computer screen where people can zoom in to view text. We still recommend using a standard poster size of no larger than A1 size in portrait (594 mm wide x 841 mm high) or landscape (841 mm wide x 594 mm high) orientation and consist of one page (we recommend landscape orientation for easier viewing on a computer screen and limits scrolling). Alternatively, a page set up with a 4:3 or 16:9 ratio can be used.

Title

The title of the poster should be short but descriptive. Font size should be sufficient that it can be read clearly onscreen. Note that viewers will be able to zoom in onscreen.

Text Size

People will be viewing the poster on a computer screen and can zoom in on text if required. To aid legibility, we recommend using large font sizes of no smaller than 12 point (if using an A1 size). Obviously using a smaller size page will mean you have to adjust the font size accordingly.

Figures

Posters should include figures that illustrate key methods, findings or examples from the study. All text within figures, graphs, charts and tables should be large enough to be read clearly onscreen. Use graphs or charts instead of tables whenever possible to make your data easier to "get" at a glance. Remember to use standard deviation/error bars in your graphs and scale bars in your photographs/micrographs. Use arrows to draw attention to specific details in images. No animations, embedded videos, or hyperlinks/URLs are permitted.

Posters that contain a small amount of text and many figures are more likely to be read than posters that have more text and fewer figures. As with an 11-minute oral presentation, a poster is not meant to report an entire study but to convey the findings and conclusions of a study and just enough information for the reader to understand the reason for the study and the methods used.

Topic

Stick to only one idea/topic in your poster. Including too much information not directly related to your central idea often confuses and frustrates readers.

Target Audience

Write your poster for a general audience. Remember that people from many different backgrounds will be attending ISTS40. Your goal is to create a presentation that anyone can "get" in less than 5 minutes and one that someone with a basic background in your subject matter can fully understand in less than 10 minutes. It is recommended that the email address for the presenting author is provided alongside the author's name.

Organisation

Organise your poster into sections and arrange those sections so that it is easy to follow the "flow" of your presentation. If you refer to figures, make it easy to find those figures and return to the starting point in the text quickly.

Language

English is the official language of ISTS40. Whenever possible, authors should produce their posters in well-written English. If a poster must be prepared in a language other than English, it must include an English abstract. Additionally, an English explanation/description must be included for each figure.

File Format

Your poster should be saved as a PDF file and ideally <2 MB file size for maximum accessibility by all attendees (we recommend making the file as small as possible).

The ISTS supports open discussion of topics relevant to sea turtle biology and conservation on social media. In recent years, each symposia and associated meetings has used a separate Twitter account and hashtag to communicate with followers, and the hashtag has also been used by participants and followers to comment on oral and poster presentations, meetings, and social events on Twitter and Facebook.

However, some presenters are concerned about the sharing of their unpublished data or preliminary findings on social media. The following social media guidelines describe actions for presenters who do not wish to have the contents or findings of their talks or posters shared on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, blogs etc.). Social media users are expected to respect the wishes of presenters who do not want the contents of their presentation shared beyond ISTS40.

The icon below can be used to indicate that information in an oral or poster presentation should not be shared on any social media.

Presenters who wish to keep the contents of their oral presentation confined to the ISTS40 online space should announce this at the beginning of their presentation. The icon below should also be clearly displayed on every slide as a reminder.

Presenters who wish to keep the contents of their poster confined to ISTS40 should display the below icon clearly on their poster.

Symposia or meeting participants should look for the icon on slides and posters and respect the request of the presenter.

These Social Media Guidelines draw upon language used in similar guidelines for the Society for Conservation Biology. The ISTS acknowledges and greatly appreciates the use of this document as reference material.

How will your poster be viewed in the virtual platform?

Posters are interactive objects on the virtual platform. This means that when you come close to a poster it will glow, indicating that you can interact with its content. Pressing your X key opens up the poster in a pdf viewer where you can see it in full size and can also zoom in and out.

   

The carpet around the poster also offers a private conversation space. You can see and talk to anyone who is also on the carpet. This allows authors to answer questions about their poster to people coming by to read it.