Thank you for agreeing to be a session chair. This Author Resource Center is designed to help all authors, presenters, and session chairs prepare for the conference.
You are required to attend the Speakers' Breakfast the day of your session. The Speakers’ Breakfast is for Session Chairs and the presenters (both primary and alternate) scheduled in your session:
You will be seated at the breakfast with each person making oral presentations during your session and with those authors prepared to step in as alternates should the need arise. You will be provided with presenter biographies, as supplied at the time of abstract submission, at the presenter/speaker breakfast. You may use this information for introduction purposes prior to the presentation of each paper.
The Speakers' Breakfast is a mandatory event for each author responsible for a scheduled presentation that day. The person representing each presentation, as well as the person representing each alternate presentation, should attend. The presenters have been notified if they are not in attendance, you will allocate their presentation time to another presenter.
Alternate presenters must attend and be prepared to present if called upon. If an alternate presenter is not present at the breakfast, and/or not prepared to make a presentation if called upon, their presentation will not be published in the conference proceedings. (See Author Kit for complete author instructions.) If this occurs, please mark the sign located at the door of the session room so ION is aware that the presentation should not be included in the conference proceedings.
Alternate presenters have been instructed to attend the Speakers' Breakfast and be ready to make an oral presentation in the event of one or more cancellations of primary presentations. Alternate presentations will appear in the conference proceedings as long as the alternate presenter attended the Speakers' Breakfast and their assigned session, and was prepared to present if needed.
If you should experience a cancellation in your session, please notify ION at meetings@ion.org.
If you should experience a cancellation in your session and you are able to replace the cancellation with the first alternate presentation in your session, it is imperative that the alternate presentation be substituted in the canceled presentation’s original time slot. For example, if the third scheduled presentation is canceled, or a presenter fails to show, then the replacement presentation should also present in the third time slot.
If, for any reason, an alternate presentation is not available, then the canceled presentation’s original time slot should remain vacant. Under no circumstances should you reschedule the remaining presentations scheduled in the published program as this greatly aggravates conference participants who have scheduled their day based on the posted times.
If you are made aware of any presentation cancellations and/or replacements in your session, please announce these changes at the beginning of your session. We would also ask that you note any presentation cancellations or no-shows, and any alternates that fill these vacancies directly on the session signage located outside the session room door. These signs are collected and changes recorded at the end of each day in order to ensure the conference proceedings accurately reflect what transpired during your session.
The complete program brochure is available on the conference website. You may refer to the program for presentation schedules. You may request an electronic or print copy of the program by emailing meetings@ion.org. The final onsite conference program will be available at the conference. We would like this program to be as accurate as possible. Any program corrections/changes received by the National Office prior to January 4 will be reflected in the onsite program.
We are making a concerted effort to keep sessions on a structured time schedule. This will make it possible for registrants to schedule their day and flow from session to session. Each paper will be given a specific starting time that will be printed in the on-site program. We will need your assistance in making sure that the printed schedule is strictly adhered to. To assist us in this objective, we will be asking you to operate a timed lighting device (this lighting device will be demonstrated during the Speakers' Breakfast). The system has been designed with a red, yellow, and green light.
Authors have been instructed that their microphone will be shut off once they have gone 30 seconds over their allotted time, or 30 seconds after the red-light illuminates.
Time between the conclusion of one presentation and the scheduled commencement of the following presentation may be used at your discretion for questions and answers. You should begin the presenter introduction at the start time printed in the onsite program for each presentation. Remember that the objective is to keep multiple sessions running on the same time schedule.
Miriam Lewis
Meeting Services
Email: meetings@ion.org