Poster Guidelines
Conference posters will be on display throughout the day on Thursday, October 25, and will be featured during a poster session and reception from 4:30-6:30pm that afternoon. See the Posters section of the program for a list of authors, titles and abstracts. The aim of the poster session is to provide a venue for scholarly work that would benefit from active and collaborative discussion, including (but not exclusively) work in progress.
Poster Dimensions
- Each conference poster will be allotted 1 side of an 8 foot (horizontal) x 4 foot (vertical) board space. You may use this space as you wish. Large posters printed on poster paper are encouraged, but a series of individual smaller sheets is also welcome.
- While you may use the full 8 foot width of the board if you like, we strongly recommend that posters not exceed 6 feet (72 inches) wide by 3 ½ feet (42 inches) tall. This will ensure that you have adequate room to position yourself to the side of your poster and speak with delegates without blocking your work.
Poster Guidelines
- The poster should present the focus of the inquiry and the way(s) in which it contributes to current scholarship, much like a conference or journal paper.
- The poster format features the visual as a conversation starter. Prepare an attractive poster with large lettering. Be very selective in the content you provide on the poster. While some people will stop to hear about your work in detail, many will spend only a few minutes at each poster.
- Use graphic support or objects where appropriate.
- Consider creative ways of engaging participants to interact with your poster (e.g., embedding questions, activities, or discussion prompts within it)
- A brief handout describing your project (50+ copies recommended) can be used to provide more details. You might also consider ways of linking your poster to supplemental electronic supports, such as a project website or mailing list.
- A number of poster templates are available online for general use. If you wish to use such a template to help you construct your poster, you might start by consulting the following collection, developed at the University of Alberta: http://tomorrowsideasnow.blogspot.ca/p/poster-templates.html
Please remember that we are committed to making this conference accessible to all participants. You are strongly encouraged to consider physical, sensory and intellectual accessibility when crafting your poster. For example, you might:
- Use a font of at least 36pt for body text on your poster, one of 46pt or larger for section headings, and one of 72pt or larger for titles. Likewise, consider using large text (18pt font) on handouts, or having large print copies available.
- Use Sans serif fonts (e.g., Arial, Calibri, Helvetica) wherever possible, and ensure that there is a strong contrast between text and background.
- Take into account participants with motor disabilities when designing interactive poster components
- Avoid unnecessary jargon or technical language
- Be prepared to describe your poster to participants with low vision
Presentation Suggestions
- During the poster session, be ready to summarize your work for delegates in 2-3 minutes. Highlight the key details, and particularly the way(s) in which the project contributes to enhancing teaching and learning.
- Be prepared to answer questions, and also to pose questions that might encourage further discussion and exchange.
- Try to balance being engaging and assertive with giving delegates time and space to read through and think about the poster on their own.
- Make it easy for delegates to contact you afterwards. Consider having business cards on hand, or including your contact information as part of a handout.
Set Up & Presentation Timing
- Posters should be set up during breakfast (7:30-8:30am) on Thursday, October 25, in the Chedoke room of the Hamilton Convention Centre. ISSOTL conference volunteers will be on hand to assist you during the set up time.
- Each poster will be assigned a specific board. Please mount your poster on the board that has your session number (e.g., F03, F42) on it. Your session number can be found in the conference program.
- All materials can be affixed to your board with pushpins, which will be available on-site.
- You do not have to remain with your poster throughout the day. The initial poster display time (8:30am-4:30pm) is meant to provide delegates with an opportunity to peruse your work in detail and to select individual posters about which they’d like to have further discussion during the main poster session.
- On the other hand, it is imperative that at least one author remains with your poster at all times during the poster session and reception that runs from 4:30-6:30pm in the Chedoke room of the Convention Centre.
- Presenters should remove their posters at 6:30pm on October 25. Any unclaimed posters will be taken to the registration desk.
Other Logistics
- No multi-media support is available for poster sessions, but please note that there is wireless internet access throughout the Convention Centre.
- Due to constraints of space, full references will not be included with abstracts in the conference program. With that in mind, please consider bringing a reference list with you to the poster session.
Electronic Poster Archive
All poster presenters are invited to include their posters in an electronic archive that will be available from the conference website after the event. This electronic ‘poster gallery’ will enable conference delegates and others to return to and continue conversations about the posters well after the conference is over. To include your poster in this electronic archive, please follow the instructions below.
- Save your poster as an Adobe .pdf document. Maximum file size is 5MB.
- Name the file according to the following convention: ISSOTL-PosterNumber-LeadAuthorLastName (e.g., ISSOTL-F53-Smith.pdf)
- Send the poster as an email attachment to issotl12@mcmaster.ca by Friday, November 2nd, 2012. Please place ISSOTL Poster in the email Subject line.
Posters will be uploaded and linked to from the main poster session page.
