Guidelines for chairpersons and moderators

Conveners and co-conveners will be requested to chair and moderate all parts of their session (oral or poster session; asynchronous discussion channel on Discord) or nominate in advance one or more chairpersons to take responsibility for the session. In addition, meeting participants may be nominated by the appropriate convener(s) or asked by the meeting organisers to act as chairperson of a particular session component.

Below is a brief description of the duties of the chairpersons. Please also see the guidelines for oral presentations, the guidelines for poster presentations, and the EPSC Code of Conduct.

Restricted presentations

Due to author copyright privileges, it is prohibited to share any scientific material, (including forwarding the presentation file, taking photos/screenshots and/or copying electronically), when a presenter has marked their oral or poster presentation as "restricted" (through inclusion of the 'no sharing' icon). Conveners/chairpersons/moderators should reinforce this message at the top of discussions in the Discord channel for their session, as well as at the beginning of their oral session by showing the "Housekeeping" slide (this will be circulated prior to the meeting).

Technical assistance

Copernicus staff will be available throughout the duration of the congress to provide support to the conveners/chairpersons and speakers in setting up and managing the oral/poster sessions. They will assist with any technical problems, should they arise.

How to access oral sessions on Zoom

If you are attending virtually (as chair, presenter or passive attendee), please browse through the session programme to find your session of interest. The detailed session page lists all oral and poster abstracts with their schedules. Buttons to enter the respective Zoom Meetings will only appear 15 minutes before the session starts. Please note that no Zoom access links will be sent to chairs / participants / presenters by email. Instead, please access the Zoom meeting via the button that appears on the page 15 minutes before the session starts. You will be asked for your Copernicus Office user ID, as a paid conference registration (either for on-site attendance or virtual attendance) is mandatory to access the Zoom meeting.

Conducting the session

The weeks before the conference and last-minute duties

Monitor: Please monitor your session through the session modification tool up to the scheduled presentation time.

Session programme: If you have any modifications in your session programme after uploading the final meeting programme, please forward this information directly to the conference organizer.

Withdrawn abstracts: Take a look at your programme online to see whether you have any abstracts marked as withdrawn.

Last-minute duties

Session information: Log in to your session dashboard. Here, you can edit your chairpersons (using the tool SOIII – Presentation selection), add public information that conference participants will see in the online programme, and find the mailing list of your session authors if there is any final information you would like to provide.

Reminders:Contact your authors and chairpersons by email to remind them about the session and any other planned events that might be relevant to your session. Please check the Keynote Lectures, Community Events and other parts of the programme for content that you think might be of interest to participants in your session.

Withdrawn abstracts: Take a look at your programme online to see whether you have any abstracts marked as withdrawn.

Late withdrawals: We kindly ask authors to withdraw abstracts as early as possible when they realize they will not be able to present their work. If no presentation is delivered at the conference and the conveners are not informed of any special circumstances, the abstract will be withdrawn from the online programme.

During the conference

The oral and poster blocks will be scheduled from 9 to 13 September 2024. Scientific sessions may be assigned more than one oral block depending on the number of submitted abstracts with oral preference. Scientific oral and poster sessions will run in parallel.

Asynchronous discussion on Discord: Conveners and/or their nominated chairpersons and moderators are asked to frequently check the asynchronous discussion forum on Discord. The Discord channels allow for interaction across multiple time zones and are accessible to registered participants throughout the meeting. The asynchronous discussions last for the full duration of the conference from 8 to 13 September 2024. Conveners/chairpersons are requested to act as moderators for the asynchronous discussion related to their session. Moderators should encourage discussions by posting initial "welcome" comments and inviting questions. Please be proactive in promoting discussion throughout the meeting.

Synchronous live sessions (orals): Chairpersons are requested to start the session by showing a "Housekeeping" slide with a reminder of the EPSC Code of Conduct and other important information for participants. The chairpersons should open and close the oral session on time. They should ensure that the speakers of the session are present and that they are able to give their presentations without disruption. The assigned time blocks per oral presentation are for the scientific presentation excluding time for questions.

Q&A sessions: The sessions contain sufficient time for Q&A discussions during dedicated time blocks for joint Q&A panel discussions, where questions can be directed to all speakers of the previous talks (virtual and on-site).

  • Chairpersons should remind speakers to join at the front/virtually for the Q&A panel discussion.
  • The Q&A discussions can also be continued asynchronously on Discord.
  • Chairpersons are expected to ensure that discussion in the session is diverse and representative of the full range of research submitted for their session, includes questions from on-site as well as from the virtual participants by following the Zoom chat as well as the session Discord channel, and are considerate of the gender, nationality and career ages of the contributing authors and community attending.
  • We encourage chairpersons to give preference to early-career and female researchers when opening the room for questions.
  • While constructive criticism of presentations is welcome, chairpersons should ensure that the discussion time is not monopolized by a single individual and the chairperson should not tolerate bullying or patronizing behaviour – early career researchers may be presenting for the first time, and every participant deserves to be treated fairly and with respect. Any poor behaviour can be closed down by courteously asking the individual to make their point and reminding them of the EPSC2024 code of conduct.

Reporting: Participants will be able to report any inappropriate content or behaviour they observe to the conference organizer, using the breach of conduct form. Where action is required by the convener/chairperson of the relevant session, they will be notified of the issue by the Code of Conduct Response Group and requested to take steps.

Training: EPSC2024 will provide training for session chairpersons on Sunday, 8 September 2024.