Panel Guidelines

Panel sessions are particularly appropriate for topics that benefit from multiple perspectives, including disciplinary, institutional, and national perspectives. The goal for panel presentations is to provide panelists and audience members the opportunity to exchange insights, engage in discussion, and learn from each other’s research and experiences.

Timing, Room Set Up & Other Practicalities

• Panel presentations will be 90 minutes in length, including at least 20 minutes of time for discussion.
• You should plan to arrive in your presentation room at least 10 minutes in advance of your session start time in order to prepare and to set up and check any technology you might plan to use. Volunteers will be circulating around the session rooms to assist as necessary.
• Panel presenters are responsible for deciding amongst themselves who will serve as the Session Chair. Session Chairs will introduce the presenters, keep time, and facilitate the discussion portion of the session. Please be respectful of delegates’ time by ending promptly after 90 minutes.
• Most presentation rooms will be arranged with seminar seating – rows of tables and chairs. If you need to adjust the furniture, please leave time at the end of your session to return it to its original configuration.
• Please note that we will not be providing evaluation forms for individual sessions. Presenters who would like to collect feedback are welcome to develop evaluation forms and bring these with them for session attendees to complete.  Keep in mind that the time required to fill out feedback forms will need to be included within your 90 minutes.
• If you are providing a handout, we recommend bringing ~50 copies. Keep in mind, though, that most rooms seat 100+ people, so if you think your topic will be especially popular, you might want to bring additional copies.

Technology

• Each presentation room is equipped with a data projector and screen and wireless internet access.
• Presenters are responsible for bringing a computer and any necessary adaptors (rooms will be equipped with VGA cables only).
• If you plan to use the internet during your session, you should check your access well before your presentation time, including any firewalls that may prevent your access to files. We strongly recommend downloading files onto your computer for the most stable presentation experience.
• If you would like to use a presentation remote, you will need to bring your own.

Panel Suggestions

• Panels should emphasize an important question related to the conference themes, or to SOTL more broadly, ideally bringing multiple perspectives to bear on this issue.
• Ample opportunities for active audience engagement should be provided, including, at a minimum, 20 minutes for discussion.
• 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 presentation. For example, you might:
  • Use a font of at least 30pt for text on your presentation slides. Likewise, consider having large print copies of handouts 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 session components.
  • Avoid unnecessary jargon or technical language.
  • Be prepared to describe aloud any images, charts, videos, etc. used in your presentation (unless they are strictly decorative).
  • Caption any film or video clips you use.