The underlying idea of poster sessions may have started in Europe in the early 1900s, where the wide variety of languages encouraged conference attendees to learn at their own pace. While these sessions probably started as creative, concentrated meetings, they have grown to become a significant and expected component at most scientific conferences. Delegates who attend hope to learn more about their profession and connect with other scholars. Additionally, poster presenters (who are frequently early-career researchers) want to spread the word about their work and get feedback on it. However, throughout the last century, much has changed regarding the resources at researchers' disposal. So how can you organize an interesting poster session that fits the modern era?
During the poster session, conference attendees are welcome to peruse the displays in the poster hall. The speakers are expected to stay by their poster throughout the session so that other registrants can stop by and hear them discuss their work and ask them questions. A poster session may go longer or shorter than its customary allotment of 1-2 hours, depending on the size of the conference. Cocktail hours are occasionally planned for professional conferences, which may be beneficial for fostering some "Dutch boldness" and fostering more laid-back discussions. For prior researchers who are less likely to be asked to deliver a longer oral presentation at a major conference, presenting your findings during a poster session is a terrific option. These seminars are the greatest for networking as well as showcasing your remarkable research findings. You might even meet a potential employer and receive an offer for your next position!
The First Poster Session Guide
Read the Instructions
Reading the instructions properly is always the first step in any submission procedure. It is crucial that you adhere to any formatting standards or rules that may be specific to a conference. Your entry can be automatically rejected if you don't. To avoid arriving at the poster session with a poster that won't fit on the board, pay close attention to word counts throughout the submission process, the size/formatting specifications of the poster itself, and the duration of the poster session.
Create an Abstract
The next step is to create an abstract, which is a few hundred-word summaries of your work. You must decide which section of your study topic you wish to offer to accomplish this. Even while it could be alluring to try to impress by describing everything, it is unreasonable to try to present all of your work in such a short amount of time. Pick one study or experiment that presents a succinct, coherent, and engaging narrative to set yourself up for success. Your abstract should begin by outlining the context and motivation for your research, review the technique you utilized, highlight your key findings and conclusions, and then quickly go through the consequences and applicability of your findings.
Make Your Poster
As soon as your abstract is approved for presentation at a conference, you must begin creating your poster using a program like PowerPoint, Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator. Your poster should be well-structured, with each component leading into the next, forming a visual narrative that conveys a cohesive story, and being easily readable. It shouldn't be necessary for someone seeing your poster to flip back and forth between its sides to comprehend what you've done. Use colour to identify related text, graphs, and images, and use numbers or arrows to show what comes next.
Similar to the abstract, your poster should have sections outlining the objectives, methods, findings, conclusions, and any implications of your research. However, this time, illustrations should be used more frequently than text to tell the story. On a poster, a little bit of information goes a long way, the less writing, the better. Less text on posters makes them more enticing and will draw more viewers. Remember that you will be able to explain your work to the audience, so there is no need to try to fit everything into the text. You can even condense your content by highlighting the main ideas and using bullet points to summarize parts.
Prepare For The Meeting Now
When you're through producing your poster, it's time to be prepared to display it! Poster sessions are much less formal than conference presentations or lectures, so there is no need to stress about giving a perfectly prepared speech. During the poster session, make a point of interacting with your fellow researchers productively.
Anyone who comes to your poster should be able to quickly summarize your work for them, and you should then be ready to respond to any questions that may arise. Since most participants want to visit numerous posters throughout the session and could be reluctant to leave if your summary is too long, try to keep it brief. If you let visitors ask you to elaborate on the sections of your research that they find most fascinating, your conversations will be more engaging. It can be nerve-wracking to present your research, especially the first time, but keep in mind that only you are the best expert on it.
Ditch the Boring Poster Templates
The only individuals who perhaps profit from outdated, mandatory templates at conferences are presenters who wait until the very last minute to create their posters and prize judges. This strategy is detrimental to the other attendees. Presenters become less inventive with layout and substance, and interested viewers are inundated with columns of identical posters. Instead of using dull templates, email the presenter’s poster design advice if you're worried about them sloppily assembling their posters (or if specific portions must be included for a given award).
If you are adamant about wanting a particular design, at the very least make it useful to those who will interact with it. Presenters should use their posters as an invitation to attendees to approach them and engage in conversation if they want to have their work acknowledged. The goal is for viewers to be able to scan posters as they pass by, gain knowledge, and select the study topics they're most interested in learning more about. How can you structure your session so that they achieve these objectives? You may, however, take University of Michigan student Mike Morrison's example. The movie Mike made to explain his theory inspired other researchers to consider how they may innovate on the same old research poster template Mike offered. Even as a template for posters, his format was adopted by one conference.
Examine Whether Using E-Posters at Your Conference Is a Good Idea
Paper posters were formerly thought to be going extinct due to an e-poster revolution. However, the revolution never truly took place. Even while e-posters are far more common than when they first appeared in the 1990s, they aren't always the best option for your conference. Think about the following:
How Many Posters Have You Submitted So Far?
The viability of employing e-posters depends on the size of your poster session. The expense and work of employing e-posters for a big session are probably not worth it if every presenter wants their own space to stand and talk to attendees about their work. E-posters can effectively shorten setup times between sessions if you're hosting more compact, targeted sessions with speakers who switch as the day go on.
Do The Poster Presenters Have A Long Way To Go?
Carrying a heavy poster board or moving a paper poster without damaging it might be a major worry for presenters. Take into account the trip distance and transportation challenge your presenters will experience. To make it simpler for foreign delegates, you can offer e-poster screens. If this is too difficult or outside the scope of your event budget, you can also arrange a sponsorship deal with a nearby printing business and offer to provide on-site poster printing as an alternative (or deliver them on the day).
How Do Attendees And Presenters Want To Engage With The Posters?
Presenters may have more formatting options (such as slideshow, video, or even expanding "more info" boxes) when using e-posters. This functionality enables original poster presentations and can enhance the attendees' experience. Providing a database of posters on a few "self-guided" touch displays, if you have the funds, can also enable guests to peruse posters and zoom in on relevant portions at their own pace. If your venue doesn't have enough area for a sizable poster session, it's also a useful space-saving trick.
Do You Strive To Run A More Environmentally Friendly Conference?
E-posters can help with sustainability efforts because they don't produce large amounts of paper trash. Despite the growing popularity of electronic posters, many organizers continue to host physical poster sessions (while making those posters available online). Alternatively, researchers are incorporating QR codes in their posters, like Mike did, so that people may view the poster and extra information on their phones. E-poster technology can be used in a variety of ways to enhance your poster session experience. Just be careful to think about why and how you'll use them before spending the money and time necessary to make it happen.
Encourage Conversation Both Offline and Online
The opportunity to network and engage in insightful discussions about their field of research is a top priority for speakers and participants during poster sessions. You can develop advertising platforms that assist your participants in achieving these objectives as an organizer. Holding small, targeted discussion groups or workshops following each poster session is one method to do this. You can simply group individuals into the appropriate groups for this kind of activity by organizing your posters by topic. This kind of group can be a terrific opportunity for people to carry on important talks from earlier or to meet new people in their neighbourhood that they might have missed while circling the poster reception.
Include topic-specific pop-up poster sessions in various areas to further debate and foster a more relaxed mood. Your attendees are less likely to feel overwhelmed if there are fewer posters in one place. Furthermore, a narrow theme makes it more likely that your presenters and audience will interact with the research that most interests them. Small drink and snack stations set up by these pop-up sessions at strategic intervals can help draw spectators, foster a more relaxed atmosphere, and entice guests to stay and converse for extended periods.
Finally, the conversation need not take place solely in person. Using social media or the conference website, you can set up a virtual poster session regardless of how your physical poster session is set up. Encourage interested attendees to submit work for a digital poster session using a specific Twitter hashtag, and permit follow-up tweets about their work so that attendees can browse and debate high-interest items in advance. Encourage guests to continue their discussions online after the actual poster session.
Conclusion
Any project you want to promote can be done with a poster presentation. To present the project uniquely, it combines text and images. It is both approachable and visually appealing. A poster presentation enables you to present your work to a sizable audience of academics so that you can discuss it and get input from all curious onlookers.
These tips and recommendations should enable you to design a compelling poster and participate in a productive poster session. Even if there are some broad requirements, poster sessions are also a chance to be creative (while keeping following the conference rules of course) to bring more attention to your poster, arouse interest in and excitement about your study, and guarantee lots of great discussions!
References
- 10 rules that you should follow for a good poster presentation - Blog (postersessiononline.com)