 So, to begin with, hello, welcome to the webinar on how to convene a session at EGU 24th. My name is Simon Clark, I am EGU's project manager at the Executive Office, and today we'll have about one hour, which will feature a presentation and guidance on how to convene a session. We have time for audience questions and answers afterwards. If you have a question, please enter it in the Q&A box at the bottom of the screen. Today we'll be able to type in a question, you can also view other people's questions and I'll devote them if you also want that question answered. This webinar will also be available as a recording and resource. The recording will be published on the EGU YouTube channel a week after this presentation, so you can expect it to be online Tuesday next week. So, to get back into the meat of the webinar itself, today's webinar will be presented by Dan Evans, who is a veteran of many sessions at the General Assembly and our incoming Early Career Scientist Union representative. He is a lecturer in soil science at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, and was previously the Early Career Scientist representative for the Soil Systems Division at EGU. In recent years, he's chaired the Early Career Researcher Conference for the British Society of Soil Science, as well as Early Career Sessions at the European Soil Observatory. His contributions have been recognised at this year's General Assembly as a receptor of the Honorary Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientist. Dan has attended seven General Assemblies, has gone to see convened multiple sessions, including short courses, town halls, splinter meetings and their wake events since 2018. So, that's enough of me, if Dan, if you would like to take it away. Hello to everyone here on this webinar, it's great to be here, and as Siren says there, this will be coming up to, I think, my eighth EGU General Assembly. But one thing I can say at the very top here is that you never really stop learning. So, for those seasoned conveners who are also joining today, or are viewing this via the EGU YouTube channel, I'm sure you'll agree that there's always things to learn. But if you're here for the first time, and perhaps you're thinking about convening some of your first sessions at this year's 2024 EGU General Assembly, then a really warm welcome to the General Assembly family, and I hope that you enjoy convening your session. So, what I wanted to do today is just present some support and guidance around how to convene, perhaps some of the updates and maybe some more changes to this particular General Assembly. And also, what the kind of the role is both during and before and after the session. Being a convener is not just about being at the session and leading a session, it's a many weeks, perhaps many months long process, so we'll talk about that. I'm very happy to take your questions via the chat and fielding those at the end of the presentation. So, I'm going to share my screen now. So, yes, just a brief hello for me, the incoming Union-wide Early Career Scientist representative for the EGU. So, what I wanted to do really is kind of break it down, perhaps, because this is one of the largest, if not the largest, Geosciences event in Europe. And so, for those who are new to EGU, who've not been to the General Assembly, it might be a touch overwhelming at first. So, wanted to break this down into the core components of what the GA looks like. So, we'll look at all posters and Picoes separately. But being a convener of all three, in fact, I think over my last seven or eight years, there's things, there's still hints and tips and tricks that you can have up your sleeve, both whilst you're there at the conference and the weeks beforehand. So, we're in this really interesting period leading up to the General Assembly this year now, last couple of weeks for those who are viewing this live. This is, in a sense, perhaps clutch time for the Communion Party, but I also wanted to break it down to make sure that you're fully aware of what that looks like. So, it seems like my presentation is going to move on itself, which is a good thing, so I don't ramble on. So, there's presentation modes, two main presentation modes. The first really is an online supplementary display material. And what does this mean? Well, basically, this is material uploaded to the General Assembly website. It's only really available to those registered attendees. And what the community can do, the Geoscience community do, can view the content and comment on it between the 25th of March and the 31st of May. So, although we have the General Assembly, which is one week in duration, the Geoscience community can view and comment on this material. And it also means that you can update some of this material as well leading up to the event. And so, on the actual event, the General Assembly is one week, as many of you know. We have a range of different types of presentations, which we'll go through in a second. And the presentation files for those, I can see which is going to go and do that for the presentation. The presentation files are uploaded to the EGU website. And those have to be there at least 24 hours prior to the start of the session. So, that's a key thing to remind all of your participants and contributors to the sessions that you're convening. And the main tip here, really, is that communication all the way through processes is the key. So, if you're in touch with your contributors, please do remind them to upload their materials for that asynchronous discussion as soon as possible at least 24 hours before the session starts. Okay. So, I mentioned three types. There are three types of presentation formats, all those posters and picots, and I'll explain each one in turn. And I think the EGU itself is quite unique in having these, but they are all of equal measure. But let's go to the all presentations first and talk about some of the things relating to sessions that have all presentations. So, all presentations this year, as many years have gone by now, are timed at 10 minutes. But this includes the changeover and the discussion time. So, it includes question and answers and the time it takes to change over from one offer to another. So, this two presentations, if you have them in your session, can be up to 30 minutes. They can be either 10, 20, or 30 minutes. And you'll find, probably by now, you've got your letter of schedule, which means that your session, if you're convening it this year, will be scheduled for a very specific day and time block. And I can show you those time blocks in just a second. And the big thing here is that the time slot really can't exceed the assigned session time. So, you really have to keep the presentations within your assigned time block. The mode is fully hybrid. So, basically, we have a combination of those presenters giving live presentations on-site, and they will be in charge of forwarding their own slides. And presenters virtually presenting, they'll be encouraged to present live, but care if they want to submit peer-recorded material. And those virtual presenters are also encouraged to download Zoom software. So, if you're viewing this webinar live, you will know that you're using some Zoom software. The Zoom is best accessed via the software rather than the browser. And there's the bandwidth information if you want to get into the technical aspects of the Zoom there. Just to make sure that everything is smooth and coherent on the actual day. So, that's a kind of whittlestock tour of all presentations. Let me take you then to the posters. And how is this different? Well, in many ways, it isn't that different. We have both on-site and virtual presentations. The on-site poster presenters will be organised in sessions that either will be in the morning or in the afternoon. And I'll show you those time blocks in just a second for the poster presenters. And virtual posters, so in other words, those accessing the general assembly from outside of the conference venue, will be scheduled doing time block 3 of the week. For those who are on-site, they're hanging their posters up or affixing them to the poster boards, will be asked and encouraged to stand by their posters during their given time block. And for the virtual presenters, we'd like the participants, if possible, to use the virtual poster boards in Gavertown. We can talk about that a little bit later on as well. So here's the time block information for this particular general assembly. You'll see that TB is time block TB1 and TB2. You display your poster if you're in either one of those two time blocks between 8.30 in the morning and 1.30 in the afternoon. And then there's a change over a period. At 12.30 to 1.30, we'll ask the time block 1 and time block 2 presenters to basically remove their posters. The conference assistants will be discarding any remaining ones from around 1.30, which then opens the doors for time block 3 and time block 4 from 2 o'clock. So if you're in time block 3 or time block 4 for posters, you're displaying the posters between 2 and 6 in the afternoon. The virtual poster attendance, as I said before, was always going to be in time block 3 of any given day. And that virtual poster attendance will be between 2 and 3.45. And for time block 4, we have the onsite attendance time between 4.15 and 6 o'clock. So basically at 6 o'clock, if you have a poster up for those afternoon sessions, you can take those down from 9 o'clock. The conference assistants will discard any remaining poster so that the boards are available for the subsequent day. All of this information is available online and I can show you the link at the end of this presentation, which leads me then to the PICO presentation slot. For PICOs, if you've not been to the GA before, it's a really interesting interactive poster, if you like. It allows the opportunity for the authors to give a two-minute summary, almost like an abstract of their research. And then there's an opportunity for some detailed presentation and discussion with the attendees, both, as I say, at the venue and also virtually. This really encourages those who are in PICO presentations to be very creative around their media. You can display animations and videos and put things together more digitally as well. So for the onsite presenters, just like the posters, we encourage those authors to stand by the PICO screen. So as conveners, it's always good to assemble your your authors as best as possible around their PICO screens during the session. And then for virtual presenters, if they can use Gather Town, and this is an opportunity to have some interactive live, as it were, real-time discussions with the virtual attendees. And all presentations, whether you're onsite or whether you're viewing things virtually, will be available for browsing. So even if you're onsite, you can still see the virtual presentations. And that also goes for posters as well. So for more guidelines on the kind of particular format, the all PICO and poster presenters guidelines that you can find out on the website. And for conveners in particular, it's good to send these links to your authors before the conference. So how are we going to get ready then for the GA? So as I said before, there is perhaps some slight changes to the timings to take care aware of. And you can see these on the website. I'm just putting up the time blocks as they are now. So these run four time blocks run all the way throughout the day between half past eight and six o'clock with an afternoon and morning coffee break and a 19 minute lunchtime session is there. Networking will take place after six followed by medal and award lectures. So if you're a convener of a session, it's likely that you're going to be involved in one of these, if not more of these time blocks. But what happens before? So it's not just about when you're at the GA. It's what do you do as conveners before the event? So the weeks before the event, it's good to select a minimum of two chairpersons per time block as is appropriate for the format. So what we're saying now is that the conveners are not necessarily the chairpersons in a session. It may well be that the convener is the chairperson, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the case. But all we're saying is that most time blocks are best served with two chairpersons. And that is particularly important when we're thinking about onsite and virtual attendance as well, this kind of hybrid format. So conveners should really ensure that at least one chairperson is there at the conference centre who can run the onsite session. And then the second chairperson can moderate and interact with the virtual attendees and kind of take care of the virtual attendees and their virtual contributions. For PCOs in particular, though, we say that two onsite chairs are needed. And this is important because one of these chairpersons will take care of onsite presenters and the other will manage the interactions with the virtual presenters. So a little bit like the auls and posters. It's good to have at least two chairs for PCOs. Also, between now and the G8, it's good to nominate three to five judges per presentation. And I have a little bit more information about OSPP in just a moment. So bear with me for that. Also, as I said before, use this as a time to communicate to your office. So use the mailing list tool on your convener's portal. And many of you who are convening this year will have come acquainted with the EGU convener's pages. So use that mailing list tool to contact the authors presenting in the session and provide them any final information or essential information that they may need. And then obviously before, you know, the week before and leading up to the last few days before the session, do make sure and encourage any office that haven't that the presentations are uploaded, at least as I said before, 24 hours prior to the session start. And if there are any events planned, maybe a splinter meeting associated with the session, or perhaps there was a post-session dinner, that information often is best communicated before the event. For those who haven't attended, the GA can be incredibly busy. And it's good to communicate as much information before the GA start as possible. And that basically allows the only the very vital information that needs to be communicated during the GA to be kind of reserved for the week of the conference. So if you are booking any event or planning any event before, during, after the GA associated with your session, then do communicate information as soon as possible. I mentioned that OSPP. So this is the Outstanding Student and PhD Candidate Presentation content. And once again, I'm taking this directly from the EGU 24 website. So if you're a convener this year, you should really check if any contributions in your session are participating in the OSPP contest. And this is up to the individual author to decide whether they want to participate in the scheme. So do check if you've got any presentations participating in such a contest. And you can find that information out using your convener's pages. As I said before, at least three judges are ideally need to be identified. And this is one role of the conveners before the, before the session. And you can use your OSPP nominator tool to do that. So there is a list of volunteers, available judges in a sense. Chairs and conveners can also be judges. And you can also add colleagues as judges as well. But obviously please make sure that they agree to serve as a judge and that they are going to attend the GA. The judges obviously will not be able to be co-authors of any abstracts that they evaluate. They do need to have earned a PhD or equivalent. And obviously they cannot participate in the OSPP contest on the year. So OSPP is really, really engaging, very exciting. It's a really good opportunity to, I think, celebrate some of the works of our early career scientists in the EU. And having as many judges volunteering as possible to help out with this process is often best. But do try to nominate those judges as soon as possible. And if obviously there are any delays, then you can contact your your division president for more information about that. If there's been any changes to your program, so if there's a particular change to the session, then you can forward the information directly to egu24 at Copernicus.org. And these are, this is essentially the email address to communicate any last minute modifications. And if feasible, these changes, these modifications will be included in the daily program of the lecture room and the Pico spot displayed on site. But changes to the daily program are really only possible until the 8th of April. So if you do foresee any last minute modifications, it's the 2nd of April as I'm talking live now. So do make sure those are communicated as soon as possible to egu24 at Copernicus.org. And once again, that email address is on the egu website. And of course, it's always possible that authors will withdraw their abstract at last minute or perhaps not show up at the session. And this is no reflection of you as a convener. This happens across the board, every single GA for various reasons. And of course, we don't need to go into into those now those those various reasons. But what we do ask authors is that if they are thinking about withdrawing the abstracts, they do so as early as conveniently possible when they realize that they are unable to present their work. So this may be just something to ask of the or remind presenters when you're speaking to them or communicating information to them online prior to the event. If a normal presentation in your session is marked as withdrawn, then if you're a convener with the session, you can really make constructive use of the time it doesn't need to be necessarily a gap in the schedule, you can use that to have a discussion with those in the room, and of course, those viewing things and contributing virtually. Or of course, if you've got a standby or presentation, you can have one of your poster presenters giving a standby or presentation. In my experience, that is less often the case. What I've done in the past is given a kind of summary of the posters at the session. So in other words, if you've got a 10 minute gap because of an all presenter, not showing up, not in attendance in the session, you use that 10 minutes to go through some of the highlights of the poster session. So the reason why we might not just go instantly to the next available or presenter is that often it's the case, and I speak from personal experience here, that if you want to, if people are wanting to see a particular presentation, they will have that information in their program, and they will have in a sense an itinerary of which presentations they go and to visit. And if they go into a session, at a particular time to see that presentation, and they've found that the presentation has already been viewed because of a no show earlier on, that can sometimes distract or be a sign of practice. So what we say for good convening practice is if you allow a space and only then start the next available or when it's programmed, that allows people who are especially kind of traveling across the venue to get to that particular presentation that they've been waiting a year to see, to see it on time, and so they don't miss it. That's basically the reason why we say you make constructive use of the time. If a poster will of course agrees to give up an all presentation at one of the solutions I mentioned earlier, then you can send a program change to that EGU 24 email address. If they can do that before the 9th of April, that's great, and do include all the relevant abstract numbers there. No shows are monitored throughout the conference. And so if for instance an abstract is not presented, not withdrawn, or withdrawn after the scheduled presentation, or perhaps no warning was given to the conveners in either case, then the abstract will be withdrawn from the online program and affecting the materials will be taken down from the website. So it's always good if you're an author or a contributor to the conference this year. If you are thinking about drawing an abstract, obviously hoping that you're not, but if you are thinking of doing it, then please do so and communicate to the conveners. So just before the session then, you ideally want to get into the venue, prepare any necessary materials, any scripts or speeches that you're going to give at the introduction. You arrive early, familiarise yourself with the venue, and introduce yourself to the technical staff as Jane is doing here on the screen. So introduce yourself as a convener to the chairpersons, the presenters, the audience within the room, and this allows you an opportunity really to ensure that everything is set up and running smoothly. It basically allows you as convener to settle in to the room, settle in to the use of the time of function. You can set particular times on here. So for instance, eight minutes for a presentation followed by a two-minute question and answer, maybe you want to do nine and one, so it's up to you. But do as you arrive into the venue, and if you can, do get to the venue, the room as early as possible, introduce yourself to all the technical staff there. And there will be a technical staff member in the room in each session. So you won't be on your own, there will be people with you there. And of course, if you do greet the speakers as you arrive in, they will feel welcome as well. So whether you're a, if you're a convener, you may also be the chair, I just thought it would be good to show you what happens during the session. So do greet the speakers, they will control the session schedule that the chair is. And then just to show you that the camera microphone is adjustable. So the speaker can adjust the camera and the microphone in the session. The onsite speaker will be given a remote to move their own slides. And at the end of the presentation has been shown here, the onsite chair will manage the questions. So that basically means that if you're in the room, you can walk up to a microphone and ask your question of the offer and allow them to respond. Or of course, if you're viewing things virtually, you can ask your question online. So virtual speakers will be introduced by the onsite chair. The slides will be moved on by the conference assistants I mentioned earlier. And do remind your, your speakers and attendees that they can continue the discussion online. I think you saw that a minute ago on the screen. You can ask questions of the authors and continue that discussion using the online display materials. So yeah, just once again, this is an indication that speakers, if they are in the room, can adjust their camera microphone. They've got that remote to move their own slides if they are in the room. Virtual speakers will have their slides moved on by the conference assistant. And there on the screen you can see one of the attendees asking the question of the offer with one of those microphones. So it's really important that if you are an attendee and you want to ask a question or indeed at any point during the session, you want to communicate something in the room that you do so via the microphone to make sure that those viewing things virtually can listen to that. And this is the, on the screen now you can see how you can comment and feedback on the presentations and ask any questions you've got on display materials. So don't feel that if you've not been able to ask your question in the two minutes for question and answers or so, that you'll never be able to ask that question that you can do so on the online materials. So just a couple more things. So more information can be sought online. So the EGU, European Geoscience Union YouTube channel is really good. It has a really good guide for conveners and some of the videos that you saw just a minute ago have been taken from this particular presentation. So this video here, EGU, Genuine Assembly Guide for Conveners is really good and of course this webinar as it's been recorded will also go up on the YouTube as well. That QR code potentially takes you to that video so allow those who've got their phones, their camera phones to snap that. But also there are other little links that you might be interested in as conveners as well or as potential conveners for subsequent EGU GA. So the Genuine Assembly rules of conduct are very important. They are listed on the top link there. The particular guidelines and rules for conveners are there on the second link. So that will take you to the EGU website information for the conveners. And then if you're convening for the very first time and that's really great to hear, then you can get some advice from early career scientists. There's a little block piece there on convening for the very first time at the EGU. And then finally a link around making your presentation accessible. So a really good kind of resource there to use for that. So that concludes the presentation. I'll take any questions in just a moment and Simon will I think help me with that. If you have any questions I'm very happy to fill them or send them over to Simon. Otherwise, obviously thank you very much for this presentation viewing it. And I hope to see you at the Genuine Assembly and if I don't then I hope you enjoy convening your session at this year's GA. Thanks Dan. So just as we said, if you do have a question please input it at a text box at the bottom of the screen. It says Q&A, it has a couple of speech bubbles. Does enter the question there? Yeah, so let's go into some of the questions. One of the questions we have is about are all sessions planned to be online? Yes, so this is a fully hybrid conference. So all rules, posters and presenters can with your viewing on the site or viewing from outside the venue can engage with all of the content and that's really important to say at this point that if you are on site you can still view the virtual attendees' contributions as is if you're on site you can also obviously view the the virtual all rules, the virtual presenters, the virtual posters, sorry the virtual peak house. The other thing of course is that if you're off site you don't necessarily have to be on site to view the presentation so you can view through the Zoom link, you can then watch the session live through the Zoom link and obviously contribute questions through the chat function on the Zoom and engage after the session using the online display material function. Yeah, so as Dad said I think most sessions online or scientific sessions, great debates, unisynpoesia, etc. There are a couple of small exceptions, so these are splinter meetings, so room is people book to have meetings in. There's no conference assistance which means there's no one to kind of manage online presence so there's no technical solution for that. However there's Wi-Fi in the conference centre so you could bring your own laptop and use Zoom that way for example, but the main sessions that are through the program like scientific sessions, great debate, etc. as Dan said, wholefully hybrid. Another question for the same person is how to find a Zoom link to moderate and interact with virtual attendees, maybe we could give some more advice on how to moderate the virtual side of things in the session. Yeah absolutely, so the Zoom link will be communicated on so everything, the website really is essentially the main heart of the conference so you'll be able to find the Zoom link there. If you are let's say a convener but also the chair of an all present session, you can sit next to your technical person in the room they will do most of the technical side of things so presenting the Zoom session on the screen dealing with any audio technical issues, but you can, that Zoom link will be just like I'm assuming you could have a chat function if virtual attendees will want to put a question, often they do, into the question box. It's often good to field questions from the audience and also those from the chat box. In other words we don't want to disadvantage those who are not at the venue who are contributing questions or thoughts to the chat so do make sure you have a good eye on that and that's one of the reasons why I often say that two conveners, two chairs are good because one person could be looking at the the virtual side of things whilst the other is managing online. So in terms of moderating and interacting with that, with the virtual attendees it's important to have a balance otherwise those who are not attending on site may well feel disadvantaged. Yeah and I think it's what you want to emphasize the point that you want to make sure there's an equality in terms of attention so attention given to in-person attendees should also be given to virtual attendees and this is part in terms of really just being aware of microphone usage. As Anna said, it's needed for online attendees to hear people so that's using it yourself, making sure presenters are standing close to microphone at a podium and also when questions come from the in-person audience that they ask the question for the microphone, if they already have started asking a question, asking to repeat it again through the microphone. I also add as well that if you have a gather town component to the session there should be a chairperson online there as well so this is usually poster sessions, virtual poster sessions have an avatar there which is helping you around if they're accessing at the virtual conference center. Last year there was guidance on how to use gather town it's not present this year yet on the EGU24 but it's the same platform with a slightly different change in the layout it's not hugely different but I will send a link to the EGU23 web page here other than the layout which again isn't a huge change all the advice in here is still relevant in terms of how to engage gather town how it works advice or which browser to use etc. I move on to another question and it's about the Pico sessions occurring just off on network networking time will the screen remain on during that time already switched off at 18 I think I maybe I could just quickly jump in myself typically after the session and the technical support wraps it up and starts tying down a technical setup making sure it's ready for the day after there may be some time after the session to continue discussion but it's really encouraging to take that discussion to the networking areas as technical support will wrap up so it won't be left on for any large duration of time if it's still discussing things it's asked about you move it to a networking event to move on to the next question are there physical rooms or quiet places for discussions in between cocavenas prior to our session done would you like to start one absolutely so you know the venue is is large and it has a wide array of spaces in which to convene discussions with the with with your attendees so if you'd like to have a splinter meeting to basically have more of a formal discussion of some of the topics I think those spaces are becoming quite booked up but I think there are some spaces available someone can correct me if I'm if I'm wrong there those if you do have a splinter meeting the nose will be assigned to a particular room and that room will essentially be a room which doesn't have online or any virtual capabilities but of course if you bring your own computer you can do that but aside from having like a formal splinter meeting to have those kind of formal discussions the venue is as I say spacious enough that you can gather in in in other spaces so often I find the coffee and lunch parts of the timetable really quite interactive really really productive in terms of following up on on topics that perhaps were not discussed too much during the session so if your session is immediately prior to a coffee break or the lunch break then do encourage your presenters to use those times to have more detailed discussions and often sessions if they have a kind of critical mass then they can also have things like pop-up networking events as well so you might want to bring people together after the GA maybe in the evening for instance of a particular day to have a session dinner or some session networking and that also provides time for some discussions so it's not just during the session that you can discuss with the authors you can do that before during and after the session. Thanks Dan and just to kind of add on top of that for splinter meetings he's still putting requests for them now I'll just put the link in the box but again these are hybrid supported at least there will be no technical stuff there to support you I'll also when you want to add that pop-up networking events tend to be a really good way to do this as well I'll just add the link to the pop-up networking program there you'll be able to see there a green button that says schedule your own pop-up networking event you select that you select some other tags that might be associated with for example is it related to early career scientists is our interest to early career scientists is a social event perhaps perhaps it also touches on themes like policy when you organize a pop-up networking event it appears in the program the pop-up networking program sorry a lot of these tend to be networking networking events but in previous years there's also plenty of post-session discussion event does that happen here as well I will know that because of these all community led anyone attending the GA you can organize one of these this program page can also get quite full up as well so what I advise is that if you do organize a post-session pop-up networking event but you also advertise that both in your session and also in the mailing list prior to before your session as well so I got mixed up in time there yeah and then pop-up networking session also offers a number of places it can be there are a number of places in the actual conference center itself physically you can meet also allows you to advertise for in-person meetings outside a conference center for example if you wanted to have a pro-session meeting in somewhere else in Vienna you can also put that into your session description or a networking event description and finally it also allows you to organize virtual events as well so you can always put a link to the youtube gabbay town if you want to use that or you could use your own platform as well perhaps you have your own zoom on to use for a meeting you can use it there too and finally beyond that are lots of little niches a lot of places to sit down in the actual conference center itself I'll just send you the venue page from there you should be able to find the layout on floor pan actually I've got access to the PDF here so I'll send it to you just give you an idea of where to go there's places with coffee signs which tend to show where the coffee is served but also it has a lot of chairs there as well so if you can't organize anything I just want to do things more casually you can just attend one of those places yeah if you want to hold a meeting so yeah there's lots of options as Dan said um onto our another question um basically the question is asking are session materials necessary is that information necessary um and is that available on the sites or is that part of the assembly so I guessing is it necessary and how integrated it is into the system so if you get me more advice on the session material uploads yeah I think it's um it's really to be encouraged I think because it provides attendees speakers and anyone else interested in in or anyone who's just kind of going through the program building up their perhaps their personal program for the week to see what the session is all about and the more information you put as a convener up online via to the event the more information that attendees have to make decisions about whether to to view so you can really use this opportunity in many ways to to bring more people to your session and that might mean that you have a paragraph of of text it might be that you've got a figure or an image that might display the basis of your your program so you can upload these materials um and that essentially provides the context and also gives the legacy to the session as well so you might go back in years um years to come might go back to the eg 24 programs you've you remember a particular session and get more information that you have about the session um as you know it makes that legacy um much more detailed and able to be found in the future so not just about those attending the GA prior to the event it's it's also really important to to create a memory of what the GA um did and what the sessions were all about so do if you're a convener um if you are you know encouraged to put those materials up please do so and obviously work with your convening team uh to produce something um what I would say in all communications and I should have said this before is that it's really important um to use um gender um uh um uh neutral language um and uh that is something that I I believe Simon in more his broader communication um around conference can speak more about in a second but what I've found in the past is that um it's much better to to do these things earlier sooner rather than later so to be able to go through the text that you're putting up to make sure that it's inclusive um as possible it doesn't disadvantage any particular protected characteristic I don't know if Simon you want to say it's something more about about that uh in your role as a project coordinator yeah sure so I'll just put a link into the accessibility and inclusivity page at you do general assembly um basically in order to foster a good environment for discussion and discussion ideas want to make sure the assembly is working as possible what you'll find here on accessibility page is a number of um guidance and how that's approached um some of that will be just guidance on terms of the technical setups for example audio accessibility and visual accessibility um there's also a certain guidance in there for example in terms of visual accessibility it will say encourage presenters to use it avoid using rainbow scales um as that can be visually uh inaccessible to people who are more visually impaired um similarly it's why people should be using microphones as well for people who are audio impaired so when you're approaching convening keep these things in mind perhaps that's something to communicate to your presenters in terms of for example avoiding um rainbow scales again it's about as I've said language you'll find uh guidance on um promoting inclusive language here which includes um making sure people don't fall discriminated in terms of their gender their age their state of career etc um the link to that is also um on a page but a page will generally just say that gender neutral language is um try to achieve achieved in all of our communications um and on top of that there's a few other things as well like gives a long example it gives a um information on for example that hadn't held free microphones are available but these are also flexible um there's also fully flexible seating arrangements etc so as well as being useful for yourself if you do get questions from presenters or other attendees just for them to uh this page I've sent um we also know it's a code of conduct this is we'll see this presented around uh before a lot of the sessions um and this again just basically says that people who participate in any edu event general assembly are not um will also have agreed to this code of conduct that's in a registration page it just means again don't discriminate don't be prejudicial and strive towards like this inclusive and welcoming environment to promote discussion and scientific progress um as I said one thing I should say is that if there is a violation in your session and you're worried about that then you should send an email to conduct at edu.eu that is sent to two people within edu for who will confidentially um address what has happened in this session again that is awesome web page as well so um any questions is just that regular web page but if you do have any questions that aren't answered by the web page please again email edu24.capanicus.org so this is the email I've been referring to um throughout the presentation um and I think that was the most living I want to say from my side I will say also um aside from kind of the convening side of things uh any um like a scientist or presenter who has opted in for OSPP um it's mandatory they have to upload uh their presentation at least that includes any other session material but they have to have all uploaded their presentation um this is just because in the case they can't present um for whatever reason um or perhaps um the poster is a maker or whatever you can always a backup of going looking at the material uh online virtually so the judges will have something to judge and they're not excluded from the competition so if someone is doing OSPP if they're going to be um if the materials can be judged that must be uploaded online um yes that's I think everything from my side of things there um I don't think there's any more questions in the conversation um I think we hit most of the key points unless there's anything from your experience in the last seven eightish years you want to add on at all Dan? Yeah just just a side time and as I said at the very very start of things that um you know convening a session is um is is a it's a constant learning um curve so even if you've convened eight nine ten sessions you're always learning about the best ways um about best practice um and I think there is a uh just important that however way you do it and there's no right or wrong way in a sense there are some tips and and hints and guides that we've given in this presentation and this webinar today um but there's no kind of one size pixel approach and each convener will have their own style of convening and leading sessions but what I would say is that um the the way that you do it um if you're consistent and uh you communicate um as much as possible with the authors but the chairs uh that's really the most important so however way you'd like to convene the session just to communicate that with the uh the authors and the chairs in the session um and that basically allows everyone to be on the same page thanks Dan so communication and consistency is key and they're about a technical setup you'll have people there to guide you through um well I think that's uh pretty much the end of the webinar then I hope this has really helped you at least made you more relaxed in your approach to general assembly um so now I'll close the webinar as I said this recording will be again online um unpublished on a YouTube page uh on a YouTube YouTube page uh next week um with that I'll uh say goodbye and I'll see you at general assembly