 This orientation contains important tips to help you make the most out of your 2012 EDUCAUSE annual conference experience in Denver, Colorado. In addition to a quick overview of the conference and program, we will cover various ways to find sessions and what the online schedule and session descriptions look like. We'll also show you how to prepare your exhibit hall experience and identify networking opportunities so you can build your personal itinerary. We'll conclude with some last-minute tips to help you get the most out of the conference. The EDUCAUSE annual conference has a content-rich program with over 400 sessions, meetings, and experiences in the face-to-face agenda and more than 100 in the online agenda. There are several ways for you to explore the program website to build your personal itinerary, so let's jump right in. We'll start on the conference home page where you will see a brief overview of the conference and links to the latest deadlines and news. Keep an eye on this page for regular updates before, during, and immediately after the conference. Before you get started, you should log into the website with your EDUCAUSE profile. This will automatically enable several functions. There are seven sections of the conference website. In addition to this welcome overview page, there is a link to the agenda and program for the face-to-face conference and information about the online conference as well as special sections for speakers and exhibitors and logistical information about the hotel and travel and a link to the registration page. Let's take a look at the agenda and program page so you can start to plan your own itinerary. On this page, you will find information about pre-conference seminars as well as how you can engage with corporations at the conference and other information specific to planning your agenda. To make the best use of your time at the conference, you will want to plan your itinerary in advance and we've provided the planning your experience page to help you do just that. To explore the content of the conference by specific areas of interest, you should become familiar with domains, themes, and types of sessions. Sessions are organized into six major domains, topics like enterprise, infrastructure, and leadership that cover all aspects of higher education IT. In addition to domains, sessions are further categorized by 16 themes such as mobility, analytics, and student success that further define the sessions. Beyond content categorization as reflected in domains and themes, you will probably be interested in how a session will be presented, what we call session type, such as panel sessions, poster sessions, or traditional concurrent sessions. Let's look at session types in a little more detail. They are listed alphabetically on the planning your experience page and include pre-conference seminars, concurrent sessions with experts and peers with some scheduled in one of two professionally designed flexible learning spaces. There are also several types of less formal discussion and panel sessions, technology-oriented sessions from both our corporate and institutional members, poster sessions including an exciting new digital poster gallery, and sessions that will be webcast for live viewing by online attendees and professionally recorded for anyone to view as part of the conference proceedings. Let's use the planning your experience page to search for sessions by domain, theme, or type. When you click on a domain or theme, you will be taken to the conference search page. For example, when selecting the teaching and learning domain, you will be taken to the search screen and the filter shows teaching and learning. You can further filter your search by clicking on any of the themes related to the teaching and learning domain. You can also search by theme, for example, green sustainability, and that search page displays the four sessions related to that theme from across three domains. So you don't have to limit building your itinerary by a particular domain. You can opt to attend sessions on important themes that span several domains. Think of domains and themes as a way for you to fine-tune the program by the content of sessions for which you are most interested. The search engine is also able to filter sessions by their format using the session type descriptor. Just like domains and themes, when you select the link, you will be taken to the search results listing all sessions regardless of theme, domain, or date for that session type. There will be printed programs available in Denver, but you can also explore the program schedule electronically. The program agenda has a tab for each day of the conference week, which lists the total number of available face-to-face sessions, meetings, and activities you can select to build your personal itinerary. Each day's agenda shows when the registration desk is open, as well as other community-specific lounges such as the speaker ready room, which is a great place for presenters to make copies, test their presentation on a conference projector, and use as a base of operations for last-minute preparations. As you look at the various session descriptions, you will see the key descriptors, or facets, are hot-linked, including the speakers, the domain and theme, as well as the type of session. When you click on one of these facets, you will be taken to the search results screen with a list of all sessions that meet the criteria for this facet. And of course, selecting any session title from the agenda will take you to the same session details page that was reached via searching through domains, themes, and types. With so many sessions to choose from, it's impossible to attend them all, so over 60 sessions will be professionally streamed, recorded, and made available to you after the conference. These webcasts are all marked in the agenda page with this blue screen icon. Keep in mind that the search results screen features all sessions and meetings and events for both the face-to-face and online program, so you'll need to look carefully at the session detail to make sure you're selecting a session for the conference you've registered for, face-to-face in Denver or online. Now let's take a look at a session's web page. In addition to the full abstract and information about the presenters, you will find the date, time, and room number. There's also a tab with a map to the room's location in the Denver Convention Center. Each session has a unique Twitter hashtag. The Twitter stream for that session will show at the bottom of the page. If you are logged in and registered for the conference, you can also select the Add Me button to add this session to your saved itinerary, and you can select the Attendees tab to see who else has added this session. We will go over this function in greater detail shortly. This year's exhibit hall hosts more than 270 technology, service, and solution providers. The exhibit hall opens on Wednesday, November 7th from 9.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. and from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on Thursday. And don't miss the networking reception with refreshments and hors d'oeuvres from 4.30 to 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday. This year's conference exhibit hall will feature specialized alleys, including two startup company alleys and a market research alley, where you can provide valuable input and feedback to companies. The Next Generation Learning Challenges, or NGLC, alley showcases grantee presentations of successful projects and resources on the latest innovations happening in teaching and learning. In the middle of the exhibit hall is the Learning Theater, a new community space designed for high-energy presentations and informal group discussions. On Wednesday, the first EDUCAUSE Game Changers business competition will be held, as startup companies present business plans for a chance to win prizes from EDUCAUSE and Google. On Thursday, from 1.30 to 4.30 p.m., nonprofits share and discuss community solutions to community problems during the Community Projects pilot. The Exhibitor Directory, available from the Agenda and Program menu, will help you navigate the hall and locate companies of interest. There are several icons associated with companies in the directory, including one that enables you to email the exhibitor, a PR icon indicates a press release, a new icon is for the first-time exhibitors, and an icon will indicate special exhibitor discounts for attendees. By selecting the exhibitor name, you will be taken to the interactive hall map that shows you the booth location. And you can select the Add button to add them to your personal itinerary builder, just like the Add button for sessions. Selecting conference sessions and exhibitors is one part of building your personal itinerary. Another is identifying ways to connect with other attendees. One way is to be sure to customize your name badge with colorful stickers that reflect areas of interest or institutional role. Ribbons are also available for volunteer committees and board members. To collect your stickers and select volunteer ribbons, visit the ribbon and sticker bar located near the registration desk. Connect with your peers informally in one of several lounges, including the Community and Constituent Group Lounge, where attendees can get together for impromptu and birds-of-a-feather meetings, the CIO Lounge, where CIOs are invited to relax and hold informal gatherings, and the International Welcome Lounge for international attendees. Clicking on any of these meeting rooms will bring you to a page where you can add the room to your itinerary or click on the Location tab to get a map to the location. There are also opportunities to meet with EDUCAUSE staff and member leaders by going to EDUCAUSE Central, a community hub near the registration area. Check the agenda for staff and community leader schedules. It's also a great place to learn more about EDUCAUSE, meet colleagues, or just take a break and recharge your mobile device. If you are a CIO, the CIO experience is created for you. Use this page to explore all of the opportunities and keep track of daily updates. Everyone can get involved by convening a session. Conveners introduce the speakers, ensure the session ends on time, make last-minute announcements, summon technology help if needed, and remind attendees to complete the session evaluation form. Join us in piloting an EDUCAUSE unconference experience where you can participate in a continuing discussion about the issues surrounding BYOD and higher education. As a registered attendee, you'll receive an email inviting you to crowdsource and vote on specific topics prior to the conference using an idea scale hub. Then, join fellow unconference participants from 1.30 to 4.30 on Thursday in meeting room 503-504 and be prepared to interact and engage face-to-face and on Twitter with hashtags EDU12, UNCONF, and through live blogs. Social media is integrated throughout the entire conference experience and is another great way to connect with other attendees. Remember, you can tweet or comment from the bottom of any session page and at the bottom of every 2012 annual conference page you will see links for the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Flickr pages for the conference. The hashtag for the conference is EDU2012. Be sure to post to your own social media networks and use the hashtag often. As you have seen, if you are logged into your EDUCAUSE profile while exploring the schedule, you can add sessions, meetings, activities, and exhibitors to your personal itinerary. When you view the agenda, items you have already selected will be indicated by a checkbox. In addition to selecting agenda items directly from the session page, you can select them from this page as well. You will be notified that this feature is for reference only as all of the rooms are filled on a first come first serve basis. In other words, this doesn't guarantee you a seat in the session, but it does add it to your custom itinerary and lists you in the attendees tab. When you select my itinerary from the agenda and program page, you will see the subset of the full agenda and exhibitors that you have added so far. You can also export your itinerary for use in any iCalendar compatible applications such as Google Calendar Outlook or Apple iCal. After you've built your personal itinerary, all that remains is to confirm your travel and earlier or absentee U.S. election voting for registered voters. Check the conference home page for regular updates and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at info.educaus.edu or 303-449-4430. We hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and we look forward to seeing you in Denver.