Guide for Parallel Session Organisers

Thank you for organising a parallel session at NAM2022. Without your efforts we wouldn’t have a conference, let alone one with such an exciting science programme.

We have put together this guide to provide some information about the practicalities of running your sessions during the conference. 

Other guides are available for:

1. In-person attendees
2. In-person speakers and poster presenters
3. Online attendees
4. Online speakers and poster presenters
5. Lunch session organisers

Guides will be updated semi-regularly, so please check the date of last update to see if there have been any changes.

If you or your session attendees have any further questions, please see if they're answered elsewhere on the website. If not, the first point of contact is the LOC email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Last updated: 13th July with updated information on speakers providing talks, an FAQ about recordings, and updated information about the platform.

Spaces

Parallels are taking place in the Arts Centre Theatre (550 people) and Social Sciences rooms S0.21 (95 people), S0.20 (55 people), S0.19 (55 people), S0.18 (45 people), and S0.11 (55 people). Attendance at the parallels will be limited by the maximum capacities of the rooms.

We will be running an overflow space in S0.13, streaming one of the parallels when needed.

Room allocations are available on the block schedule and in the conference brochure. 

Running your session

Before the session:

1. Make sure your speakers know the schedule for the session
   1. The detailed schedule is available on the NAM website. 
   2. If you wish to distribute your session schedule to your speakers yourself, please feel free to do so.
2. Check all speakers are present
3. Make sure all in-person talks are on the shared laptop
   1. Speakers have been asked to upload their talks to the shared OneDrive, or bring them on a USB stick for upload. The OneDrive will be open in a browser window on the laptop (please do NOT close this window!). 
   2. You can run the slides directly from OneDrive, or download the talks to the laptop to run them locally. If downloading them, we recommend downloading them one at a time.
4. Familiarise yourself with the in person and online setup.
   1. There will be ReAttendance staff in the room to help, but they are primarily there to run the vision and audio mixing, and ensure that the stream runs smoothly. They will switch between the in-person and online presenters when appropriate.
   2. Check that the microphones are working
5. If running a panel, think about where to position your panellists

During the session:

1. Monitor both in person and online questions
   1. We recommend having a co-Chair who’s responsible for the online part of the session, and who monitors the online discussion on a separate laptop!
   2. Please try to be fair to both in-person and online questions, and include both if you can.
2. Have someone to pass the microphone around for questions.
3. Request that questions from the audience wait for the microphone – it helps both online listeners and attendees with hearing difficulties!
4. Be aware of the time that it takes to switch between presentations, e.g. start switching during the Q&A part of the talk slot.
5. Be aware of your session time! The schedule is tight as it is so make sure your session does not run over (especially those on the last one on Monday due to the Kenilworth Castle visit). 

ReAttendance platform

All in-person attendees have full access to the ReAttendance online platform. You should have received an invitation from ReAttendance containing your personalised link to join the platform; if you have not received this email, please contact the LOC and we will investigate.

For information about some of the features of the platform, please see the Guide for Online Attendees

FAQs

1. Can I swap talks e.g. due to technical difficulties?
    - You have some amount of flexibility, but please try to keep to the overall schedule for your session as some speakers may have multiple presentations in different sessions, and attendees may be moving between sessions.

2. Is it possible to have anonymous questions?
    - Unfortunately with the ReAttendance hybrid option it is not possible to ask questions anonymously.

3. Are the sessions recorded?
   - All sessions, and all talks within each session, are recorded as standard practice and available for re-watching shortly after the end of the session. If any of your speakers would not like their talks to be available later, please ask them to contact the LOC so that they can be edited out of the recording.