Large sessions will have separate in-person and virtual chairs. For smaller sessions, a single chair will play both roles.

Responsibilities of the in-person chair:

  • Keep time
  • Introduce speakers
  • Troubleshoot AV issues (working with AV staff or student volunteers, depending on session size)
  • Stay in contact with remote session chair and communicate with speaker about any issues (e.g., if their mic isn’t working)
  • Run the Q&A, alternating between in-person and virtual questioners

Responsibilities of the virtual chair:

  • Help remote participants troubleshoot Zoom issues
  • Notify the in-person chair if there are issues with the AV causing the session to not be visible/audible over Zoom
  • Collect questions from remote participants and provide them to the in-person chair

Please follow these guidelines to ensure accessibility for those who have disabilities and/or who are participating virtually.

  • Schedule. Stick firmly to the schedule. All plenary and some science tracks are being live-captioned to accommodate those who are Deaf/deaf or hard of hearing, and the captioners are only reserved for specific hours.
  • Q&A format. Clearly state when and how attendees can ask questions, and make sure both in-person and virtual attendees are able to participate fully.
  • Audio. Make sure that questions from in-person attendees are audible to remote participants. This will look different in different rooms.
  • Large rooms: Students with portable microphones will walk around to questioners. Please make sure all in-person questions are asked with a microphone.
  • Small rooms: We are working to set up adequate microphone coverage to make attendees audible from the whole room, but coverage might still be imperfect. Check in with remote participants to make sure they are able to hear, and if not, repeat the question or have the presenter do so.
  • Ask questioners to state their name and affiliation before asking their question.
  • Whiteboard/blackboard. If any live writing or diagrams are drawn, please make sure they are visible to remote participants.
    • There will be some standalone webcams available, or alternatively a laptop webcam can be pointed at the blackboard.
    • There are virtual whiteboard tools such as Miro, Mural, and Google Jamboard that allow in-person and remote participants to write on the same “surface” together.