Session Chair’s Responsibilities:
- Start presentations at their scheduled time, regardless of cancellations or short presentations.
- Ask a question when there is no timely question from the audience.
- Signal authors 5 minutes before the end of their slot and cut them off 1 minute prior.
- In the event of a cancellation, discuss important challenges related to the topic of the session.
- A student assigned to each session will have a laser pointer for speakers who need one.
- That student will handle projection issues and know who to call in case of larger problems.
- Attendees may want to move between sessions, so it is important to start each presentation on time: If a paper is cancelled or the presentation is short, the session should be suspended until it is time to start the next presentation.
- When there are no questions, it is responsibility of the chairperson to ask a question that may give other members in the audience time to think of other questions.
- Authors should not be allowed to go overtime, because this comes at the expense of other authors. Give them a signal 5 minutes before the end of their slot, and cut them off one minute before. If they use all of their allotted time, do not allow questions.
- When a hole develops in the program due to a cancelled paper, consider asking the audience if they would discuss instead important challenges relating to the topic of the session or something similar.
- Each session will have a University of São Paulo student assigned to it with a t-shirt. That student will have a laser pointer for the use of speakers who did not bring one.
- That student will also know how to handle small projection mishaps and will know who to call in case of larger problems.