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Important Background:

The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR), founded in 1938, is the oldest interdisciplinary professional association focused solely on family research, practice, and education.

Attendees of the NCFR Annual Conference are largely scholars and professionals in the Family Science discipline. Most attendees are researchers and faculty members, research-focused students, practitioners, or those interested in applying their research to policy.

Symposiums for which the presenter(s) are invited to present and are all well-accomplished in their disciplines. Invited Presenter Symposiums are organized by one or more of NCFR's sections.

Invited Presenter Symposiums have a chair who introduces the presenter(s). These sessions will either have a moderator who moderates the discussion and Q&A or a discussant who gives a 5-minute "take-home" message after the presentation(s) integrating information presented and pushing the message forward. Chairs will moderate the discussion and Q&A when moderators aren’t present. Occasionally, these sessions will have a presider or a facilitator who assist with the session and monitor time.

The following are important details to help prepare a successful presentation.

Invited Presenter Symposium Details:

• Invited Presenter Symposiums are scheduled on Wed., Nov. 3, Thu., Nov. 4, and Fri., Nov. 5 between 10 a.m. Central Time and 4:30 p.m. Central Time. Check the program schedule for the scheduled time of your session.

• The total session time is 75 minutes. This is a tentative schedule:

  • 5-minute introductions

  • 45-50-minute presentation. If applicable, individual presentations are around 12 minutes depending on the number of presenters. Stay within your allotted time. End your presentation on time to be considerate of the other presenters’ times.

  • 5 minutes for discussion remarks when a discussant is part of the session

  • 15 minutes for live discussion and Q&A.

• Attendees will be in listen-only mode and may ask questions through the Zoom Q&A feature. The Zoom chat feature is also available during the live session.

• Chairs or moderators will moderate the discussion and the Q&A portion of the session.

• See your Staging Guide for more specific details. This will be provided in October.

Prior to the conference, connect with the chair, discussant, moderator, facilitator, presider, and other presenters in your session to ensure a successful virtual session. Not all Invited Presenter Symposiums will have each of these roles.

• Send a copy of your presentation and your biographical information to your session chair, moderator, and discussant (or facilitator) by Oct. 11. An email will be sent to you that lists the email addresses of the people to whom you are to send this information.

• All presenters, chairs, moderators, discussants, facilitators, presiders, and any coauthors attending the session or conference must be registered to participate in your scheduled session, including invited individuals. See www.ncfr.org/ncfr-2021/registration to register.

Presenters, Chairs, Discussants, Moderators, Presiders, or Facilitators should arrive at their session 15 minutes early to ensure you are logged in and ready to begin at the start of your session.

Your Invited Presenter Symposiums will be conducted live through Zoom Webinar.

• An individual Zoom Webinar link will be emailed to you prior to the conference. This link should be used to access your session. Note: this link is specific to you and is not the same link attendees will use to access the session.

• Session attendees will not be visible and will be on mute.

Your session will be captioned.

• Please leave blank space at the bottom of each slide (about 2-3 bullet points of space) where the captioning will be placed.

• Email a copy of your presentation, optional handouts, and your biographical information (if you have not already done so) to Judy Schutz ([email protected]) by Oct. 18, 2021 for captioning purposes.

A Note About Providing Handouts at Your Session:

Handouts are recommended, but not required. Handouts or presentation slides can be posted alongside the information about your session.

NEW This Year:  We encourage you to Submit optional handouts directly into Whova between Oct. 11 and Oct. 23, 2021. You will receive an email with a unique link directly from Whova providing instructions starting Oct. 11 once you are registered. Upload final documents. You will not be able to modify or delete any uploaded files.

Optional handouts can include a 1- to 2-page executive summary of your presentation, including implications of your work for policy, practice, research, or pedagogy. Many attendees find these materials beneficial.

All handouts should be accessible and saved as a PDF.

During the conference

• NCFR Zoom Support will be logged into your session to welcome you before the session.

• Write your name within Zoom so others know your name. Click on ‘participants’. When the dialog box open, click on ‘more’ next to your name. Click rename and enter your name.

• Presenters, discussants, moderators, presiders, chairs, and facilitators will have video and audio capabilities.

• Presenters will be allowed to share their screens to share their slides.

• Face the camera when speaking to allow for lip reading.

• Be enthusiastic during your live presentation. 

• Avoid reading your paper, notes, or handouts. Refer to your notes or prepare an outline from which you present your presentation.

• Relax and enjoy yourself as you present your paper, and your audience will respond accordingly.

• Be calm and have a sense of humor, especially if technical difficulties arise.  

• All attendees should have their names visible.

Discussant Preparation and Expectations:

The discussant gives 5 minutes of "take-home" remarks about the presentation material after all presentations are complete. Do not use this time as a place to present your own ideas or research. Your task is to summarize and present “take-home” suggestions.

• Read the material obtained from each paper presenter before the conference. If you have not received the material from the presenter by Oct. 12, contact Cindy Winter ([email protected]) to obtain this information.

• Prepare an outline ahead of time about each presentation.

• Prepare one to three implications for how attendees can use the research presented. 

• If there is not a separate facilitator or chair at your session, prepare a 1-minute introduction of all the presenters. Be concise. You may be asked to facilitate questions and discussion too.

Increasing Engagement

Interactive sessions allow for more engagement among participants and a more stimulating session. The following are suggestions to increase engagement.

• Using tools for polling, word clouds, quizzes, rankings, etc. Mentimeter is one software that can be used. https://www.youtube.com/user/Mentimeter. Feel free to use the software with which you are most comfortable.

Preparing Your Presentation

The following is an in-depth list of instructions to assist in preparing slide presentations. See also Presenter Instructions 2021 NCFR Virtual Conference.

Text

• Keep the title as short as possible so others can read it quickly.

• Use upper- and lower-case type throughout the poster. Avoid all upper-case type.

• Serif fonts (such as Times New Roman) are generally easier to read in the body of the text. Sans serif fonts (such as Arial or Calibri) are best used in titles, headings, and captions for emphasis.

• Use bold and bullets for emphasis.

• Font sizes should be at least 24-point for the body, 28-point for headers, and 32-point for titles.

• Keep it simple, clean, and concise. One item per line works best, so use key words rather than complete sentences. The optimum display on a slide is no more than 6 to 8 lines and 30 words per slide.

• Use only two levels of bullet points.

• Double space between each line of text.

• Leave blank space at the bottom of each slide (about 2-3 bullet points of space) where the captioning will be placed.

Color

• Text should be printed on a contrasting background (dark text on a light background, or light text on a dark background).   

• Avoid harsh colors, such as neon, and text/background color combinations that are hard to read (e.g., red and yellow, red and green, red and black, purple and green, yellow and green, or blue and red).

• Choose no more than two colors (in addition to either white or black) for the graphic elements of your slides (such as borders or horizontal rules) to emphasize elements and draw attention to your slides.

Tables and Charts

• Keep graphics as simple as possible. More complex data can be presented in a handout.

• Photographs should be used sparingly. All images should include a citation, if they were not personally created. Obtain permission to use copyrighted images.

• Do not use hand drawn images.

• All images should be high-quality and look good on screen.

Accessible Presentations and Resources

Design your presentation and materials with accessibility in mind.

• Color and Contrast. Colors should be sharp and in strong contrast without being unsettling. Limit the number of colors used on one slide. Do not only use color to distinguish information.

• Text over images can be difficult to read.

• Send your material in advance, if possible, in case NCFR staff need to provide alternative text (tagged PDF or braille) of your presentation.

• Check Accessibility. Assess whether your slides are accessible by clicking on Review and Check Accessibility (in PowerPoint). For instructions see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/improve-accessibility-with-the-accessibility-checker-a16f6de0-2f39-4a2b-8bd8-5ad801426c7f