PICES X TCODE Electronic Poster Session – Feedback and Recommendations
At the PICES X Annual Meeting, the
Technical Committee on Data Exchange hosted an Electronic Poster Session. The electronic poster session featured
thirteen computer-based presentations on “National and Regional Data
Centers”. The electronic poster session
occurred at the same time and location as the more traditional poster session
and was well attended.
Following the Annual Meeting, the
presenters were contacted by email to gather feedback on the session and gather
recommendations for future sessions.
Six replies were received and are appended to this report. The results and recommendations are summarized
below.
1)
Facilities and Technical support
Respondents agreed that the e-poster
session facilities at PICES X were excellent. Several commented on the value of
knowledgeable technical support staff to set up presentations, equipment and
internet access.
2)
Level of interest displayed in the e-poster session
While most respondents were satisfied
with the level of interest displayed by PICES X participants in the electronic
poster session, there is some suggestion that there was less attention paid to
the electronic posters than more traditional presentations. Some of this may be due to the fact that few
PICES participants are familiar with electronic poster sessions, while almost
everyone has experience with paper poster sessions. A contributing factor may be difficulty in “browsing” – it is more
difficult to scan the e-poster presentations to look for something of specific
interest. Respondents noted that
e-posters with a paper poster backdrop that
described the presentation received more attention.
3)
The electronic poster as a mechanism for presenting
results
Most respondents felt that the
electronic poster was a good mechanism for presenting dynamic results
(traversing web sites, data base searches, analysis and display of results or
model output). It is less clear that an e-poster that follows the more
traditional presentation model (a continuously running slide show, for example)
is as effective. As this is a new form
of presentation, scientists are still working on how to make best use of the
technology.
Respondents noted that the
effectiveness of e-posters was improved by large display screens, dual monitor
displays and in some cases, projector displays to increase the image size.
All respondents indicated that they
would be willing to prepared and present electronic posters again.
1) Technical support is essential. Many respondents noted
this as a key success factor at PICES X.
2) Efforts should be made to secure the best (and biggest!)
display equipment possible. Local organizers should be encourage to secure
(beg, borrow or rent) large format display equipment. This is more important
than providing the computers – many presenters are happy to bring their own
portable computer, but transporting large monitors is awkward and expensive.
3) Each e-poster should be accompanied by a backdrop poster
that outlines the material being presented. This will allow conference
participants to ‘browse” efficiently.
4) E-poster session organizers should produce a simple
handout with display title, presenter and any URLs that are appropriate.
Robin Brown Sept 10, 2002
APPENDICES
1) Request for comments:
'sham@pmel.noaa.gov';
'hdjeong@nfrdi.re.kr';
'sdkim@kordi.re.kr';
'taiyok@jamstec.go.jp';
'akozyr@utk.edu';
'keeley@meds-sdmm.dfo-mpo.gc.ca';
'oguma@mirc.jha.or.jp';
'Dr. Igor D.Rostov '; '
Dr. N. Rykov ';
'suzuki@mirc.jha.or.jp';
'Michelle.Tomlinson@noaa.gov';
'toyo@cue.jhd.go.jp';
'fschwing@pfeg.noaa.gov' (13 participants:
Thank you for your participation in
the TCODE Electronic Poster session (S12) at the PICES Meeting In Victoria,
Canada.
The Technical Committee on Data
Exchange would like to get your feedback on the success (or failure!) of this
session from your personal viewpoint. We plan to use this information to shape
future electronic poster session. I
won't be sharing the details of who said what, so you can be frank and honest.
Some issues you might want to comment
on are:
- were the facilities adequate? If
not, what could be improved?
- did you get a reasonable level of
interest in your presentation?
- did you and your audience find the
electronic version useful or would a paper poster have been as good/better?
- would you be willing to do an
e-poster session again?
please feel free to add any other
comments as well.
Regards
Robin Brown
PICES Technical Committee on Data Exchange
2) Response -
TORU SUZUKI (Japan)
Dear Robin,
>>>> On Thu, 1 Nov
2001 21:27:23 -0500 , BrownRo@pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca said:
b> Some issues you might want
to comment on are:
b> - were the facilities adequate? If not, what
could be improved?
There was two kind of
presentation for E-poster. One is the on demand or mouse-driven display by
audience, e.g., Web or software demonstration, and the other is auto- or
semiauto-play presentation, such as PowerPoint slide show or CG animation. I
think the later was better to put CRT on a tall table or to use dual CRT or a
LCD projector for audiences. (it may be very expensive!)
b> - did you get a reasonable level of interest
in your presentation?
Yes. I had many customer at the
presentation, and I guess they was interested in my animation and movie.
b> - would you be willing to do an e-poster
session again?
Yes, it is my pleasure!
Regards,
Toru
3) Response - IGOR SHEVCHENKO (Russia)
Robin,
glad to hear from you.
As a co-convenor of the e-session, I was looking at all
presentations and around with a
particular care. Moreover, with Thomas Royer, we were searching for a nominee for the best presentation
award. So, my general impression may be
useful.
- were
the facilities adequate? If not, what could be improved?
Yes, the facilities were OK. And I agree with your comment, even
presentations for standalone computers
would be better than paper posters.
- did you
get a reasonable level of interest in your presentation?
Very few of the electronic presentations got an adequate level of
interest at
PICES X. The most of biologists and oceanographers were busy
talking
about the paper posters in their areas of interest
(and drinking wine/beer), and seems
they had no enough time to glance at e-presentations. One option to
attract people is to use multimedia
projector with a big screen, and allocate time for everybody to use this
equipment during a session.
- did you
and your audience find the electronic version useful or would a paper
poster
have been as good/better?
Several people presented both versions, electronic and paper. I
guess it would be a good advice for
all participants to do so.
- would
you be willing to do an e-poster session again?
Yes, I would recommend everybody to present results in a dynamic
form.And e-poster session allows to do
that in a right way.
Regards,
Igor
4) Response -
SHELLY TOMLINSON (U.S.A.)
Robin,
I thought the Electronic Poster
session was very successful. I received
several useful suggestions
regarding our project. Also, I thought
the
facilities were more than
adequate...and actually the technical folks
who set us up were extremely
helpful. I think if I were to
participate
again, I would bring a paper
poster as well to hang near the computer
(or at least something that had
the title of my presentation). This
might be something to suggest to
presenters at the next E-Poster
session. It just seemed that several people came up
to me without know
who I was or what I was presenting.
Hope this is helpful.
Cheers,
5) Response - SACHIKO OGUMA (Japan)
Dear Dr Brown,
Thank you very much for your
effort to produce PICES X e-poster session.
It was nice time with good wine
and cheese.
I would like to answer your
questions.
> Some issues you might want to comment on are:
> -
were the facilities adequate? If not, what could be improved?
Facilities were adequate, and
were much better than that in PICES IX at Hakodate.
Hakodate Future University has a
projector and big screen, which everyone could
see at once. To make a
impressive presentation, big facility can be a better tool.
But, at PICES X, most of
presentation were focused on introduction of
their web sites. Daily we use
keyboard/mouse and small display to see the web site,
not use big screen or projector.
PICES X e-poster might seem small presentation,
but could feel "usual
style" of web sites. On that point, I think PICES X
e-poster was better than PICES
IX.
> - did you get a
reasonable level of interest in your presentation?
I am very sorry to PICNIC
members that I could not prepare the
complete PICNIC web site. There
are some problems in CGI search program
in PICNIC web site yet. So
getting unreasonable level interest is my problem.
However, other presentation, especially
Toru's presentation, could get
much interest during whole
presentation time.
> - did you and your
audience find the electronic version useful or would a
> paper
poster have been as good/better?
Electric version may be useful
for audience as they can see only their interested
matter. On the other hand, for
presenter, its must be hard work
as electric poster is able to be
"infinitive size".
> -
would you be willing to do an e-poster session again?
Yes.
Most of participants may think
that "poster" should be a paper poster.
If someone would like to show
some result of research using
still graphs, paper is enough
media.
I think, however, web site
should be shown via Internet, not on the paper,
because of its dynamic movement
among linked pages.
Moving with user's interest is
an important character of web site,
and is not able to be expressed
using inactive paper.
In future, not only the web site
but the temporal changing results of models
or time series observations will
need active media.
E-poster is useful to show the
results which have temporal change.
In PICES X, most of presentation
were HTML files, but Power Point (Micro Soft),
which is already used by many
researchers, is also useful to show an animation,
and is also able to be an
e-poster. Now there are few researchers using animation
for their presentations,
however, e-poster session will be necessary and important
field for active presentation.
But if it will be true, it
should be much hard work for chairman
to provide enough facility. I will make effort for PICNIC web site to be
attractive as much as possible until PICES XI ...
Yours sincerely,
Sachiko Oguma
6) Response - FRANK SCHWING
(U.S.A.)
Robin,
Thanks for following up on the
e-poster session at PICES. In my opinion, it
was a success. The presentation
we gave could not have been given with a
traditional paper poster. We
would participate in another one in the
future. Here are some
reflections from me regarding e-posters.
1) It is vital to have
knowledgeable assistance on hand when e-posters are
being set up, and during the
session. I don't recall the name of the
gentleman who helped with this
session. However he was tremendous! He made
sure everything was working,
including the Internet, and even provided me
with a larger monitor. On the
other hand, he was not dogmatic about how
everything should be set up, as
many computer AV types can be. Without his
capable help, our presentation
could have been compromised, or at least the
set up would have cost me much
more time and aggravation.
2) Internet access is also
important. This made the session much more
useful than if only AC power had
been made available. I believe this was
true for most of the presenters.
3) A useful addition would be
assembling a complete list of the URLs of the
e-posters, and making it
available to the audience. I noted several viewers
hand-writing the long,
cumbersome URLs as they went around.
4) I learned to not assume that
a highly educated adult knows how to
operate any computer. On a
number of occasions I looked over to see someone
trying to use the borrowed
monitor as a "touch screen" to start our
presentation. Our e-poster was
not as stand-alone as I assumed. I needed to
stand by the poster for the
entire time to guide the audience.
Thanks again for a very good
session. Regards from Lynn and Roy.
Frank Schwing
7) Response - BOB KEELEY
(Canada)
Dear Robin,
I am not sure of my reaction to the electronic poster session.
The
facilities were fine and as far
as I could tell, the technical aspects
performed flawlessly. I am not
sure I adapted my presentation to exploit
the advantages of an electronic
medium rather than paper. One thing that I
think is very useful to have is
a second, slaved monitor with each station
(as I had but others did not).
That way, if someone is working away in
front of a screen, others can
see what is going on and the "action" may
well attract them. The
challenges that I see in having an effective
electronic poster is to overcome
the small screen sizes, to have a
presentation that does not
require the presenter to sit with his back to
the potential audience, and to
be able to jump from "page" to "page" of the
presentation in reaction to
questions. Overall, I think it is an
interesting idea, and is worth
trying again. It would be worthwhile to
share with future presenters
some suggested "do's and don'ts" of an
effective electronic poster. I
hope you can glean these from the returned
comments.
Regards, Bob