Duties and Responsibilities of Presenters at the 26th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education, Oregon State University

Oral presentations offered at each Biennial Conference on Chemical Education are a great way to share findings of effective practices for teaching and learning. We appreciate all of the work that the presenters do to prepare and deliver their talk. Presenting a talk at a professional meeting is providing a service to the chemistry education community. Faculty often have obligation to show they are engaged in professional practices and the BCCE is a great way to do this. For all of the good work our presenters do, the recent BCCEs have experienced several difficulties.

Registration and Meeting Attendance are Required

Once your name and institution affiliation are listed on the 26th BCCE program (on-line and in print) you are obligated to present your talk. The American Chemical Society requires you, as a presenter, to register for the BCCE and be physically present during the meeting. As a presenter, upon picking up your registration packet at the meeting you will receive a special icon on your registration badge and you will receive a complimentary commemorative “Al D. Hyde and the Key Tones” guitar pick.

Presentation Guidelines

Presenters are reminded that other chemistry educators come to the BCCE, having read the program, and wanting to meet you and to learn all they can from your presentation. It is the presenter’s responsibility to communicate the research question, the big ideas, data to support claims and scholarly commentary that are at the core of the presentation. Under no circumstances should a paper or a set of slides be read verbatim to the audience—this will not provide the audience with a good experience. Rather, the presenter should think carefully about major themes, what members of the audience would find most useful and how the topic fits into the session’s overall theme. The audience can always read the paper if published.

Presenters should prepare and deliver papers in such a way that they provoke meaningful thought and discussion or inform the audience of an effective teaching and learning practice. To this end, presenters should…

  • Organize the paper around a clear question or argument
  • Establish the significance of this question or argument from the literature or from actual data
  • Craft presentations with supporting data, visual components, etc.
  • Practice the presentation ahead of time in the allotted time (15 minutes) in front of a group of colleagues
  • Expect members of the audience to have some questions. Be prepared to answer the question asked.
  • Be attentive to your allotted presentation time: conclude your presentation within that time, do not request additional time, do not continue reading/speaking past the conclusion of your allotted time, respect the presider’s obligations to the other presenters and the audience.

Session Room Equipment

There will be complimentary presenter laptops in each technical session room. The laptop is provided as an alternative to presenters or program chairs supplying their own equipment, but the use is optional. There will be a projector in each room. Presenters often bring their own lap-top computers. If so, be sure to bring a variety of dongles (VGA, HDMI, etc.)

Failure to Present Your Talk, Poster or Workshop

The BCCEs have a problem with chemistry educators who submit abstracts, have their name listed on the program and then not show up at the meeting to deliver their talk or poster. We also have a problem with people who withdraw their paper after the program has been printed in the program book and posted on the BCCE website. Not presenting your talk, poster or workshop at a BCCE is a serious event because you have decreased the quality and quantity of the technical program. Please do not submit an abstract if you are uncertain you will attend the BCCE.

If you fail to register for the meeting and are absent for your presentation, your abstract will be withdrawn and removed from the meeting program, technical programming archive and CAS database. If you, as the presenter, are unable to make your presentation at the stated time and location, it is your responsibility to submit a withdrawal request to [email protected] prior to the start of the conference. Registration rates and all meeting policies are available at the 26th BCCE website. Should you discover that you will be unable to attend the conference, please alert via e-mail the symposium organizer, the presider and the BCCE program chair.

Consequences of Not Presenting your Paper, Poster or Workshop at the BCCE

If you do not present your talk at the 26th BCCE, ethically, you may not include the talk on your c.v. Anyone who is listed as a presenter of a paper or poster or workshop who does not show at the conference and does not deliver their paper or poster or workshop anyone who withdraws their paper or poster without an acceptable reason as determined by the BCCE program chair, will be placed on a BCCE suspect list for four years. Such individuals will not be eligible to submit an abstract for a subsequent BCCE meeting, present a paper or a poster or a workshop until they serve or agree to serve as a presider for a symposium session, a general paper session or a poster session at the next BCCE or an ACS regional or national meeting.