Presenters & Moderators

Live Session Instructions

Live Q&A - Moderators

• Main Objectives: 
  • Moderators will lead/facilitate a healthy discussion between speakers and the audience during live sessions. 
  • Moderators will introduce each speaker and direct questions to them that have been submitted by the audience. 
  • Two session moderators are assigned per session and duties may be shared.
  
  
• Prior to the Session: 
  • Familiarize yourself with Zoom. You will need to: 
    • Test your computer to ensure that you can use zoom on that device by joining this test meeting: https://zoom.us/test
    • Manage participants feature - in order to promote speakers to panelist 
    • Use chat feature - review questions and communicate to the audience.
    • Moderators are asked to review all presentations in their session
  • The presenter list and co-moderator for your session can be found in the conference program here. 
  • Please familiarize yourself with the ABS meeting code of conduct rules. 
  
  
• During the Session: 
  • Please note that the meeting settings will be pre-set by the conference organizers for all sesisons, and moderators SHOULD NOT make any adjustments to the meeting settings. Once ABS Admin promotes you as host, they will not be able to correct/adjust settings for you.
  • Log into your session's Zoom Meeting 30 minutes prior to the posted start time by visiting your live session page in the virtual program. The Zoom meeting link will be posted in the online program 30 minutes prior to the start time of the session on your session's page. Upon joining the Zoom meeting, add MODERATOR to your name so that you can be promoted as host to allow you to manage the session as instructed above. Attendees will be allowed to enter the virtual room 15 minutes prior to the posted start time. 
  • Identify your speakers. Speakers will be asked to join the session and label themselves as “Speaker - Their Last Name," so that you can easily identify them and promote them as a “panelist” as needed. Once promoted to panelist, speakers will be able to unmute themselves and respond to questions once you’ve introduced them. 
  • Questions will be submitted by the audience through the chat feature. Chats can only be viewed by the moderators (you and your co-moderator). The audience will not be able to speak or view these chats. Therefore, it is your job to select and ask the questions to each presenter. 
  • Each speaker is generally allotted 4 minutes to answer questions. In the case that your session is missing speakers, and you have extra time in your session, you may lengthen the amount of time for each speaker as evenly as possible. 
  • Begin your session on-time, please introduce the session and give all attendees instructions on how the session will run and how to ask questions. An introduction sample is included below. 
  
  

Live Q&A - Parallel Talks/6-Minute Presentations

• Prior to the session
  • Familiarize yourself with Zoom.
    • Test your computer - ensure that you can use zoom on that device by joining this test meeting: https://zoom.us/test. This should be the same computer you use during the live event.
    • Rename feature - in order to label yourself as a speaker so moderators can identify you from the audience.
    • Mute/unmute yourself - you will unmute to speak once you are introduced by the moderator, then mute yourself once your time is up.
• During the session
  • Log into your session's Zoom meeting at least 15 minutes prior to the posted start time by visiting your live session page in the virtual program. The Zoom meeting link will be available in the online program 30 minutes prior to the start time of the session on your session's page. The ABS program can be accessed here.
  • Identify yourself as a speaker. Once you log into the meeting rename yourself as: "Speaker - Your Last Name", so that moderators can promote you as a panelist. You will then be able to unmute yourself to respond to audience questions that are presented to you verbally by the moderator.
  • Start/turn on your video so that the audience will be able to see you. We recommend a quiet place with as little background noise as possible.
  • Please arrive to your session on-time and plan to stay the entire session. Each speaker will generally be allotted 4 minutes to answer questions. In the case that your session is missing speakers, moderators may lengthen the amount of time each speaker has.
  • Questions will be submitted by the audience through the chat feature, and can only be viewed by the moderators (and co-moderator). The audience will not be able to speak or view these chats. Therefore, it is the moderator's job to select and ask you the questions. The audience will see the speakers and moderators.
  • Moderators will introduced each speaker who is present one-at-a-time in the order they are listed in the program (alphabetically). Only unmute yourself when it is your turn to respond to questions.
  • Q&A chats will be available to presenters after their session so that you may have a copy of all questions.