Oral Presentation Instructions

Oral presentations (except for invited plenary talks) will be scheduled in 20-minute slots. We strongly encourage a presentation of no longer than 15 minutes to allow 5 minutes for questions and discussion. Please be aware that session chairs will strictly enforce the time limit to ensure that other speakers in the session are given the time promised to them.

As early as possible in the conference week—but no later than the day before your presentation—you should test and upload your presentation in the speaker ready room ("Sooke") which is located on the same level as the theatre. PC and Macintosh computers will be available for you to test your presentation. After completing testing, you will upload your presentation to a shared folder on the network. The speaker ready room will be available from 4 - 7 pm on Sunday, October 23rd, and 7:30 - 5:30 Monday through Thursday. If you have any particularly complex requests, please contact Jenny ([email protected]) at least a day in advance of your presentation so she can have you discuss your request with the A/V technician.

For efficient retrieval by the A/V technician, all files should be named using the following format:

Submitter's LastName_presentation day (Ramarui_Monday).

Acceptable formats for presentations are PowerPoint (.ppt or .pptx), Apple Keynote (.key), or PDF (.pdf). Videos may be either embedded in the PowerPoint or Keynote presentation or viewed in a third party media player. Acceptable video formats are .mov or MP4. Please prepare your content and ppt/key slides in 16:9 or widescreen format if possible to ensure consistent appearance of presentations.If you have any questions about presentation formats, please contact Jenny Ramarui at [email protected].

Presenters will have a podium and microphone available, as well as a video screen where the presentation can be viewed while still facing the audience. Presenters will be able to advance the slides themselves and the A/V technician will monitor the presentation from the booth in the back of the theatre. 

Presentations should be prepared with clarity in mind, using easy to read fonts and font sizes. Please avoid the use of red on green and vice versa to ensure that any audience members with difficulty differentiating between these colors are able to read all slide content. The Oceanography Society provides an excellent guide titled "Scientifically Speaking" on preparing both oral and poster presentations that can be found here.