General information
Please note: While most of the guidelines provided below are universal, there are slight differences (marked in the text) in how they apply to conference talks and workshop talks.
Guidelines for all attendees
- Adhere to the ACM's Policy Against Harassment, as requested during registration.
Guidelines for attending on-site
- Bring your headphones, microphone, and a laptop computer with you when attending onsite to join Gather, e.g., during the online poster session, or other online sessions.
Guidelines for attending online
- Pick a quiet space for giving your presentation or asking questions, to avoid disturbing background noise.
- Similarly, always use headphones to avoid echos and parasitic feedback.
Guidelines for speakers
For detailed instructions, see this PDF (last updated: July 12, 2023).
- All talks should be given through Zoom. i.e., showing the slides by means of screen sharing from your own laptop, even when the talk is given onsite.
- Presenters are required to bring their laptop for this purpose.
- If you wish to have access to the presenter view (despite no second screen / projector being connected), please take a look at this guide, courtesy of Leonardo Vanneschi.
- All talks should be given live — pre-recorded videos are meant only as a backup, to be used sparingly in case of serious technical difficulties.
- If you are an online speaker, you will be joining through Zoom. Ensure you are present 15 minutes before the session stats.
- After checking in to your session, confirm to session chair that your presentation will be virtual or onsite.
- Enable your camera whenever possible, to connect better to your audience and improve listeners’ experience. As much as possible, have your camera at eye level and look into the camera when talking. Try and have an uncluttered background or use built-in functionality to blur your natural background or apply a professional looking background.
- Avoid quick flipping of slides – viewers with slower connections may experience significant lags. If you plan to play a video clip, consider slowing it down, for the same reason.
- Be ready to reply to questions that may arise in Whova after your talk.
Guidelines for preparing your oral presentations
- See below: videos are due by 29 June (AoE).
- The amount of time available for presentations should adhere to the following limits:
- For conference and long workshop presentations: not longer than 16 minutes.
- For Hot Off the Press and short workshop presentations: not longer than 8 minutes.
- For any poster presentation (including Late Breaking Abstracts and Competitions): not longer than 5 minutes.
- For Tutorials: between 60 and 100 minutes.
- For workshop talks, presentation length may vary; you will receive instructions from the workshop organizers whether presentations are long or short.
- Make an extra effort to engage the audience and sustain its attention.
- Focus on conveying the essence of your contribution, leaving out the inessential details. Saying less, but clearly is preferable to rushing through a lot of content.
- Avoid verbosity on your visual material: prefer short phrases to full sentences, and use no more than 5-6 of them on each slide. Remember that most people are bad at multitasking, which implies they tend to either listen to you or read your slides, but rarely both.
- Try not to read directly from the slides or notes that you write for yourself, notes are great for practice, but a natural live presentation is so much better, even if not as smooth.
- If you have equations or result graphs on slides, ensure that you explain them and do not rush through.
- Do not assume that everyone in the audience knows all the concepts, make a judgement on what needs to be introduced based on the track and session that you are in — a 30 seconds introduction often saves a lot of frustration for someone less familiar with the topic of your work.
- Please keep the following in mind that, in online events, the attention span of the audience tends to be shorter than in onsite events — this was one of the motivations for shortening the talks of GECCO — we kindly ask you to make an extra effort to stimulate interactions.
- Ensure that the font size is readable (without zooming in) even at the HD resolution (1280×720 pixels).
Instructions for pre-recorded video presentations
- Pre-recorded videos are mandatory for Conference (corresponding to an 8-page full paper), Workshop (short, long, poster), Hot Off the Press and Tutorial presentations.
- Pre-recorded videos are optional for all poster presentations, excluding workshop posters.
- Pre-recorded videos are meant only as a backup, to be used sparingly in case of serious technical difficulties — all talks should be given live.
- The video duration/length should adhere to the following:
- For conference and long workshop presentations: not longer than 16 minutes.
- For Hot Off the Press and short workshop presentations: not longer than 8 minutes.
- For any poster presentation (including Late Breaking Abstracts and Competitions): not longer than 5 minutes.
- For Tutorials: between 60 and 100 minutes.
- Prepare your video in MP4 file format.
- Video presentations shall be uploaded using the GECCO submission system.
- Video presentations are to be uploaded by 29 of June (AoE).
Video Recording and Editing Software
There exist several options to record and edit your presentation and you may choose the one you are most familiar with. If this is your first time, we suggest the following options:
- If you already use Zoom for video conferencing, you can launch a Zoom meeting just for yourself and use the Share screen and Record features to easily record your presentation.
- If you are looking for recording software, we suggest OBS Studio, a multi-platform open source solution, for which you will find many tutorials online.
- Once recorded, you may wish to edit your video. MacOS users may want to try iMovie. For a multi-platform open source solution, we suggest OpenShot.
- After editing, if you need to transcode your video, you can use HandBrake.
Guidelines for poster presenters (all, online and onsite)
- There will be two poster sessions: The first session will run at the same time separately online (Gather) and in-person (onsite). The second session will run completely in Gather, with both remote and onsite participants mingling in Gather.
- If you are an onsite participant bring your laptop computer, headphones and microphone (if needed) to join the second Gather session and present the poster to the remote attendees.
- Be prepared that some participants will spend 1 minute looking at your poster, others 5 mins and some others 15+ minutes.
- Instead of trying to include every single detail of the work on the poster, think about the three groups above, and how you can create a poster from which everyone takes home something useful. Spend time on deciding what to exclude from the full paper rather than meticulously including every detail.
- Ensure that the poster clearly presents the key take-home message.
- Think of what is the best visual way of illustrating this.
- Use colours that are contrasting.
- If your paper contains very large tables or result graphs, consider just showing parts of these, or the key information instead of the full detail.
- You can include a QR code that links to your paper online, so any interested visitor can take a picture and go directly to the paper.
- Decide on a logical and simple structure for the poster, so that a viewer can figure out how to read it even if you are not there to explain.
- Remember that the poster is expected to attract attention and spark a discussion, and not to be a replica of the paper.
Technical instructions for posters
All (onsite and online):
- Prepare a digital version of your poster. This digital version can be in portrait orientation, although, if possible, we encourage you to provide the digital version in landscape orientation and 16:9 aspect ratio. The file should be in PNG or JPG format with a maximum size of 3MB and a minimum of 1000 pixels in the larger axis, i.e., minimum width of 1000 pixels in landscape orientation and minimum height of 1000 pixels in portrait orientation.
- Upload the digital version of the poster using the GECCO submission system.
- The digital version of the posters will be placed in Gather by the organizers.
- Optionally, you can prepare a 5-minute video explaining your poster, which will be made available to the attendees and could also be uploaded to the ACM YouTube channel to disseminate your work. Providing a video does not exempt you from presenting your poster at the conference.
Onsite only:
- Prepare your physical poster in portrait (vertical) orientation and A0 size.
- Posters can be placed during the day on Monday (July 17). More details will follow.
- Posters that have already been printed at home can be carried in a poster tube. However, as an alternative, also think about printing your poster on cloth/canvas, as you can fold it and easily transport it in a suitcase.
- Of course, you can also have the posters printed in Lisbon. You can find more information about this below.
Printing Posters in Lisbon
As it may be more convenient to have posters printed locally, the following print shops nearby the venue may be of interest.
Imaginação Impressa
Website
Location: Rua Braamcamp 15 A, 1250-049 Lisboa (350m from the venue)
Opening Hours: Open from Monday-Friday 10AM-6PM, closed on the weekend.
Prices:
- A0, Eco paper 150 gr, matte: 22.50€
- A0, Coated paper 180 gr, matte: 24€
Delivery Time:
- 1-2 hours, depending on the paper and ink used, and workload of the printers at the moment.
Ordering process:
- In-person or online. The PDF file of the poster should be sent to info at imagi.pt
- This can be done in advance and it is possible to schedule a day for order pick up
- Payment must be made when ordering, via bank transfer
Arco Iris - Centros de Copia
Website
Location: Rua Nova da Trindade 5, Rua da Misericórdia 14 loja 10, 1200-301 Lisboa (1500m from the venue)
Opening Hours: Open from Monday-Friday 9AM-7PM, closed on the weekend.
Prices:
- A0, Coated paper 180 gr, matte: 20€
Delivery Time:
- 1-2 hours, depending on the paper and ink used, and workload of the printers at the moment.
Ordering process:
- In-person or online. The PDF file of the poster should be sent to lojaonline at centrosarcoiris.pt
- This can be done in advance and it is possible to schedule a day for order pick up
- Payment must be made when ordering, via bank transfer
Copianço
Website
Location: Av. Dom Carlos I 118, 1200-651 Lisboa (1600m from the venue)
Opening Hours: Open from Monday-Friday 9AM-8PM, Saturday 9AM-6PM, closed on Sunday.
Prices:
- Coated paper 180 gr, matte: 16€
- With delivery to a Lisbon address: 16€+5€ = 21€
Delivery Time:
- 24 hours or more, depending on availability
- Add transportation time if applicable
Ordering process:
- In-person or online. The PDF file of the poster should be sent to santos at copianco.com.pt
- Payment must be made when ordering, via bank transfer
Guidelines for session chairs
For detailed instructions, see this PDF (last updated: July 12, 2023)