Poster session

Poster session at the 111th American Society for Microbiology General Meeting, New Orleans, LA.

A poster presentation, at a congress or conference with an academic or professional focus, is the presentation of research information in the form of a paper poster that conference participants may view. A poster session is an event at which many such posters are presented. Poster sessions are particularly prominent at scientific conferences such as medical and engineering congresses.<ref>Writing@CSU, Colorado State University, Definition of a Poster Session.</ref><ref>Department of Biology, George Mason University, A Guide to Writing in the Biological Sciences, The Poster Session. Archived 2009-04-12 at the Wayback Machine</ref><ref name="ColinP">Purrington, Colin (February 19, 2010). "Designing conference posters". Colin Purrington. Retrieved 2010-03-05.</ref>

Academic conference

To participate in a poster session, an abstract is submitted to the academic or professional society for consideration and on occasion may include peer-reviewed material qualified for journal publication. Selected poster abstracts are then designated for oral presentation or poster presentation. Quite often, poster content is embargoed from release to the public until the commencement of the poster session. Typically a separate hall or area of a convention floor is reserved for the poster session where researchers accompany a paper poster, illustrating their research methods and outcomes. Each research project is usually presented on a conference schedule for a period ranging from 10 minutes to several hours. Very large events may feature thousands of poster presentations over a number of days.<ref>See, for example, the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting, November 2018, Annual Meeting Abstracts.</ref>

Presentations usually consist of affixing the research poster to a portable board with the researcher in attendance answering questions posed by passing colleagues.<ref name="ColinP" /> The poster boards are often 4 by 6 feet (1.2 m × 1.8 m) or 4 by 8 feet (1.2 m × 2.4 m) and the size of the poster itself varies according to whether the conference organizers decide to have one, two, or more posters on each board face.<ref name="ColinP" /> Posters are often created using a presentation program such as PowerPoint and may be printed on a large format printer. Glossy paper, matte paper (with or without gloss or matte lamination), satin paper, vinyl, and printable fabric are common substrates for poster presentations.

On occasion, poster sessions are displayed digitally on large monitors and this allows for features such as embedded videos, narrations and external links.

Collections of digital posters can successfully be viewed on desktop monitors with sufficient resolution and pixel density. This provides a means for academic and professional societies to create digital archives of current and past poster sessions.

Organizers of digital poster sessions are challenged with managing the logistics of presenting hundreds, if not thousands, of posters on a limited number of monitors. With the traditional printed poster session, attendees can spend as much, or as little, time at each poster depending on interest, and the posters are continuously on display. They can interact with authors and discuss the research without time constraints. With a digital poster session, presentations are usually timed, with a limited amount of exposure, and follow a set schedule.

Academic assessment

Poster sessions are used as an alternative to oral presentations as a form of academic assessment.<ref>Hughes, A (2005). "A Poster Project for an Undergraduate Sensation and Perception Course". Teaching of Psychology. 32 (1): 58–59.</ref><ref name="Suriyarangsun">Using Poster Presentation Activities for Assessment in Higher Education. ICERI2023 Proceedings. IATED. 2023. pp. 1758–1764. doi:10.21125/iceri.2023.0518.</ref><ref>Miller, C T (2023). "Classroom Trade Show: An Alternative to Traditional Classroom Presentations in an Undergraduate Plant Identification Course". HortTechnology. 33: 111–117. doi:10.21273/HORTTECH05148-22.</ref>

See also

• Abstract management
• Academic conference

External links

• Creating Effective Poster Presentations, North Carolina State University
• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons