Speaker Guidelines

Review Your Invitation

Log into the speaker management system to review your speaking invitations. After you log in, click the “Messages” tab in the top right corner of the screen.

Registration

If noted in your invitation, Congress administration has registered you for the meeting. Badges can be picked up onsite at the registration desk in the Austin Convention Center.

VIP Housing

Invited speakers who completed the housing form by the Oct. 31 deadline will receive email confirmation of their reservation by mid-November. Refer to your invitation for the number of complementary hotel nights (if any) to be provided to you.

Session Agendas

View full session agenda information, including Q&A and/or panel discussion times, in the Online Planner.

Audience Engagement

New for the 2020 meeting, the Congress is pleased to offer Sync, an audience response and second-screen technology to increase attendee engagement and improve content retention. Instructions on using Sync will be sent to speakers when the Congress presentation management upload site opens on Dec. 2.

Prepare Your Slides

Faculty Resources

Please review the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation and AGA speaker resources, organized by session and content, as well as these best practices for speaking.

Slide Content

The first slide of your presentation should contain your relevant financial relationship disclosures. A disclosure must be stated even if no financial relationship exists.
The final slide should summarize the top three or four main points of your presentation.
Presenters are responsible for verifying all images and text in your presentation are in compliance with copyright law.

Slide Format

Use of the Congress slide template is suggested by not required.
All presentations will take place on PCs. Keynote or Prezi files will not be supported.
Learn more about file formats supported within PowerPoint.
Only fonts included with Office 2013 are supported. If you plan to use a specialized font, it must be embedded in your PowerPoint presentation. Some licensed fonts may not embed and should be replaced with a font included with Office. Read more for an explanation of this process.
It is recommended that you convert any PPT files to PPTX and that you remove any links from your presentation.
Session room computers will support a 16:9 aspect ratio. If you elect to format your slides in a 4:3 ratio, please understand that the presentation will be “pillar boxed” with black bars on either side of the 16:9 screen. To change an existing 4:3 presentation into a 16:9 widescreen format, access the “Design” tab in PowerPoint and click on “Slide Size.” In the drop-down box, select “Widescreen (16:9).” If you make this change on an existing presentation, your slides will expand to the new size. Any videos or photos in your presentation may need to be resized so they do not appear stretched. Check animations to ensure the elements line up correctly.
If you plan to embed any videos in your presentation, it is imperative that you visit Speaker Headquarters onsite to speak with a technician who can assist.
If you will be converting or authoring videos, we recommend H.264 encoding at less than a five Mbps bitrate for best performance. The resolution in the meeting rooms will be 1280×720 for 16:9 presentations. A 1080p, maximum bit rate encoding will bloat the size of your presentation with no visual improvement and may actually hurt performance. If you plan to play a DVD as part of your presentation, please notify a technician at Speaker Headquarters so arrangements can be made for assistance in your meeting room.
Please consider compressing your videos. If you’ve authored your PowerPoint as a PPTX, there are tools within PowerPoint to do this automatically.

Submit Your Slides

Conflict of Interest Review

All speakers are required to submit a preliminary slide set for review via the speaker upload site for potential conflicts of interest between Dec. 2 – 13, 2019. The AGA CME subcommittee will review and reach out to speakers if any action is deemed necessary.

Pre-Meeting

Final slide decks can be uploaded in advance of the meeting via the speaker upload site. Presenters will receive login instructions by email when the site opens on Dec. 2.

Slide Sharing

All speakers are required to provide a slide deck that will be made available to attendees and the public. Further instructions on uploading your “share-friendly” deck will follow in early December.

Onsite in Austin

Speaker Headquarters

Visit Speaker Headquarters to pick up a speaker badge and also upload your slides. Slides should be uploaded at least two hours in advance of the start of your session. Technicians will be available at Speaker Headquarters to assist with any formatting or upload issues.

Speaker Headquarters will be open on the following dates and times:

Thursday, Jan. 23: 6 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Friday, Jan. 24: 6 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday, Jan 25: 6 a.m. – 11 a.m.

During Your Session

You will use a laptop placed at the room podium to present your slides. To start your presentation, simply click the title of your presentation. Congress staff and technicians will be available if you need any technical assistance during your presentation. Photography Policy Congress attendees are permitted to take photos during sessions for personal, social or non-commercial use.

Photography Policy

Congress attendees are permitted to take photos during sessions for personal, social or non-commercial use.

Questions?

Contact info@crohnscolitiscongress.org with any questions about speaking at the meeting.