ASBH 2024 Annual Conference Presenter Information Guide
On the Day of Your Presentation
All concurrent sessions will be held in-person at the St. Louis Union Station Hotel. Room assignments will be available closer to the conference week. Be sure to double-check your room assignment the morning of your presentation, in case there has been any changes.
We ask all presenters to arrive at their assigned session room 10-15 minutes before the start of their session. All speakers will have access to a podium, projector, a screen on which to project, and a laptop. All speakers will have access to a podium, projector, a screen on which to project, a laptop, a podium microphone, and a lavalier microphone. Presenters are required to bring their slides on a thumb drive to their presentation session and to enable their presentation tool's captions. (View instructions for PowerPoint or Google Slides here.) Please consult with the AV technicians onsite if you plan to make sure of audio or video components during your presentation. If you have additional technical or accessibility needs, please reach out to Lauren Winters at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as soon as possible.
All paper and flash sessions will be assigned a timekeeper, who will hold up brightly-colored signs when presenters near the end of their allotted time. Presentations will be cut off after the allotted time (15 minutes for paper sessions, 5 minutes for flash sessions).
Presentations by Format
Flash Session Presenters
Flash sessions will be 60 minutes long with up to 8 flashes each session. Each presenter will present for 5 minutes, and then there will be a 15–20 minute Q&A. You will have 5 minutes to present 3 slides: one with a title, your name, and institution; a second with key points on a work-in-progress or a completed project; and a third with a bibliography. In preparing your slides, please refer to the general guidelines below.
Paper Session Presenters
Paper sessions will be 60 minutes with 3 papers each. Each presenter will have 15 minutes to present a brief structured discussion or lecture of your work, followed by 5 minutes for Q&A with the audience.
Presenters of Debates, Panels, Workshops, Performances, and Exhibitions
Your session will take place during your scheduled date and time. Sessions will be 60 minutes long. If you have slides, in preparation, please refer to the general guidelines below.
Creating Accessible Presentations
The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities is committed to ensuring the full participation of presenters and attendees with disabilities at the Annual Conference. ASBH asks presenters, facilitators, timekeepers, and all attendees to be aware of practices that inadvertently impede the full participation of members with disabilities. The following recommendations represent best practices. Any request for assistance from ASBH for accompanying materials must be made at least 30 days in advance of the conference.
As you prepare your presentation:
If your presentation uses PowerPoint, Keynote, or other slides, be sure to use a “sans-serif” typeface font such as Calibri or Arial for all materials projected on screen in 24 pt. font or greater. Use colors that provide high contrast (black/white or dark blue/white).
If your presentation involves visual images, prepare to give a simple description of each image so that audience members will be able to follow your talk even if they cannot see the visuals. A good image description draws audience attention to the most relevant portion of the image and allows the audience to quickly understand why the image is significant. Consider giving a brief visual description of yourself and any other speakers.
Download the 2024 PowerPoint template
Accompanying Materials:
If a sign language interpreter or CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) has been requested for your session, you will receive a request from ASBH for a copy of your presentation in advance of the scheduled event; this copy will be sent to the interpreter or CART captioner and the deaf participant to allow them sufficient time to prepare for the session. Any advance copy is to be considered as “unpublished and not for circulation.”
Consider making text copies of your talk available to attendees who may find it helpful for following your presentation. Scholars who distribute such copies often include a note that these materials are not for circulation.
During your presentation:
Make it your goal to speak clearly and at a pace that allows audience members and sign language interpreters to keep up with you. Presenters are required to enable their presentation tool's captions. (View instructions for PowerPoint or Google Slides here.)
Provide a verbal description of all visual information that pertains to the presentation, including graphics, videos, or physical gestures. For example, if you ask participants to “Please raise your hand if you make your presentations accessible,” summarize the response with “About ten out of fifteen people raised their hands in the affirmative.”
If applicable, recognize that a sign language interpreter is present to facilitate communication between and among participants. Address the person with whom you wish to speak, not the interpreter.
Recognize that members may need to stand or move when presenting or listening to a session.
Please reach out to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any questions or special requests at least 30 days in advance of the conference.
Preparing Your Slides
- Use the ASBH Branded Conference PowerPoint template if possible.
- Your first slide must disclose any or no financial interests or other relationships that could be considered a conflict of interest by participants. Refer to the section on Continuing Education below.
- Slides cannot contain any advertising, trade names, or product group messages.
- If you wish to identify a facility or institution, do so only on the introductory or concluding slide.
- All slides should be in horizontal (landscape) format, not vertical (portrait).
- Leave ½ inch margins on all sides of each slide.
- Use white or yellow text only on a medium dark background.
- Choose a legible font like Arial in as large a size as possible; anything below 24 point is likely too small.
- Pay special attention to the size and appearance of graphs and figures.
- Use graphics to add visual stimulation. Use video clips to help demonstrate specific topic points and/or techniques. Use audio clips to demonstrate interactions that can bring to life a point you want to make.
- Keep the text short to hold the audience's attention. If your slides are text heavy and you simply read them, your audience will figure that out and read ahead. They can read faster than you can speak, which will prevent you and your audience from being in sync.
- Using a small number of slides and a large font will force you to highlight the concepts that you want to emphasize and will concentrate the participants' attention on your message.
- Consider the 4/4 and the 10/20/30 rules:
- No more than 4 bullet points per slide and no more than 4 words per bullet point
- 10 slides per 20-minute segment with a 30-point font.
Continuing Education, Disclosures and Copyright
Your Session as a Continuing Education Activity
We ask you to work with us to ensure that together we provide continuing education of the highest standard. Your presentation is planned to achieve and will be evaluated against the outcomes expressed as learning objectives in your proposal, which will be provided to meeting attendees.
Any presenter who has financial interests or other relationships that could be considered a conflict of interest by participants must complete the disclosure forms in order for their session(s) to be offered as a CE activity through the joint sponsorship of this meeting with Creighton University Health Sciences Continuing Education. Presenters who do not have financial interests or other relationships that could be considered a conflict of interest by participants and all co-authors are NOT required to complete disclosure forms.
Disclosure Slide
All presenters are required to start their presentations by disclosing any or no financial interest or other relationships that could be considered a conflict of interest by participants. Such disclosure must be included in the opening slide of each presentation, followed by a verbal acknowledgement. Speakers must also disclose intent to discuss unlabeled uses of a commercial product, or an investigational use of a product not yet approved for this purpose.
It is considered to be a conflict of interest if any presenter indicates that he/she has relevant financial relationships that can affect the content of the educational activity and that have occurred within the last 12 months. These conflicts of interest must be resolved before the CME activity is delivered to the learners.
Commercial Bias
Slides cannot contain any advertising, single examples of trade or brand names, or product-group messages. Creighton University Health Sciences Continuing Education and ASBH will seek feedback from the learners on the effectiveness of this CME activity through the use of a post-activity questionnaire that will ask learners about perceived bias during any presentations.
Copyright Information
Prepared by Paula Cozzi Goedert, Barnes & Thornburg, LLP
Summary of Copyright Law
Most copyright law can be summarized in one thought: Everything belongs to the copyright holder. The creator of the work is the copyright holder, unless the creator has assigned copyright to another party. There are two exceptions to this rule:
- Works created in the course of employment automatically belong to the employer. If an employee writes an article or book as part of employment duties, the work would not automatically belong to the employer. If the writing was part of the person’s job, it does automatically belong to the employer unless this is waived under an employment agreement.
- Everything produced by the federal government is not under copyright; we already paid for it once as taxpayers.
An Author’s Use of Others’ Materials
The copyright holder has the sole right under law to display, copy, and distribute the works owned by him. In general, an author may not utilize the works of others without the permission of the copyright holder.
The Fair Use Exception
Fair use refers to an exception of the copyright law which permits certain limited uses of the work of
others without their permission. Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes;
- the nature of the copyrighted work;
- amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.
The fair use exception permits the educational use of an excerpt of a work in certain settings, such as a classroom or scholarly article. The use cannot diminish the commercial market for the work. In other words, it must be such a small excerpt that it would not lessen the chance that someone would buy the whole work.
The fair use exception does not apply to cartoons, because a cartoon is considered an entire work. The author did not merely distribute an excerpt; the author has violated the cartoonist’s copyright and could be liable for damages.
Common Practice
The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material.