Submission and Presenter Guidelines

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Submission Guidelines

Key Dates:

  • Presentation Proposal Deadline Extended: February 25, 2025, 11:59 PM EST
  • Notification of Acceptance: March 26, 2025
  • Poster Proposal Deadline: May 1, 2025

Intentions and Processes

The Conference will provide a diversity of presentation formats that address important topics in institutional change and transformation. During the conference, we will:

  • connect researchers, change agents, administrators, and policymakers to focus on transforming undergraduate education;
  • create a space where people can see the ways in which their work interacts and overlaps across disciplines;
  • identify and discuss key questions regarding change in higher education;
  • highlight early and mature projects touching on outcomes, processes, and contexts of change, among other themes.

Categories

Systemic change efforts encompass a wide range of topics, institutional types, levels of change, and stakeholder considerations. We understand that presentations may discuss many of these categories within a single session, and encourage authors to select all categories that relate to their presentation.

  • Change Topics
    • Connecting Change Theory and Practice
    • Evaluating and/or Measuring Change
    • Change Leadership
    • Promoting Access, Equity, and Inclusion
    • Aligning Faculty Incentives with Systemic Change
    • Learning Spaces
  • Institution Type
    • Two-Year Colleges
    • Minority-Serving Institutions
    • Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities
    • Comprehensive/Regional Universities
    • Emerging Research Institutions
    • Research-Focused Universities
  • Level of Change
    • Department-Level Change
    • Center-Level Change
    • Institution-Level Change
    • National/Multi-institutional Change
  • Stakeholder Considerations
    • Engaging Multiple Stakeholders in the Change Process
    • Partnerships Beyond Academia
    • Role of Centers/Faculty Development in Promoting Institutional Change
    • Scaling and Sustaining Change

Review Criteria

Updated 12/20/2024
This information is intended to help you and your team as you craft your proposal. All proposals will be evaluated by a team of reviewers using a Likert scale with the following statements.

  • The proposed session is clearly described, complete, and appropriately focused on transforming institutions in higher education
  • The proposed session is well-grounded in research, theory, or practice
  • The proposed session has the potential to have a broader impact by advancing our understanding of systemic change in higher education

For 90-minute workshops only:

  • The workshop plan demonstrates effective strategies for audience engagement, reflection, and discussion within the allotted time
  • Free text response: We are able to only have a limited number of workshops. Please comment on how well the workshop is likely to engage the audience and the pros and cons of the proposed workshop plan.

Submission Requirements

Presenting authors must register for and attend the conference. Additional authors can be listed and are not required to attend the conference. Each presentation submission requires:

  • Presentation Title
  • Presentation Authors
  • Presentation Abstract (300 words)
  • How will your presentation address the Intention and Processes for this conference? (300 words)
  • Which of the conference categories will your presentation pertain to?

Workshop sessions require an additional question:

  • How will your workshop promote audience engagement, reflection, and discussion? What is the tentative format/program of your workshop? Please indicate how you intend to use the time you selected (including content, outline, etc.). (750 words)

Session Formats

  • 5-minute Lightning Rounds: These rapid-format presentations occur during plenary sessions and offer concise overviews of innovative projects and resources of interest to the community. Presenters must adhere strictly to the 5-minute time limit. Presentations should include 3-5 slides maximum.
  • 15-minute Oral Presentation: These sessions are intended for individuals or teams who wish to present their work in a short presentation. You may decide how best to use the 15 minutes allotted; a typical format would be a 10-minute presentation followed by 5 minutes for questions. However, you may choose to structure your time differently.
  • 45-minute Oral Presentation: Each selected proposal will have 45 minutes for presentation and Q&A and can include up to 4 presenters. Organizers may decide how best to use the 45 minutes allotted. A typical format will be 30 minutes total of presentation and 15 minutes of discussion, questions, and audience engagement. Audience engagement and sufficient Q & A time are strongly recommended.
  • 45-minute Poster Presentation: Posters provide opportunities for engagement in deep conversations about projects. We encourage posters on any of the topics listed above. Poster projects can be research-driven or focused on a program or activity implemented as part of a change process.
  • 90-minute Workshop: These workshops will allow participants to engage deeply in a given topic and are expected to be highly interactive. For these submissions, we require information on the structure of the workshop, audience engagement, and learning outcomes.
  • Special Interest Group/Birds of a Feather: Do you have a topic of interest that you want to discuss with colleagues? We plan to host Special Interest Group/Birds of a Feather sessions on member-generated topics such as STEM education initiatives, engaging administration, potential collaborative research proposals, or gatherings of Emerging Research Institutions and Minority Serving Institutions. You may submit topic suggestions regardless of other proposal submissions.

Submit Your Abstract »

 

 

Presenter Guidelines

Presentation Accessibility

We want this conference to be as accessible as possible. We encourage all presenters to upload their presentations to accommodate the learning needs of all conference attendees. We encourage the creation of presentations guided by Universal Design of Your Presentation. We also encourage you to use colorblind-friendly palettes and make use of PowerPoint's accessibility offerings in creating your presentation. Uploading presentations before your session increases accessibility for attendees who may need more time to process the information and/or have difficulty seeing your presentation on the projector. All materials related to the workshop and symposia should be uploaded through Oxford Abstracts.

Upload Presentations and other materials prior to the conference: You can upload your presentation file (.PPT) through your Oxford Abstracts submission portal. It will be posted on your presentation/abstract page.

During your presentation, please turn on the real-time transcript by clicking on the "real time transcript" feature in the PowerPoint toolbar.

  • Click on the "Slide Show" menu
  • Check the box next to "Always use subtitles"
  • The real-time transcript feature is now turned on. 


Workshop Presentations

On-Site Logistics

Each workshop room has wi-fi access and a projector. Please plan on bringing your own laptop to use (including a projector adapter if you're using a Mac). Also, plan to bring any supplies you might need (e.g., a clicker and handouts). Each room is equipped with a microphone. Please use the microphone to ensure that all attendees can hear you.

Workshop Best-Practices

Planning an effective workshop or symposium is much like planning an effective learning experience for students in the classroom and lab. Consider what goals you have for the participants, how your workshop will effectively engage participants and ensure that these goals are met, and how you will assess whether participants have benefited from the workshop. Here are some of SERC's best practices that have been gleaned over more than a decade of running workshops in On the Cutting Edge and InTeGrate.

15-Minute Oral Presentations

  • Each presenter is allotted 15 minutes for their presentation.
  • Presentation length: ~10 minutes in length with 5 additional minutes available for questions. If you have planned to use your time differently than, for example, 10 minutes of presentation + 5 minutes of questions, please let your session chair know what to expect.
  • A session chair has been assigned to each session who will help keep time (using time cards to signal 5, 2, and 1 minutes remaining).
  • Presentations will follow the order listed in the program
  • Allow the moderator to prepare the next presentation during your Q&A.
  • Sample session, 1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.:
    • 1:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.: Presentation 1
    • 1:15 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.: Presentation 2
    • 1:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.: Presentation 3
  • Each room has wi-fi access, a projector, and a presentation laptop.
  • We will download presentations from Oxford Abstracts to minimize transition delays.
  • Please upload your presentation by June 2, 2025.
  • Bring any additional supplies you might need (handouts, clicker).
  • Use the provided microphone to ensure that all attendees can hear you.

45-Minute Oral Presentations

  • Presentation length: ~35 minutes in length with 10 additional minutes available for questions and discussion.
  • Each room has wi-fi access, a projector, and a microphone.
  • We will download presentations from Oxford Abstracts to minimize transition delays.
  • Please upload your presentation by June 2, 2025.
  • Bring any additional supplies you might need (handouts, clicker).
  • Use the provided microphone to ensure that all attendees can hear you.

Poster Presentations

  • Size: Posters should be no larger than 30 inches x 40 inches. You will be provided with an easel, foam board, and binder clips to hang your poster.
  • Poster number: Each poster is assigned a number. These numbers are listed on your abstract page in Oxford Abstracts and will be assigned to the boards during the poster session.
  • Setting up your poster: Please attach your poster to the foam boards on these easels during the designated setup time so we can start the session on time. Binder clips will be provided.
  • Presentation time: Poster sessions will be 45-minutes in length. Your specific session information will be provided closer to the conference date.
  • Please note, the posters will be displayed in a non-secured space.
  • We also encourage you to have a digital version that we can add to the conference proceedings. Please upload posters before June 2, 2025, through your Oxford Abstracts submission portal.

Resources for Better Posters

Putting together an academic poster can be daunting. Remember that posters are designed to give the 10,000 ft view of your research and enable attendees to engage you in a dialogue about your work. We encourage you to reconsider the traditional poster format. Simplified posters are inspired by the "#BetterPoster" movement to include less text and encourage more conversation during poster sessions. Here are some resources:

Questions?

If you have any questions about the proposal submission process, please contact Kacy Redd (kredd@aplu.org).


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