Resources

Speaker Guidelines

Thank you for agreeing to serve as a speaker in the ACNS Annual Meeting & Courses. The quality of speakers and their presentation has allowed these programs to flourish and grow over the past years. These guidelines intend to provide a few reminders to ACNS Annual Meeting & Courses speakers to help us to continue to offer the highest quality CME-approved courses to our members and participants. Please review the following responsibilities of all speakers:

PRESENTATION PLANNING

Deadlines: Please adhere and refer to all timelines to make sure that ACCME guidelines are met. The deadlines are essential to provide adequate time for directors and the CME committee to review the slides of all speakers prior to their course.

Slides: Please insure that slides are of high quality and with a layout/content that will be easily visible when projected in a large conference room. As this is a CME program, please include a Disclosure slide mentioning any relevant, potential conflicts of interests related to your topic. Please also include a statement regarding whether or not you will be discussing off-label uses of drugs or devices.

Copyrighted Material: It is the speaker’s responsibility to obtain releases for any copyrighted material in their presentations. If there is material in the presentation that you do not wish to be released electronically, please place a dummy slide in its place in the presentation you submit.

Audience Interaction: Course and Session Directors will introduce speakers and facilitate questions. Please leave adequate time at the end of your presentation to answer questions. Be sure to repeat/rephrase all questions so that the broader audience can hear.

Course Moderation: Course and Session directors will serve as moderators for their respective programs. If you have made changes to the presentation that was submitted, please be sure to provide your director with a copy of the newest version no later than 24 hours prior to your talk. All presentations will be uploaded to a common laptop for each course. To facilitate a smooth progression and avoid unnecessary delays, please use the common laptop rather than your personal laptop. All rooms will be equipped with a system for projection of slides and audio. If you have any special audiovisual requirements, please let the course directors know well in advance (when submitting slides).

ONSITE – LOGISTICS

Speakers are asked to turn in presentation slides no later then Friday, February 5, 2021. Slides turned in by the February 5 deadline will need to be turned in to the Speaker Ready room onsite at the Hilton Austin 24 hours prior to your presentation time. Presentation changes can be made in the Speaker Ready Room onsite at the Hilton Austin beginning Tuesday, February 9, 2021.
All Annual Course speakers are asked to turn in presentation slides prior to the Thursday, January 14 deadline. Annual Course speaker slides will be uploaded to the Course Handout Page beginning Tuesday, January 28. ANNUAL COURSE SPEAKERS PLEASE NOTE: slides will not be accepted after the Thursday, January 14 deadline and as a result will not be available as handouts onsite.
Please plan to arrive 10-15 minutes before your scheduled session start time, not your presentation time. This will allow you and the course director(s) to check in before the course and or/session starts. If any technical problems occur, they can be resolved before the start of the session and keep the schedule on time.
All presentations will be uploaded to a common laptop for that course to ensure smooth transitions between course speakers. Please do not use your personal computer. If you have any special audio visual requirements, please let your course director(s) know well in advance, when submitting your slides.

Ask the course director(s) if there are any updates regarding your presentation time. Occasionally, there will be necessary schedules changes due to travel delays and last minute cancellations. Presentations may be rearranged, all speakers should be up-to-date on their current scheduled time.

Allow adequate time at the conclusion of your presentation for audience questions. For example, if you are scheduled for a 30 minute presentation please leave at least 5 minutes at the end for questions. If there are more questions following that time, please direct audience members to speak with you outside of the course so that the next speaker can begin on time.

SPEAKER COMPENSATION

The Speaker Compensation Policy is outlined in the guidelines pre-determined by the ACNS Council. Any requests outside of the speaker incentive budget must be approved by the Course, Program and Executive Committees.