Advice for Moderators

The main duties of a session moderator are:

To be present in / logged in to the session room 30 minutes before your session begins to welcome speakers and ensure they are all set up correctly.
To introduce each speaker, being aware there may be non-specialists in the audience.
To inform the audience whether the speakers are happy for the audience to tweet about their paper or discuss it on social media.
To ensure all in-person speakers must present from the podium so that they are audible and visible to virtual attendees. The in-room PCs will all be setup for each session with Zoom and access to the virtual platform, Pathable. All speakers must share their slides through Zoom so that virtual participants can follow along.
To make sure each speaker finishes their paper on time, and to be assertive on this issue if necessary.
To make sure the session starts and finishes on time.
To be familiar with using common functions in Zoom (e.g. raising hands, enabling and disabling attendee microphones/cameras) in order to ensure both in-person and remote speakers’ presentations run smoothly.
To minimise background noise and disturbances during speakers’ presentations both virtually and in-person.
To initiate and moderate questions and discussion after the papers, ensuring all speakers and audience members adhere to our Policy on Dignity and Mutual Respect.
To monitor the session chat for questions from virtual attendees, either asking questions sent by text on their behalf or prompting them to turn on their microphone/camera to speak, dependent on available facilities in the room and your own preference.
To remove any attendee from either the virtual or physical session room after a warning if they engage in any harassing, bullying, or otherwise inappropriate behaviour whether aloud or in the chat function.
To be prepared to ask questions if they are not forthcoming from the audience.
To repeat questions from the in-room audience to ensure they are audible for virtual attendees, or ask those with questions to come to the front to ask their question from the podium.
To make sure all delegates leave the room at the end of the session, and inform the IMC team should any problems arise.
To complete our feedback form which will be given to you as the session ends.

If you are moderating a wholly virtual session and are participating virtually yourself, ensure that you download the ‘Zoom Client for Meetings’ here: https://zoom.us/download. It will not be possible to join sessions without access to Zoom so make sure you have it installed before the IMC begins!

If you have not yet received your login credentials for IMC 2023 by 30 June prior to the IMC, please let us know as soon as possible by emailing imc@leeds.ac.uk.

We strongly recommend that moderators contact all the speakers in their session before the IMC to get to know each speaker’s paper and research.

Please ensure that speakers are reminded of the following:

The audience is likely to include delegates whose native language is not the language of delivery in the session; speakers should therefore speak slowly and clearly to accommodate all audience members.
Papers should last no more than 20 minutes (15 minutes in a 4-paper session).
All sessions will benefit from automatic closed captioning, which can be activated by anyone in the session from the ‘CC’ button on the main Zoom taskbar.
Unless we have received a specific request from a speaker/moderator not to record a particular session, all sessions will be automatically recorded and made available to registered delegates only via the virtual event platform until 31 August 2022. Please bear this in mind during any private discussion either prior to the session beginning, or after attendees have departed.
Speakers should expect delegates to tweet about their papers unless they expressly state that they do not want to be tweeted about. Please ask your speakers how they feel about live tweeting and communicate this to the audience at the start of the session. Where the speakers do not object to live tweeting, please encourage the use of #IMC2022 and the hashtag for your session, which is #s followed by the session number, e.g. #s9999.
Speakers should familiarise themselves with the full Guidance for Speakers available on our website.