Masters Project Symposium
All students are expected to attend the Spring Symposium. Graduate ENVIRON, ECS and MARSCI classes will be canceled for this purpose (in the spring). Attendance at the December MP Symposium is expected as well.
Presentation Information and Tips
The presentation takes place during the Symposium which is typically over four days in April for Spring graduates, and one day in December for December graduates. The presentation is given orally alongside visual aids like a slide show.
Presentations will have 15 minutes to present and 5 minutes for questions.
In-Person Presentations
- Upload your presentation to the StrongBox associated with your presentation room – link provided by IT. Nicholas IT will provide room PC’s running Windows 10 and Office 2016 with remote control presenters for each location. Your presentation will be copied onto the room PC.
- Store a backup of the presentation. Save the backup in a location that will be accessible from the presentation room – email, Box account, another external drive, etc.
- Presentations will be streamed via Zoom. Because of this, you will not be able to use Notes view for either your speaker notes or the timer feature. Plan accordingly.
- Test your presentation on a Windows machine. If you are working on a Mac, in PowerPoint or Keynote, be sure to export and run your presentation on a Windows machine before the symposium to test.
- If you are using web-based Prezi for your presentation, you will be able to access from the room PC.
Presentation Creation Tips
- Keep presentations as simple as possible. Keep multimedia elements such as video clips, sound files, etc. to a minimum. If you must use multimedia, zip all multimedia files together and put in a folder with your PowerPoint to upload.
- Use a basic system font like Arial. If you use a font in your PowerPoint that isn’t available on the laptop, the system will substitute a font, which could negatively affect your slide layout. View a list of fonts available on Windows machines.
- Compress and crop images before inserting in your PowerPoint. If you’ve used any unedited digital camera images in your PowerPoint, this will make the whole file much smaller. Your image on screen displays at a much lower resolution than it would if printed. JPGs are best. How to compress images in Microsoft Office
Tips for Presenting Virtually (DEL STUDENTS ONLY)
- All presenters are expected to keep your video on throughout the entire presentation.
- Each Zoom room will be co-hosted by someone from IT.
- When it is your time to present, you will be made a co-host.
- The moderators will be asked to log into zoom to manage audience questions and keep track of time.
- The moderator will directly chat the presenter(s) at 10 and 5 minutes, but presenters are expected to keep track of their own time.
- Presentations will be shared through Zoom’s screen sharing feature (more information below). You do not need to send your slides to anyone in advance.
- Share just your PowerPoint and not your notes
- Once you are in Zoom and you go to share your screen, click on the window that has your PowerPoint in it. You should be able to freely toggle back and forth between your notes and switching the slide
- After your presentation, presenters are expected to exit their presentation view so that the audience can see the speaker(s)
- Please wear headphones connected to your computer, if possible (better sound quality)
- Make sure that the only applications open on your computer are Zoom and your slides.
Tips for Group Presentations
- Establish transition cues in advance
- Ensure each group member has their slides up and ready to go
- Establish a plan for how questions will be answered
- Check out online resources
- Online group collaboration
- 23 Tips on How to Give an Effective Online Group Presentation