Instructions to Session Chairs(convenors) 2024

Thank you for your willingness to convene and chair a session at the CMOS Congress 2024. This document provides some general guidelines and instructions for chairing sessions at the congress to ensure they proceed efficiently and on schedule.

1) In the 10-15 minutes prior to the start of your session, please verify that all slated speakers for the 90-minute session are online in your session.

2) For each speaker, do a sound check and ensure they can share their slides using the Zoom meeting platform. If there are technical issues with speakers not being able to share their screens or presentations, then a technical assistant will have a copy of their presentations that can be used instead.

3) At the scheduled time, promptly begin the session by welcoming everyone to the session, introducing yourself, and providing the title and number of the session. We encourage session chairs to do this in both English and French if they feel comfortable doing so.

4) CMOS strongly encourages all session conveners and chairs to conduct a territorial or land acknowledgement in their opening remarks – consult the text below for guidance on this.

5) Provide a short list of instructions to the speakers, reminding them of their allotted time (consult the congress website for details on oral presentation guidelines). Please ensure all other attendees mute their microphones and do not interrupt the presentations.

6) Begin with the first presentation in that session followed by all other presentations as scheduled. For each, announce the title of the presentation and the speaker, inviting them to deliver their presentation.

7) Provide each speaker a 2-minute warning (orally) before the end of their presentation, while also allowing time for questions afterwards. For a 15-minute presentation, for instance, a 2-minute warning would be issued at 10 minutes into the presentation, allowing then three minutes for questions at the end if the speaker completes their presentation at 12 minutes.

8) At the conclusion of the presentation, invite questions from the attendees while moderating this process.

9) As much as possible, stay on schedule as some congress participants may well be switching between concurrent sessions to attend specific talks of interest.

10) At the conclusion of the session, thank all of the speakers for their presentations and all others for attending the session. If this is a multi-part session, you may remind the congress participants of the continuation of talks at a subsequent session.

If you have any questions or concerns about the process for convening and chairing sessions at the CMOS congress 2024 then please contact members of the Scientific Program Committee at sdery@unbc.ca.

Land / territorial acknowledgements for online meetings

Land acknowledgements need to be part of all gatherings, including virtual meetings. Depending on the location of your participants, you may acknowledge all Indigenous groups, or research the First Peoples of the land you are on.

Here are examples of land acknowledgements you can reference and personalize:

·        “I would like to begin by acknowledging the Indigenous Peoples of all the lands that we are on today. While we meet today on a virtual platform, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the importance of the lands, which we each call home. We do this to reaffirm our commitment and responsibility in improving relationships between nations and to improving our own understanding of local Indigenous peoples and their cultures.”

·        “From coast to coast to coast, we acknowledge the ancestral and unceded territory of all the Inuit, Métis, and First Nations people that call this land home.”