Here are some instructions for how to get the most out of your participation. Please note that if you have registered for any workshops, they will provide separate instructions for that event.
The information below has been sent out to all participants to SLTC 2020 on Monday 23 November. Please note that there are no passwords here – those have been sent out via email.
Below are instructions for the following:
- How to attend Zoom webinars
- How to discuss in the Slack workspace
- How to socialise in Gather.town
- How to give a presentation in a Zoom webinar
- How to be a session chair in a Zoom webinar
How to attend Zoom webinars
Follow these instructions when you are attending the conference presentations. If you have trouble connecting, please ask questions in the Slack channel #support.
All presentation sessions in the main conference use the same Zoom webinar room:
Note that the webinar is password protected, and the password has been sent to all participants via email. You can install Zoom from here: https://zoom.us/download.
- Connect to the Zoom webinar metioned above. Make sure that you use the same name as the one you have registered with.
- During presentations you can ask questions using the Q&A feature. First type in your question; when it is your turn the session chair will also give you an opportunity to unmute your microphone and discuss the question live with the presenter.
- To get in touch with the chairs and the organisers on any other points please use the chat feature.
- Once the session is over, you can continue discussions with presenters on Slack – there is one Slack channel for each session (#session-k1, #session-s2, etc.)
- You can find the programme and extended abstracts here.
How to discuss in the Slack workspace
We will use Slack for all kinds of discussions during SLTC and (some of) the workshops. You can install Slack from here: https://slack.com/download.
To join the SLTC-2020 workspace, use the invitation link that you received in the previously mentioned email.
The workspace includes one channel for each session, as well as channels for some of the workshops (as requested by workshop organisers). There are also channels #general, #random and #support, and additional channels may be added (let us know, e.g. by posting in #general if you have a suggestion for a channel to add). See the respective channel descriptions for more information about their content. To browse the available channels, click "More" > "Channel browser". You may join or leave channels as desired.
In the session and workshop channels you may discuss talks and related topics. Please make sure to post in the right channel. Please also remember to use "Reply in thread" (which you find by hovering over a post and clicking on the speech bubble that appears) when replying to a previous post!
How to socialise in Gather.town
Like many conferences, this year SLTC 2020 will lack in-person socialization and thus will have an alternative online social environment. We will be using Gather.town, an increasingly popular conference socialising tool. It requires a camera and microphone, and a computer with an up-to-date version of Firefox or Chrome.
Our space in Gather.town can take 100 participants at a time and will be available from 8:00 on November 25 to 20:00 on November 27. It is intended mainly for use during coffee breaks, lunch, and evening socialisation.
When you enter our Gather.town space, you wil get an avatar (which you can design yourself) and can move around in the space using the arrow keys. When you come close to another participant you start hear what they're saying, and you see their cameras. When you move away, the sound and video disappears. This makes it possible to socialise in smaller groups and mingle around, just as a normal social event. (Well, there's no hugging, but you're not allowed to do that anyway nowadays).
The link to the SLTC 2020 Gather.town space is here, please note that it only works in Firefox and Chrome:
The password has been sent out to all participants via email.
How to give a presentation in a Zoom webinar
Follow these instructions if you are presenting a paper at a session. If you're having trouble, please ask in the Slack channel #support.
- From the programme, find out who is chairing the session with your presentation.
- In the break before your session (once the Zoom session becomes live and at the latest 10 minutes before) send them a private message through the Zoom chat feature and let them know that you will be presenting a paper. (Here it is important that you login to Zoom with the same name as the name of one of the authors on the paper).
- The session chair will then change your role in Zoom from participant to presenter. For long talks this will be when it is your turn to give the talk. For short talks this will be before the session begins.
- As a presenter you can use standard Zoom features, switch on your camera and microphone, share your screen and see and respond to question in Q&A.
- Long talks are scheduled to be 30 minutes which include 20 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion. Short talks will be presented one after another, 10 minutes each. Following a series of presentations there will be a discussion session where questions can be addressed to any of the presenters. The presentations are grouped with respect to topics and we hope that this format will encourage cross-paper discussions. Slides may be used in both types of presentations.
- Once the session is over the session chair will change your status back to attendee.
How to be a session chair in a Zoom webinar
Follow these instructions if you are chairing a session.
- In the break before the session that you are charing we will change your role in Zoom to a Co-host. This will give you some additional powers in addition to those by presenters. In order for us to do this, you have to be online at the time.
- Before the session starts presenters will send you a message on chat. This is to let you know who will be presenting.
- Your first task is to change their role from attendee to presenters (called "panelist" in Zoom). For long talks this will be before each individual talk starts but for short talks you should change the status of all presenters before the session begins.
- The participant list shows you Attendees and Panelists.
- To promote an attendee to a panelist (i.e., speaker) find their name and select More; Promote to panelist.
- As a session chair you can use all other standard Zoom features, switch on your camera and microphone, and share your screen.
- The audience will send questions through Q&A which you can manage. We recommend that you also allow the author of the question to speak it out live as there may be sub-questions. You can do this by finding their name on the list of attendees and selecting Allow to talk. Change back to Mute when they are done.
- Once the talk or session is over make the panelists back to attendees by finding their name under Attendees and selecting More; Change role to attendee. For long talks this will be after the presentation and questions for that talk are finished; for short talks at the end of the session.
- For more information about Zoom please see the section Managing attendees here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115004834466-Managing-attendees-and-panelists-in-a-webinar