It may be desired to order the posters near one another in a poster session based on their topic area. The main steps to achieve this are:
- Approve a list of topic areas that authors may select from. (Program Chair(s))
- Import Papers as Poster events using CMT or OpenReview (Conference Staff)
- Get authors to select their topic area (Conference Staff and Authors)
- Identify Posters Events with a Corresponding Oral or Spotlight Event and assign those to a poster session (Conference Staff after Program Committee assignments)
- Randomly assign remaining posters to a poster session (Conference Staff)
- Create and Input the Poster Positions for the Poster Room(s) or Session (Conference Staff)
- For each session sort posters by topic and assign poster positions (Conference Staff)
Note: the website also supports having authors change their poster sessions. This is a very useful feature as not all poster sessions will work for every author, including late changes to travel plans (i.e. flight delays). If an author changes their poster session after posters have been assigned by topic area then those changes will not retain sorting by topic area. Experience has shown that these changes are only to a small percentage of papers and it's a nice feature to be able to change poster sessions even as late as after the conference has started.
¶ Approved Topic Area List
The program committee can modify and approve the topic areas for the conference. Topic areas can be hierarchical. It's best if the top level topic areas for a conference are a relatively small number (10 plus or minus 2).
You can ask the conference staff to provide a list from previous conference(s). Try to keep the topic areas to a minimum number. Most conferences have six poster sessions and so it should be a goal to have topics with at least two papers per session and preferably several more. So topic areas should have no fewer than twelve papers and preferably twenty or more for a conference with six poster sessions.
The system may automatically assign the sort order. This was designed for hierarchical topic lists with only top level topics and their associated sub-topics. There should be no more than 90 subtopics per topic. Multiple levels of subtopics will not work with the automated sort order and will need manually assigned sort keys.
¶ Authors Select Topics
Authors may select topic areas for their papers after the papers have been imported. The website supports automatically sending emails to authors to select their topic. See poster_topics.
¶ Identify Poster Events with a Corresponding Oral or SpotLight Event
It is desirable to have the poster event for each paper which is presented in an oral or spotlight event occur soon after the oral or spotlight event. This allows for conference attendees to ask questions of the presenter which weren't able to be asked during the oral event. This means that scheduling posters into a poster session requires that all related oral or spotlight events are scheduled before papers are assigned to a poster session.
Oral and Spotlight events may be scheduled by first creating the various oral session events in the database (use either the Events editor, the Events Admin page, or import them from a spreadsheet using the Session Events spreadsheet format).
¶ Create and Input an Ordering Poster Positions for the Poster Room(s) or Session
The website software supports assigning poster positions automatically to the "next available poster position". In order to support this feature a list of poster positions, in order of assignment, must be provided in database model PosterPositions (use the Admin->Database->Core->PosterPositions page to update). The valid_positions field of the PosterPositions model is a list of strings which are valid poster positions. While it's common to use a list of strings like "#1", "#2", "#3", etc. there is no dependency on any strings that are desired. They should simply correspond to the way the poster positions are labeled in the physical room.
The posters will be assigned based on the first string in the array which is not assigned to any other poster at the same time.
A PosterPositions model instance is most often simply associated with a single room layout at a conference. In this case simply create the model and indicate the year and the room for the poster positions and leave the Sessions field in the PosterPosition instance blank. You should only fill in the Sessions field if you have different poster layouts or orderings for different poster sessions.
The following steps assume that the ordering of the poster positions are the order for grouping similar posters together. This can mean that sophisticated orderings may get more related posters near eachother. For example serpentine ordering of the posters will produce posters around a corner which are still related to one another. An even more sophisticated ordering is a back and forth across an aisle serpentine ordering.
¶ Example Poster Positions
Some example poster ordering layouts are given below. First here is a picture of how a poster room in a conference center may be set up. This picture includes some common issues in a room layout. One thing to note is that the numbers are not consecutive and that the pattern for the layout is complex.
¶ Simple Sorted Ordering
One ordering for the above layout is to simply have a list of the poster positions sorted numerically:
102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170
This actually isn't very good for grouping similar posters together as posters 116 and 117 may be grouped together but they are actually not next to each other in the poster room.
¶ Serpentine Ordering
An improved ordering is serpentine ordering where things are ordered one direction for one row and the opposite direction for the next row. Here is a serpentine ordering for the above room layout.
103, 105, 107, 109, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120,
118, 116, 114, 112, 108, 106, 104, 102,
123, 125, 127, 129, 133, 135, 137, 139, 140,
138, 136, 134, 132, 128, 126, 124, 122,
143, 145, 147, 149, 153, 155, 157, 159, 160,
158, 156, 154, 152, 148, 146, 144, 142,
161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170
Note how the odd rows go left to right in the room and the even rows go right to left.
¶ Back And Forth Serpentine Ordering By Aisle
An even better ordering gets posters across an aisle from one another grouped near each other and then does serpentine ordering of the aisles. Let's call this back and forth serpentine ordering. Here is how the above might be ordered for this ordering. Note that position 140 doesn't flow well, so is simply moved to the last element which often goes unused in a poster session as long as it isn't completely full. These are listed for each "aisle".
103, 105, 107, 109, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120,
118, 139, 116, 137, 114, 135, 112, 133, 108, 129, 106, 127, 104, 125, 102, 123,
122, 143, 124, 145, 126, 147, 128, 149, 132, 153, 134, 155, 136, 157, 138, 159, 160,
170, 158, 168, 156, 167, 154, 166, 152, 165, 148, 164, 146, 163, 144, 162, 142, 161,
140
¶ Ordering for Late Posters
OPTIONAL: Often individual poster sessions are not full and some space is reserved for late assignment of posters to a session. Ordering is less important for these late arrivals as they would simply like a space to present their poster. A small improvement on the ordering in the last section is to note that the first aisle only has nine posters in it while the other aisles have sixteen or seventeen posters. So it might make sense to reserve aisle one for late poster changes assuming that there are at least nine originally unused spaces. This ordering simply reorders the first aisle to the end.
118, 139, 116, 137, 114, 135, 112, 133, 108, 129, 106, 127, 104, 125, 102, 123,
122, 143, 124, 145, 126, 147, 128, 149, 132, 153, 134, 155, 136, 157, 138, 159, 160,
170, 158, 168, 156, 167, 154, 166, 152, 165, 148, 164, 146, 163, 144, 162, 142, 161,
103, 105, 107, 109, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120, 140