Champion Sponsors

Guide for Session Chairs

Updated 21 April: Details on Honourable Mention and Best Paper awards.

Thank you for volunteering to be a Session Chair at CHI 2019. Session Chairs fulfil an important role in the success of this conference by introducing presenters, ensuring a timely start and end of presentations, and enabling a constructive academic discussion. Each session consists of four 20-minute paper slots. Each 20-minute slot should consist of a 15-minute presentation plus 5 minutes of questions.

The following list highlights the main responsibilities and recommendations for your role as Session Chair. Please contact the CHI 2019 TPC team if you have any questions.

Make sure you are on time for your session. The online/mobile schedule indicates the time at which presentations should start. It is essential that you are present in the session room in the break prior to the start of the session.
Introduce yourself as the Session Chair to the presenters (typically found in the first row). Confirm pronunciation of presenters’ names, preferred pronoun, affiliation, and presentation title.
Introduce yourself as the Session Chair to any Student Volunteers (SV) that are assigned to the session (easily identifiable by their shirt).
Ensure together with the presenter that the projector (and potentially audio) is working. If not, raise the issue with SVs who will contact technical support.
Ensure together with the SVs that the room is clean.
Start the session at the indicated time by (shortly) introducing yourself as well as the session (title, the general theme of the session).
Introduce each speaker using their full proper name and the title of the publication.
If the paper was awarded either an Honourable Mention or Best Paper award (full list here), the session chair introduces the paper and informs the audience that the upcoming paper received an Honourable Mention / Best Paper award. Hand over the award on stage to the presenter of the work, and ask for a round of applause from the audience.
Keep time for each presentation, and provide two-minute and one-minute warnings before the start of the 5-minute question and answer period.
If the speaker cannot be clearly heard during their talk, be proactive about helping them with audio, e.g. adjust their microphone or give them tips on how they can be best heard.
When the speaker is done, say “Let’s thank our speaker” and applaud.
The hard cut-off for presentations is 20-minutes, after which you stand up, thank the speaker, and announce the next speaker. This is a worst-case scenario, try to support speakers in sticking to the 15-minute presentation slot to allow time for questions.
Allow the next presenter to connect their laptop one minute before question time of the previous presenter is completed to ensure a smooth transition between speakers.
If questions/discussions become too lengthy, suggest that the discussion resumes after completion of the session.
Cut off any questions that are belligerent or insulting. Please let the Program or General chairs know about the issue.
Come prepared with a question for each paper. If no questions are raised by the audience, start the question session with your own question – more questions typically follow from the audience after this. If you contact authors now they will be very happy to send you a copy of their paper ahead of the conference.
If a speaker is absent or finishes way too early, do not start the next paper. Conference attendees time their presentation visits with the start times listed in the program.
At the end of the session, tell attendees what is next (e.g., break, evening programme, etc).
Ensure that you, the speakers, and any of the audience members with questions use the microphone rather than shouting into the front. We are striving to maximise accessibility and this ensures that everyone in the room can hear what is being said.