PROGRAM CONSTRUCTION DEADLINES
The following deadlines were recommended at the summer council meeting:
Academy Treasurer sends contact information to Section Chairs: Friday, 8-29-08
Section chairs send out letter to membership: Friday, 9-12-08
Section chairs send out second letter to membership: Friday, 10-10-08
Receipt of abstracts by section chairs: Friday, 12-5-08
Receipt of abstracts and programs by Technical Program Chair Friday, 1-9-09
Receipt of conference program by Journal Editor: Friday, 1-23-09
Other important dates to remember:
Fall council meeting (via teleconference): T.B.A.
Academy Secretary must receive section ballots by: Friday, 2-13-09
Annual meeting: April 3-4, 2009
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION/PROGRAM CONSTRUCTION GUIDELINES
Letter of announcement from section chair to membership
1. Please send out a letter of announcement to your section membership for paper presentations at the 2009 Annual Meeting to be held at Spelman College, Atlanta, GA., Friday, April 2 and Saturday, April 3 2009. You will receive contact information for each member of your section by August 31; 2009. If you do not receive this information, contact the Academy Treasurer (Mitch Lockhart, jmlockha@valdosta.edu). You may send the letter of announcement out via e-mail attachment, or by postal mail.
2. The letter of announcement consists of three parts; (a) call for papers; (b) call for section officer nominations; and (c) call for referees. In the call for papers section, include the location and date of the conference, the deadline for abstract submission to the section chair, and make reference to the Academy website at http://www.gaacademy.org/annualmeeting09.htm for the abstract form and complete abstract submission guidelines. Accommodations, travel directions and other general information about the conference will also be posted on the website as soon as this information becomes available.
As an incentive to motivate proposals, indicate two special opportunities: (1) competitive monetary awards for student oral presentations; and (2) the possibility of developing an oral presentation into a manuscript to be considered for publication in a subsequent issue of the Georgia Journal of Science. This latter opportunity applies to both student and faculty oral presentations. Additionally, if your section has a preference for oral presentations over poster presentations, it would be appropriate to indicate this preference in the call for abstracts. In the call for officer nominations, indicate that specific officer duties are described on the Academy website, under the constitution link (in particular, see article V at http://www.gaacademy.org/documents/constitution03.htm). In the call for referees, indicate the duties of the referee, the date by which you will provide abstracts to the referees, and the date by which you will need the reviewed abstracts returned.
3. If you do not receive a sufficient response by October 12, 2008, please send out a second letter of announcement. Actively recruit presenters, referees, and candidates by any appropriate means.
Abstract submission guidelines for paper and poster presentations
1. Utilize the abstract submission form, which is available in doc format at the Academy website. Be sure to provide complete information for all blanks on the form (author, author status, presentation type, special equipment needs, section, and complete contact information). Student presenters must complete the student presenter information section in the bottom half of the third page.
2. All text must be 12 point Times New Roman; Latin names are italicized, and book titles must be in single quote marks.
3. Each character in the title element must be capitalized. If the paper is a student work in progress, the title must be immediately followed by a double asterisk (**). Otherwise, immediately follow the title with a comma and a space, and then begin the author/affiliation element.
4. The author/affiliation element consists of author names in normal first name/last name order, followed by the author’s institution. When completing the author/affiliation element, it may be helpful to go by the example immediately above the abstract box on the abstract submission form. Please notice the author/affiliation element is italicized but not underlined. For presentations with multiple authors from different institutions, utilize hindu-arabic numerals to link authors with their institutions. All student names must be followed by a single asterisk; for those student papers involving multiple affiliations, place the institutional numeral after the asterisk. End the author/affiliation element with a period and begin the body of the abstract two spaces afterwards.
5. The abstract is one continuous paragraph; avoid citations in the paragraph. Acknowledgement of funding sources must go on the last line.
6. Abstracts must contain explicitly stated conclusions, except for those student presenters who do not have sufficient time to complete their research. These “in progress” papers must include a description of the materials and methods utilized in the research.
7. After completing the abstract submission form, save it in Microsoft Word (not WordPad) and forward via e-mail attachment to the appropriate section chair. Your section chair will send confirmation via e-mail upon receipt of your abstract.
8. The dimensions for poster presentations are 3’ high x 4’ wide.
9. Questions regarding equipment needs and local policy (pre-storage on the local server prior to the meeting, use of laptops, internet access, etc.) must be directed to Dr. Barry Hoj
Abstract review process
Upon receiving abstracts by December 5, 2008, section chairs must do the following:
1. Save a copy of the abstract submission form.
2. Acknowledge receipt of the abstract by replying to the author’s confirmation e-mail address.
3. Forward the abstract by e-mail attachment to each referee.
4. Section chairs and referees are free to make minor editorial changes (grammatical errors, spelling errors, typographical errors, form, etc.) Contact the authors of those abstracts in need of major revisions (any content change, excessive revision for grammar, expression or form) as soon as possible. If the author does not make the necessary changes as recommended by the section chair, the submission may be rejected. Or, at the discretion of the section chair, the abstract may be accepted for presentation, with only the title, presenter’s name and affiliation published in the journal.
5. Upon completion of the review process, forward the individual abstracts by e-mail attachment to the technical program chair, and proceed to schedule presentations and construct the section program according to the guidelines that follow.
Scheduling presentations
After all abstract submissions have been reviewed and revised as necessary, please make a program schedule for your section according to the following guidelines:
1. Contact the appropriate section chair in the Florida Academy and discuss your scheduling needs (below, steps 2 – 7). If logistical problems arise such that you cannot schedule according to steps 2 – 7, contact Steve Whittle, GAS technical program chair, for assistance.
2. Presentations are divided into two sessions: Friday from 1:00 – 5:00 and Saturday from 7:30 – 10:00, and 10:30 – 12:00 noon. If there are not enough presentations to fill all the time slots on both Friday and Saturday, fill all time slots on Saturday and schedule the remaining presentations on Friday. If there are not enough presentations to fill the Saturday morning schedule, schedule your first presentation late enough (after 7:30) such that the last presentation ends at 12:00.
3. Do not schedule presentations from 10:00 – 10:30 Saturday morning. This time will be reserved for the section business meeting.
4. Schedule all student presentations before 10:00 am on Saturday morning. It is desirable to schedule all student presentations on Saturday morning in order to promote attendance at the luncheon. Some student presentations may be scheduled on Friday afternoon due to lack of time slots on Saturday morning, and due to lack of judges available on Saturday morning. Those student presentations scheduled for Saturday morning must be finished by 10:00 am so student presenters can be considered for awards prior to the plenary session Saturday afternoon. Schedule faculty presentations in whatever order you deem to be fair and appropriate. Some examples of rationales for scheduling papers include (but are not limited to) the following: (1) It may be necessary to schedule a paper at a certain time because the presenter is also giving a paper in another section at another time slot; (2) closely related papers may be scheduled in sequence; or (3) scheduling priority may be given according to the order in which the abstracts were received.
5. Allow 15 minutes for each presentation. At your discretion, you may allow 30 minutes for presentations (normally, all presentations in the History Section are scheduled for 30 minutes). The section chair will be responsible for keeping the presentation on track. This responsibility includes calling time on those presenters who exceed the allotted time. Important: Do not move papers forward in the program if a presenter finishes early or fails to appear. Members from other sections depend on section chairs to follow the published schedule. Please have a plan in place for utilizing time constructively if a presenter is unexpectedly absent.
6. Avoid parallel sessions.
7. You may schedule a break and/or a structured poster session according to your judgment. After the technical program chair receives all section programs, breaks may be adjusted such that breaks are staggered across sections.
8. Upon completion of scheduling, construct the section program according to the guidelines that follow.
Construction of a section program
1. Use Times New Roman font type, with 12 point font size.
2. The heading of a section program consists of three entries, each centered on a separate line: Section number and name; Room number and building name; and the presider’s name, followed by “presider”. Some of this information may not be available at the time section chairs construct the program, and will be added by the technical program chair at a latter stage. It may be helpful to utilize a section program from a previous conference issue as a guideline for constructing your program.
3. The body of the section program consists of a list of entries, as described in items 4 - 8 below.
4. Each entry consists of a time stamp, an abstract title, and the author list. The time stamp is flush with the left margin; the rest of the entry is indented five spaces.
5. The time stamp is hh:mm format. Do not specify AM or PM in the time stamp.
6. The abstract title is in all caps. Latin names are italicized, and book titles, which may occur in book review presentation titles, are enclosed in single quotes.
7. List authors as listed on the abstract, except do not italicize. Student author names are followed by a single asterisk. Do not include affiliations.
8. List posters at the end of the program on Saturday morning. Poster entries are not indented, but are listed flush with the left margin.
Facilities
Certain standard equipment will be available in all the presentation rooms; this will be specified at the fall council meeting. Presenters who need additional equipment must specify this on the abstract submission form in the space for special equipment needs. The section chair will contact the local arrangements chair to determine if the equipment is available and advise the presenter accordingly.
Questions about equipment should be directed to the local arrangements chair at Jacksonville University, Dr. Daniel McCarthy (dmccartl@ju.edu).
Submission of section program /official confirmation
Section chairs will send their program schedules in a Microsoft Word document via e-mail attachment to the technical program chair on or before January 11, 2008. If you have not already forwarded presenter abstracts to the technical program chair, please send them in with your section program. The Journal Editor and the technical program chair reserve the right to reject an abstract that does not meet the guidelines. In some cases, the abstract may be accepted for oral presentation with only the title, author and affiliation published in the journal. Section chairs will receive official notice regarding the status of section programs as soon as possible after the Journal Editor has screened all programs. Thereafter, section chairs will contact presenters to confirm presentation topic, any special equipment needs, date, location, and time of their presentation.
If you have questions about the call for proposals, the abstract review process, scheduling, the program construction process, the deadlines, facilities, or anything related to the conference program, feel free to contact me at your convenience. I encourage all members to periodically visit the following webpage: http://www.gaacademy.org/annualmeeting09.htm
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