Call for Organized Oral Session Proposals
94th ESA Annual Meeting
Albuquerque, New Mexico
August 2 - 7, 2009
Call Open: July 14 - September 25, 2008
We invite proposals for organized oral sessions for the 94th ESA Annual Meeting. The meeting will be held August 2-7, 2009 in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Albuquerque Convention Center.
Organized oral sessions are organized around a specific topic with most of the speakers invited by the organizer. These sessions are distinguished from symposia in that 1) there is less emphasis on breadth of appeal and overall synthesis; 2) they may be comprised largely of related case studies; 3) talks are set at 15 minutes each, with 5 minutes following for discussion (as in contributed oral sessions); and 4) at least 2 time slots out of the 10 available in an organized oral session are reserved for placing related talks from the contributed abstracts by the Program Chair. Organized oral sessions are limited to half-day sessions (3 ½ hours long); full-day organized oral sessions will not be considered. Proposals addressing the meeting theme, “Ecological Knowledge and a Global Sustainable Society”, are especially welcome, but any timely and coherent subject of broad interest will be considered. We also welcome proposals that explore interdisciplinary connections with areas of social and natural science outside of ecology or that relate to ecological education at any level.
Applications must be received on or before Thursday, September 25, 2008. You must use the online submission site at http://eco.confex.com/eco/2009/cfp.cgi that will be available from the ESA website (www.esa.org/albuquerque) as of July 14, 2008.
A. Evaluation Process and Criteria
B. Endorsements
C. Presentation Rules
D. If Your Proposal Is Accepted
E. Application Format
F. Cancellation Policy
G. Summary of Deadlines
A. Evaluation Process and Criteria
Organized oral session proposals will be assessed under the following criteria. Weighting of particular criteria may vary depending on the nature of proposals, but proposals should explicitly address these criteria, as appropriate.
Scientific strength : Sessions may receive higher priority if they:
- feature significant contributions to or advances in ecological understanding
- present innovative and original work
- provide examples of how ecological research benefited from attention to public policy concerns, outreach or educational activities.
Structure and organization: Strong proposals will describe sessions where:
- individual talks clearly contribute to a coherent whole
- the collection of speakers offers a range of perspectives; organizers should carefully avoid the appearance of biases toward their own perspectives.
Integration: Proposals may receive higher priority if they are clearly linked to the meeting's overall theme, or to other sessions proposed for this meeting or presented at recent ESA meetings (see www.esa.org/meetings/ for lists of organized oral sessions and symposia from recent ESA meetings).
Speakers: Invited speakers may be a mix of well-established scientists, rising stars, and newcomers, but each speaker should bring new contributions to the session, not simply reviews of previous work. Inclusion of experienced or particularly engaging speakers can strengthen a proposal, but new voices are also important. Proposals with a larger proportion of confirmed speakers will be favored. All speakers will be required to submit an abstract by the February 26, 2009, abstract submission deadline.
Decisions will be made by December 18, 2008.
There are no official endorsements of Organized Oral Sessions.
In the interest of broadening participation, an individual is allowed to be an organizer (either a principal organizer or a co-organizer) for only one organized oral session.
Persons agreeing to present papers in organized oral sessions also should be aware that the one-paper-rule will be enforced. That is, anyone who is first author or presenter of an organized oral session paper cannot also be first author or presenter for another paper whether for a symposium, organized oral session, contributed oral session, or poster session. Organizers should make certain that speakers they recruit understand this rule and make no conflicting commitments.
Exceptions to the one-paper rule may be made for participants in special sessions, workshops, and for plenary speakers. Also, an author may submit an abstract for a second presentation ONLY if the second abstract is directly related to ecology education or scientific outreach. Moderators for organized oral sessions may not serve as speakers in those sessions. A moderator may, however, be a speaker in another session.
D. If Your Proposal Is Accepted
After organized oral sessions are accepted and the scheduling for the meeting is underway, cancellations and schedule changes are very disruptive to meeting planning. Hence, organized oral session organizers should obtain firm commitments from as many of their invited speakers as possible before submitting their proposal.
If a proposal is accepted, the organizers must submit a final summary description of the organized oral session to the Program Assistant no later than January 22, 2009. This summary will appear on the meeting website, should have a description written so as to stimulate interest and promote attendance by a general audience, and thus is different in focus from the longer description in the original proposal. This final summary must include a complete and current listing of organizers' names and their affiliations, addresses, telephone, fax, and email addresses; a 250 word description of the session, a single-sentence (up to 50 words) description of the session, and a final, confirmed speaker list.
It is the responsibility of the organized oral session organizers to see that each speaker submits an individual abstract of his/her talk through the Abstract Submission site by the February 26, 2009, deadline.
ESA is not able to provide any financial assistance, stipends, free registration, travel assistance, or paid lodging to organized oral session organizers or to individual session participants. Organizers are responsible for making this clear to the participants.
All proposals MUST follow the format of the online submission form on the ESA meeting website. Incomplete and inaccurate information provided on these forms may result in the proposal not being accepted.
Note that the following information must be entered on the http://eco.confex.com/eco/2009/cfp.cgi. It is provided here to assist you in planning your submission. Also note that the web page format may differ slightly from the format listed here.
All proposals must include:
- Title of organized oral session
- Principal organizer (Name, institution or affiliation, address, phone, fax, e-mail)
- Co-organizers (Names, institutions or affiliations, addresses, phone, fax, e-mail). Indicate which of the organizers will serve as moderator. The moderator may not serve as a speaker in the session.
- Speakers (Names, affiliations, and tentative titles or topics). Indicate which speakers are committed and confirmed and which are tentative.
- Description (< 400 words) and justification (<250 words) of the session: Background information, goals, objectives, importance, and interest to the membership of ESA. The description should focus on the theme and structure of session (including anticipated sequence of speakers and topics), while the justification should focus on how the review criteria are met by the proposal and should not simply repeat the description. Keep in mind the evaluation criteria in preparing your description and justification.
When you submit your proposal on the website submission form, you will be notified of receipt by email to the address that you provide. If you do not receive such notification within 2 days of submitting your proposal, please contact Program Assistant Aleta Wiley at aleta@esa.org. The preliminary scientific program should be on the ESA website in May 2009 and each accepted organized oral session organizer should check for exact time and location of his/her session. Organizers are responsible for notifying all participants in their session concerning the date, time, and place of the session.
Once an organized oral session has been accepted and listed on the meeting website, cancellation causes serious disruption of meeting planning. Do not submit a proposal if you are uncertain that you will be able to fulfill your obligation to organize and conduct the session.
For further information, please consult the ESA website (www.esa.org/albuquerque) or contact the Program Chair or Program Assistant (see below).
September 25, 2008: Deadline for proposal submission
December 18, 2008: Notification of acceptance sent out
January 22, 2009: Deadline to submit final revisions and confirmed speaker lists
February 19, 2009: Notification of date and time of organized oral sessions sent out
February 26, 2009: Deadline for speakers to submit abstracts for their talks (required)
| Scott Franklin Program Chair School of Biological Sciences University of Northern Colorado Greeley, Colorado 80639 Phone: 970-351-2921 Fax: 970-351-2335 Email:  |
Aleta Wiley
Program Assistant Ecological Society of America 1990 M Street, NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20036 USA Phone: (202) 833-8773 x 218 Fax: (202) 833-8775 Email:  |
