Call for Organized Poster Session Proposals

95^th ESA Annual Meeting
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
August 1 - 6, 2010

Call Open: August 15 - September 24, 2009

New for 2010!

We invite proposals for organized poster sessions for the 95th ESA Annual Meeting. The meeting will be held August 1-6, 2010 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Pittsburgh Convention Center.

Organized poster sessions will consist of sets of posters, in multiples of 5, that are organized around a specific topic with all of the presenters invited by the organizer.

Organized poster sessions will be scheduled during one of the regular poster sessions at the annual meeting, from 4:30-6:30 PM, Monday-Thursday. All posters in each organized poster session will be placed as a group in the exhibit hall.

Proposals addressing the meeting theme, “Global Warming: The legacy of our past, the challenge for our future” 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 24, 2009. You must use the online submission site at http://eco.confex.com/eco/2010/cfp.cgi, that will be available from the ESA website (www.esa.org/pittsburgh) as of August 15, 2009.

1. Evaluation Process and Criteria
2. Endorsements
3. Presentation Rules
4. If Your Proposal Is Accepted
5. Application Format
6. Cancellation Policy
7. Summary of Deadlines
8. Begin Submission Process

A. Evaluation Process and Criteria

Organized poster 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.

Decisions will be made by December 17, 2009.
        
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 posters clearly contribute to a coherent whole
• the collection of presenters 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.

Presenters:Invited presenters may be a mix of well-established scientists and newcomers, but each presenter should bring new contributions to the session, not simply reviews of previous work. Inclusion of experienced or particularly engaging presenters can strengthen a proposal, but new voices are also important. Proposals with a larger proportion of confirmed speakers will be favored. All presenters will be required to submit an abstract by the February 25, 2010, abstract submission deadline.

B. Endorsements

There are no official endorsements of Organized Poster Sessions.

C. Presentation Rules

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 or poster session.

Persons agreeing to present posters in organized poster sessions also should be aware that the one-paper-rule will be enforced. That is, anyone who is presenter of a poster in an organized poster session cannot also be presenter for another paper whether for a symposium, organized oral session, contributed oral session, or poster session. Organizers should make certain that presenters 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.

D. If Your Proposal Is Accepted

After organized poster sessions are accepted and the scheduling for the meeting is underway, cancellations and schedule changes are very disruptive to meeting planning. Hence, organized poster session organizers should obtain firm commitments from as many of their invited presenters as possible before submitting their proposal.

If a proposal is accepted, the organizers must submit a final summary description of the organized poster session to the Program Assistant no later than January 21, 2010. 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, 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 presenter list.

It is the responsibility of the organized poster session organizers to see that each presenter submits an individual abstract of his/her presentation through the Abstract Submission site by the February 25, 2010, deadline.

ESA is not able to provide any financial assistance, stipends, free registration, travel assistance, or paid lodging to organized poster session organizers or to individual session participants. Organizers are responsible for making this clear to the participants.

E. Application Format

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 thehttp://eco.confex.com/eco/2010/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 poster session
• Principal organizer (Name, institution or affiliation, e-mail)
• Co-organizers (Names, institutions or affiliations, e-mail).
• Presenters (Names, affiliations, and tentative titles or topics). Indicate which presenters 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 posters 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 Jennifer Riem at jennifer@esa.org. Organizers of accepted Organized Poster Sessions will be notified by the end of February regarding the date for their sessions at the Annual Meeting. Organizers are responsible for notifying all participants in their session concerning the date of the session.

F. Cancellation Policy

Once an organized poster 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.

G. Summary of Deadlines:

September 24, 2009: Deadline for proposal submission
December 17, 2009: Notification of acceptance sent out
January 21, 2010: Deadline to submit final revisions and confirmed speaker lists
February 18, 2010: Notification of date sent out
February 25, 2010: Deadline for speakers to submit abstracts for their talks (required)

H. SUBMIT PROPOSAL HERE

Dr. Frank S. Gilliam Department of Biological Sciences Marshall University Huntington, WV  25755-2510 E-mail:  gilliam@marshall.edu Phone:  (304) 696-3636 FAX:(304) 696-3243

Jennifer Riem 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: