All papers accepted for presentation at SIEDS will make two presentations.

1. An 18 minute presentation followed by 5 minutes of questions. A laptop and projector for presentations will be supplied in each room. Authors should arrive 15 minutes early to their session to load their Powerpoint presentation onto the laptop.
2. A poster presentation during the reception (the hour before the dinner)

The poster session will provide a time for all attendees to browse all of the papers and engage in direct discussion with a paper’s authors. Each poster should always have at least one author stand by the poster during the poster session so that such discussions can occur.

The requirements and guidelines for the posters are as follows.

• A vertical surface on which to pin posters will be provided. You do NOT need to mount your poster on foamcore or cardboard. The maximum horizontal size for a poster is 40 inches. The maximum vertical dimension is less restrictive – the mounting surfaces are at least 5 feet tall, so this dimension will not be the limiting one. Pins will be provided.
• Teams will be able to set up their posters after the technical sessions and before the reception

An award will be given to the Best Poster. The following advice outlines the criteria the judges will look for:

• Content is the most critical factor for the posters. The poster should present your project in efficient terms with sufficient information on the motivation for your work, what it is you did, the process and techniques used, and key results.
• The material needs to be presented in sufficient depth to have meaningful/in-depth discussions with someone knowledgeable about systems engineering, but not necessarily knowledgeable about your project in particular.
• The title of the project should be prominently displayed and the design and layout of text, the use of space, and the addition of graphics should all combine to convey a positive and professional impression to the audience.
• A team should recognize that an effective poster is different than slides for an effective technical oral presentation (like the one given during the technical sessions at SIEDS). While both are highly visual forms of communication that rely less on text than a technical paper does, a poster should be able to “stand alone” without a presenter explaining it while slides for an oral presentation are designed to be accompanied by a presenter. As such, an effective poster typically has more explanation included on it than does an effective set of slides for a technical oral presentation.
• While gratuitous visuals are not helpful, visuals (graphs, images, process maps, screenshots, etc.) tend to be more helpful than excessively large blocks of text.

Papers not from the University of Virginia (authors who are traveling to Charlottesville)

You will need to arrange for getting your poster to SIEDS and set up before the poster session. If you need a place to set aside your poster before the early evening poster session, inquire at the registration desk.

Papers from the SIE Capstone Course at the University of Virginia

Talk to you capstone advisor about getting your poster printed. Plan on having your poster printed no later than 2:00 pm on Monday, April 21, 2008.