Building the Program: Introduction

Introduction

Programme codes are normally session codes plus sequence numbers.

Programme codes must be unique to each contribution in the conference programme, and they should contain the keys to understanding when and where a presentation will take place, as well as indicate the type of presentation.

Programme codes are used to identify contributions during file upload by authors and file download by editors during the processing of contributions to the proceedings.

Programme codes are built either manually or automatically.

Create Programme Codes Manually

Set the system parameter

• Overall Database Administration / System Parameters / Conference / Auto Gen Program Code

to No, and enter Programme Codes via the "Edit" link in the abstract screen.

Create Programme Codes Automatically

Set the system parameter

• Overall Database Administration / System Parameters / Conference / Auto Gen Program Code

to Yes, and ensure that the session codes have been entered via the screens

• Scientific Program Administration / Presentation Types (Sessions)
• Scientific Program Administration / Sessions

Programme Codes usually contain:

• A Day Code: MO, TU, WE, TH, FR
• A Presentation type code: the user decides how he or she wishes to identify the presentation type. These will have been entered in the screen:
  • Scientific Program Administration / Presentation Type (Sessions)
• A location code entered in the screen:
  • Scientific Program Administration / Location Codes
• A sequence number

Programme Codes for Oral Presentations

Once the sessions have been established, it is necessary to assign a session and sequence number to each contribution. This is done manually via the "edit" link in the search.results screen.

Search for all invited oral or contributed oral presentations via the search screen (conference url.search.html), and sort or group as well as possible to facilitate the individual entries.

Work through each contribution, click on the "Edit" link at the top of the screen, scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and then

• Select the session in the popup list date/time/location
• Enter the start time of the presentation
• Enter the number of minutes
• Enter the sequence number

Click on "Save Changes and Record QA".

Programme Codes for Poster Presentations

As mentioned above, programme codes are session codes plus sequence numbers. Once all posters have been assigned to a poster session, SPMS can automatically generate the sequence numbers.

Assigning poster presentations to poster sessions is done via the screen

• Scientific Program Administration / Combine Main and Sub-classifications

However, the method for assigning posters to sessions will depend on

• whether all posters are grouped in one room or spread out over several rooms and
• the sort order decided by the administrator.

One Hall, or Several Halls

If all posters are accommodated in one hall, then it will have been sufficient to create one poster session, for example

MOPH (Monday, Poster, Hall H)

However, if posters are to be spread over several halls, it is necessary, either

• to assign each main plus sub-classification combination to one room, or
• to create several poster session codes, distinguishable by the location, for example

MOPH (Monday, Poster, Hall H) MOPR (Monday, Poster, Hall R)

In this case, it will be necessary to enter both poster session codes (MOPH, and MOPR), for each main plus sub-classification to enable the SPMS to automatically assign sequence numbers over several rooms.

Decide Sort Order

Before automatically assigning the sequence numbers, it is necessary to decide how to sort all of the contributions in the poster hall, or halls. This is done via the screen

• Scientific Program Administration / Program Code Sort Order

This screen has a number of default possibilities:

Main Classifiction, Sub-classification, Last Name of Presenter, First Name of Presenter, Country of Presenter, Town of Presenter, Affiliation of Presenter.

In this case, the administrator can decide to sort

• By Affiliation (use country, town, affiliation, last and first names) grouping all contributions thus by affiliation, if necessary followed by main and sub-classification.
• By main and sub-classification, followed by affiliation (use country, town, affiliation, last and first names), grouping thus by subject, and then by affiliation.

If all posters are in the same hall, then once the sort order has been defined, the SPMS can be set to automatically assign the sequence numbers, as described below.

If the posters are spread over several halls, as mentioned above, and depending on whether

• each main plus sub-classification combination has been assigned to one room, or
• several poster session codes have been created with the aim of spreading the posters over several halls

the sort order should ignore the main plus sub-classification if all posters in the same main plus sub-classification are in the same hall, or include them if for example one wishes to group first by main and sub-classification, before affiliation.

Automatically Assign Poster Programme Code Sequence Numbers

Once the sort order has been established, the sequence numbers are automatically assigned via the screen

• Scientific Program Administration / Assign/Move Paper IDs

when the system parameter

• Overall Database Administration / System Parameters / Conference / Enable Automatic Poster ID Assignment

is set to "Yes".

Note that following the assignment of sequence numbers, it can happen (in fact it happens frequently) that, depending on the sort order, posters to be presented by the same presenter can be scheduled in different areas of the poster hall, or even in different poster halls.

The "Disjointed Authors" screen lists each case where a presenter has more than poster, of which one or more are not scheduled together.

Use the functionality in the Assign Paper IDs page to move posters around. This is done via the Abstract ID (the ID originally assigned to the abstract when it was created). Enter the abstract ID of the contribution to be moved, and then enter the session and sequence where it should be scheduled.

Considerable effort can be invested in moving individual contributions around to facilitate the presentation by authors. Once the job is complete, set the system parameter

Overall Database Administration / System Parameters / Conference / Enable Automatic Poster ID Assignment

to No, to guard against inadvertently rescheduling, which will lose all manual changes.