New Tool for Virtual Poster Sessions
Precision Health recently held their annual symposium and like most activities across campus these days, the event was hosted virtually – including the poster session. In the planning stages earlier this year, the Precision Health team compared and contrasted a number of platforms for hosting poster sessions online and ultimately landed on using VirtualPosterSession.org.
VirtualPosterSession.org was developed by Jeremy Jay, Ph.D., a faculty member in Bioinformatics at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, who recognized the need for an academic poster session platform. Dr. Jay walked the symposium planning team through the online tool, and Tina Creguer, Senior Project Manager for Precision Health, noted “we liked the clean design of VirtualPosterSession.org right away, as well as the functionality.”
Key features of VirtualPosterSession.org include:
- Low cost – Precision Health paid $200 to host 40 posters.
- Customizable website, including description, logo, and URL (for instance “virtualpostersession.org/PrecisionHealth)
- Easy abstract and poster upload process for presenters
- Presenters can appear live, or load a pre-recorded video
- Easy interface with Zoom, attendees can easily chat with presenters
- Poster website remains live for one year
Over 200 attendees took advantage of the virtual poster session during the Precision Health Symposium, and results of the post-event survey listed it as one of the most useful and enjoyable parts of the event. “During a traditional in-person poster session, attendees tend to stand back and avoid conversation,” noted Creguer. “Our presenters told us they felt the quality of interaction was better than in person. Plus, being able to keep working when they did not have a visitor was an unanticipated benefit they appreciated.”
CLICK HERE to check out the Precision Health Symposium posters, still mounted on the VirtualPosterSession.org website.
Questions? Contact Tina Creguer at tcreguer@umich.edu, or Jeremy Jay at support@virtualpostersession.org.