The role of the Workshop Chair, which is relatively substantial, is to organise the workshops, reporting to the conference Programme Chair(s). You will also coordinate the Workshop team, comprising one or two other members; liaise with the Talks Chair, ensuring theme and handling consistency; and liaise with the Sponsorship Chair, taking over the handling of the sponsored workshops.
Before the conference
- Decide when workshops will be held with the Programme Chair(s), either during a dedicated time slot or within the general conference.
- Prepare the workshop call for submissions and submission instructions.
- Review the submissions and propose selected workshops to the Programme Chair(s) that fit with the chosen themes of the conference.
- Notify applicants of the outcome of the review process and collect confirmation of attendance from presenters of accepted workshops.
- Collect details of sponsored workshops.
- Publicise the workshops on the website, including their abstracts, titles and any prerequisites.
- Liaise with all workshop presenters to define the infrastructure requirements (e.g. network access, ports, AV equipment, etc.) for each workshop.
- Arrange presenter mentoring if requested.
- Liaise with the Logistics Chair to coordinate workshop registration bookings for attendees.
- Draft a schedule for workshops and allocate rooms with the Logistics and Programme Chairs.
- Prepare workshop materials, including:
- A VM loaded to USB (or cloud storage if that is the solution adopted).
- Stationery, AV equipment, etc. as needed.
- Liaise with local IT to make sure the venue’s network meets all workshop requirements and arrange for local IT support on site during the conference.
- Prepare workshop related instructions/responsibilities for volunteers together with the Volunteer Chair.
- Provide information to workshop presenters to enable ticket reservations.
During the conference
- Set up workshop rooms (e.g. arrange room, distribute materials) the evening before the workshops are occurring.
- Ensure the workshops run smoothly in collaboration with volunteers by:
- Introducing the workshop presenters.
- Ensuring that workshop attendance does not exceed limits.
- Mediating tech support requests during workshops (by passing them on to local IT or AV support).