Questions?
Programmatic Questions: meetings@ashg.org
Upload Questions: orchestrate@freemanco.com

We are looking forward to your presentation at the ASHG 2021 Annual Meeting! Please find below the information and resources you will need to prepare. Poster presenters have all been scheduled a presentation time on Monday, October 18. Poster authors have been assigned a one-hour presentation time slot in one of the following poster sessions (time zone is U.S. Eastern Time). We have programmed time slots to best accommodate your geographic region. To view your poster session slot, please visit the Online Program Planner.

Poster Session A: 9:30am – 10:30am
Poster Session B: 11:30am – 12:30pm
Poster Session C: 1:30pm – 2:30pm
Poster Session D: 3:30pm – 4:30pm
Poster Session E: 5:30pm – 6:30pm

During this time, you are asked to be “at” your virtual poster and available to answer any questions you may receive from attendees. You will not be presenting your poster live. Posters will remain viewable during the meeting as well as be on-demand for three months following the meeting. To present your poster and have your abstract included in the online program, you must register for the ASHG 2021 Virtual Meeting. Abstracts for posters are available via the Online Program Planner, starting September 8.

Know Before You Present

• Plan to be at your poster during your scheduled time. We strived to assign poster authors to slots that are best suited for their time zone.
• Login to the virtual meeting platform using your ASHG Account login credentials.
• Navigate to the posters page and look for your poster. We encourage you to do this prior to the time of your presentation so you can become familiar with the platform and the chat box.
• You can search your poster by name, poster number or topic.
• Click on your poster once you located it and you’ll be taken to a screen that shows your poster as well as a chat box.
• You will use the chat box to engage with the registered attendees.
• Add your contact details to the chat box to let registrants know how to reach you at other times during the meeting or after the meeting.
• We suggest you start the conversation by introducing yourself and saying something about your research.
• Continue to network throughout the week. See tutorial here.

Format and Upload Instructions
Due: The deadline was September 24.

Poster presenters must upload their presentations to ASHG’s secure poster presenter upload site no later than September 24. After this date, no posters will be accepted. It is important to adhere to this deadline so that the ASHG Program Committee and staff can perform quality checks.

• Poster presentations may be one of two formats:
  • Primary File should be a single-page/one-sided PDF file
    • The single-page PDF poster should be in landscape format (16:9 ratio). You may use PowerPoint or any program that can be converted to PDF.
  • Secondary file (optional can be a short .MP3 audio only [no longer than 3 minutes]). The recording should be an audio recording in which you present and describe your poster. Use a microphone and test audio before recording. Wired headsets produce the best quality audio and pickup less ambient noise. Record presentation in a quiet location without distractions.
• Naming your file:
  • Include program number/poster number, name and file type. You can find your poster number via the online planner.
  • Keep the length under 30 characters
  • Do not include special symbols $ & + , / : ; = ? @ ” < > # % { } | \ ^ ~ [ ] `.
  • Example: 1906_JaneDoe.MP3 or 500_JaneDoe.PDF

Uploading Procedures

Step 1: In advance of logging into the upload site, finalize your poster layout and convert it to a single-page PDF. If you choose to also upload an audio recording (.MP3 file), practice your timing and presentation in advance to ensure the best quality.

Step 2: When ready, log into the secure site and enter your login details. These were sent out on September 10. Click the “Upload Files” button.

Step 3: Locate the desired presentation you wish to upload. Select the file to upload and click on “Open”.

Step 4: If your upload is successful, you will receive a pop-up message indicating that the upload was successful, and your files will appear listed under the appropriate session/presentation.

• Once you upload your ePoster (PDF), you must designate the file as the “Startup File.”
  • The Startup designation is located to the right of the file name and is indicated by a 1 button.
• If you upload an MP3 audio recording, it will be considered a supplemental file, and the Startup File indicator is NOT turned on.

Confirmation: You will also receive a confirmation email within an hour. If you do not receive this email, contact the Freeman support desk at Orchestrate@freemanco.com to ensure that your file was successfully uploaded. When contacting the support desk, please reference the ASHG 2021 Virtual Meeting and your (i.e., the presenter’s) full name.

Making Changes: If you need to make changes to a file that you submitted before the September 24^th deadline, you may resubmit the file through the speaker center using a new file name; you should also delete the earlier submission. All final files must be submitted by September 24^th.

Tips and Guidelines

If you need assistance or have questions about uploading your presentation, please contact Orchestrate@freemanco.com and reference the ASHG 2021 Virtual Meeting.

• For images/pictures or graphs, the suggested resolution is 300 dpi. To check that they appear correctly on the final/printed version, zoom in at 100% and check the images, pictures and graphs. It is better to use high quality images/graphs when creating the poster and then convert it to PDF (as PDF files can be compressed).
• Provide clear labels or headings for each section of your presentation to avoid confusion.
• Fonts:
  • On light backgrounds (white, yellow, light blue) use dark fonts (black, navy blue, dark green).
  • On dark backgrounds (blue, purple) use light fonts (white, yellow, cyan etc).
  • It is strongly recommended to use a clear typeface (Arial, Arial black, Calibri…) for the body of the different sections.

Poster Guidelines

• Ideal poster size is: Landscape format (16:9 ratio). You may use PowerPoint or any program that can be converted to PDF.
  • PowerPoint Slide Format: Widescreen (16:9 ratio)
  • PowerPoint Slide Size: 13.33 in x 7.5 in or (33.867 cm x 19.05 cm)
• The upload of your ePoster will be possible in this format: PDF.
• The ePoster must be one slide.
•  Note: We do not have a required poster presentation template this year; however, one recommended format is the APA modern format.  

Avoid:

• Having a file size that exceeds 10 MB.
• The use of red or green in fonts or backgrounds as they are colors that are difficult to read.
• Stretching the images manually, they will lose quality once zoomed in.
• Full width sections. They are very difficult to read when divided as a section, even zoomed in.

Resources 

• Poster Presentation upload site (Orchestrate) – the deadline has passed
• Step-by-Step Instructions for the Upload Site (Orchestrate)
• How to Record Audio (MP3): For poster authors looking to create the audio portion of their poster presentation, we recommend using the software Audacity (free to download and easy to use) for exporting recorded audio to MP3.

Author Profiles/Headshots

We encourage authors to upload a headshot. To do this, click on the camera icon next to your name and upload a high-resolution image. The acceptable file types for profile pictures are jpg, jpeg and png, and the resolution is 600×600 pixels. Please name the image file with your first and last name in the file.

Policies

• Use of Commercial Materials: ASHG is committed to minimizing commercial bias in poster presentations and handouts and therefore should not contain any commercial logos, company names, brand or proprietary drug names. Only cooperative group, hospital, and non-profit company logos are permitted.
• Embargo: ASHG aims to encourage presentation of the latest findings and enable responsible and quality reporting of those findings by press in attendance. To this end, all posters, presentations, will be embargoed until the date and start time of the poster presentation. This means that press registrants may not publish any information about work being presented until this date. This policy helps ensure that all reporters have access to the same, up-to-date and complete information when researching and writing their articles.
• Abstracts on will be available on September 8, 2021. The meeting website will include a searchable program and an individualized meeting itinerary planner after the abstracts have been posted. Please review ASHG’s Abstract Licensing Agreement/Copyright Policy here.
• While ASHG’s photography policy remains in effect, with a virtual format you should assume attendees have the ability to take photographs, screen shots, audio recordings, or video recordings.