CEEISA/ISA International Convention Budapest, Hungary June 26 - 28, 2003

GUIDELINES FOR PANELISTS & CHAIRS  

The experience of the ISA and the CEEISA with past conferences shows that success with good management of panels and/or panelists largely correlates with success of the panel as such. To make sure that as many panels as possible will enjoy such success, the following guidelines might be useful to panelists, chairs and discussants. These guidelines can also be downloaded to your computer in MS Word format at the following URL:
http://www.isanet.org/budapest/guidelines.doc .

General

Each panel has 105 minutes at its disposal. The chair should make sure that there is ample time left for discussion. By “ample” we mean at least 30 minutes. Members of the panel should be sure that the panel begins as scheduled. Members of the audience could come late to the panel. The panelists do not have this privilege.  

Time-limitation  

Normally, in panels with 4 papers and 1 discussant, the panelists and discussants are given a maximum of 15 minutes for their presentations (longer if there are fewer than 4 papers and shorter if there are more). Once the decision is made about how much time should be given to individual speakers, the latter should respect that rigorously. The chair should remind an individual in good time (e.g., 3 minutes) that his/her time is up and that s/he should conclude. It is a sign of disrespect to the chair, to other panelists, and to the audience if the panelist ignores the reminder. The panelists should anticipate this and prepare their presentations accordingly.

Presentation

The panelists must make sure that their presentation is succinct, clear and made laudable to the audience. Should a panelist wish to use transparencies, PowerPoint presentation (PPP), or other media, he or she must make sure that these will be readable to all the audience.  Hence, the fonts used must be large enough so that the person who is farthest from the panel is able to read it.  Not observing this guideline also indicates disrespect to the audience – and, unfortunately, it still happens all too often.  If you use transparencies or PPP, please refrain from putting on whole sections of a text, or tables with small-printed figures. If you do, do not expect that anybody will read – or be able to read – them. Also please advise the program chair in advance if audio-visual equipment will be required as not all rooms at the Central European University are so equipped.  

Further, in both ISA and CEEISA past conferences, we have noted that some panelists read their papers.  Reading out one’s presentation generally means that the audience loses concentration; furthermore, it is impossible to read the paper in the short time permitted for the oral presentation.  Therefore, presenters and/or discussants should avoid this practice and should present their main points (and only their most important points) as succinctly and clearly as possible.

Discussants

The discussants are normally required to address the following issues in one’s paper, and in the following order: a) the merits of the paper; b) the weaknesses of the paper; c) suggestions for improvements.  They may also draw the attention of the audience to common themes or linkages across the papers in their panel, or to sharpen points of debate for later discussion. Chairs and panelists must make sure that their discussants receive papers well in advance – that is, at least two weeks prior to the beginning of the conference; therefore, the deadline for getting all papers to other panelists and discussants is 10 June 2003. That should give discussants enough time to prepare their comments.

The audience  

The chairs should encourage the audience to provide their own feedback and questions to the panelists. While there is no rule to how this should be done optimally, the chairs should involve as many members of the audience as possible.  Audience members, however, should be discouraged from making lengthy statements that take up too much of the limited discussion time.  It is frequently most efficient to ask for questions and comments from the audience and then to allow the panelists 2-3 minutes each to respond to the most important issues raised during the discussion.  This means that chairs must be certain to allocate at least 30 minutes for audience comments and replies from the panel members.

Wrap-up

Chairs should make sure that they begin concluding the session at least five minutes before the official end. This will help avoiding final last-minute questions, and, not less important, will secure time to thank the panelists for their efforts.  Panels should not run beyond the scheduled time as we have allocated only 15 minutes between panels for the participants to move from one site to another.