Preparing Your Presentation for WORLDSymposium™ 2025

Timing and Content of Contemporary Forum Presentations

  1. The total time allotted on the schedule for each platform presentation is 12 minutes for each speaker. There will be 4 presentations per 1-hour segment of talks, followed by a panel Q&A with the 4 speakers from each segment. Questions from the live and virtual audience will be moderated by the session co-chairs, directing specific questions to each of the 4 presenters. All presenting speakers are required to be available during their full 1-hour presentation with Q&A session.
  2. In preparing your slides, remember that the first slide should be a “title and presenter” slide. This orients the audience to your subject matter, and also aids the AV team in confirming your talk is in the proper time slot. No corporate logos of any kind are allowed on the title slide.
  3. The second slide should be your disclosure slide. Your disclosure should be the same as what was entered during your abstract submission. The disclosure is for the presenting author only, do not include co-author disclosures on this slide.
  4. For maximum slide viewing, set up your presentation using the 16:9 aspect ratio.
  5. Do not spend time “thanking” the organizers. This is a waste of precious time and is not appropriate. You may conclude your slides with an acknowledgement to the contributors as the very last slide, however, you are not allowed to include corporate logos, only text acknowledgement.
  6. Do NOT spend any time giving an overview of lysosomal diseases or specific lysosomal disease information. Limit your introductory slides to one (1).
  7. Any “acknowledgement” of colleagues should NOT be read aloud. Oral acknowledgement of such contributors also takes time away from the important discussion of your abstract; this discussion is the primary purpose for which we are all meeting.
  8. Although the Contemporary Forum (CF) is not a CME session, the CF Session Speakers will be held to ALL the same requirements as the CME Platform Speakers. As you prepare your presentation, please keep these thoughts in mind:
    1. Talks must be free of commercial bias for or against any product. If commercial products are discussed, the session must present objective information about those products, based on generally-accepted scientific evidence. Presenters must not engage in the marketing of proprietary services and/or testing in any way during the presentation. Moderators are strongly encouraged to intervene and inform the Program Committee if this occurs.
    2. Presentations must promote improvements or quality in healthcare and not a specific proprietary business interest of a commercial interest. Presentations must give a balanced view of therapeutic options. Use of generic names will contribute to this impartiality. If the educational material or content includes trade names, where available trade names from several companies should be used, not just trade names from a single company.
    3. All invited presenters, moderators, and all authors on oral abstracts must sign a disclosure statement regarding the existence or non-existence of any financial interest and/or other relationship(s) you might have with the manufacturer(s) or provider(s) of any commercial product(s) or service(s) or with commercial and academic laboratories that accept samples for testing or develop any laboratory test or test(s) to be discussed during your presentation.
  9. As a reminder, content requirements for your presentation include:
    1. As defined by ACCME, “a commercial interest is any entity producing, marketing, re-selling or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on patients.” The ACCME does not consider providers of clinical service directly to patients to be commercial interests.
    2. A speaker whose work is supported by a commercial entity may credit that support at the outset of the presentation using TEXT only. Company logo or tag line/branding may not be used anywhere in the presentation. THIS INCLUDES LOGOS AND COLOR SCHEMES.
    3. A speaker from a non-commercial entity such as a university, research institution, research consortium, for-profit hospital (exempt under ACCME rules), or government agency may credit the organization using logos on the acknowledgement slide, which should be the last slide. The speaker MAY NOT brand the overall presentation with logos or designs from the organization.
    4. If these rules are not followed, presenters will be asked to revise their slides.

Submitting Your Presentation For Review & Recording

First authors will be sent an email with instructions for submitting slides to the OASIS system (same system as abstract submissions), mid- to late-December 2021.  PowerPoint files must be submitted by January 10, 2022, for review by the WORLDSymposium Planning Team and the Accredited Provider, Postgraduate Institute for Medicine.  If changes are required, an email will be sent to the presenting author from the WORLDSymposium Planning Team.
Uploading Files:
Presenting authors will be sent an email with a request to upload PowerPoint files, along with instructions on how to upload their PowerPoint files via the OASIS online system.  The email will come from amber@worldsymposia.org.  Please watch for this email mid- to late-December 2021.
Step 1: Log into the OASIS system, the upload site is titled, “Welcome to the WORLDSymposium Virtual Meeting Submission Portal!”.  If you forget your Password, click on “Forgot my Password”.
Step 2: Once logged in, you will see your abstract titled listed on the page, below some general information.  Click on the title of the abstract.  If you submitted more than one abstract, be sure to click on the title that is selected for platform presentation, as there could be other abstracts for ePoster upload.
Before uploading your file, be sure to name your file with the following format:
Your Last Name – Day of your Presentation – A few keywords for your talk
Example 1: Smith Tue Feb 9 LALD Update
Example 2: Moore Wed Feb 10 Cerebral Cortex Ab
When naming your file, please keep the length under 30 characters and do not include special symbols  $ & + , / : ; = ? @ ” < > # % { } | \ ^ ~ [ ] `as this will prevent your presentation from uploading through the submission website. DO NOT NAME YOUR FILE SIMPLY WORLD, or WORLDSymposium.
Your presentation is scheduled for 12 minutes (no longer), plus time for Q&A at the end of your session’s segment.  We ask that you do not have more than 12-15 slides so you can get through all of them within the timeframe you have been allotted.
Step 3: After clicking on the abstract title, you will be taken to a page with 2 options (tabs), choose the one that states “My Presentations”. Click on the title of your Abstract, then upload the file (Browse Local Files) and choose your file for upload.  If you want to view your file, hit the down arrow for viewing, and/or you can delete if you selected an incorrect file.  Finally, click on the “Done” at the bottom left of the screen to finalize uploading.
Step 4: Once your file is uploaded, the WORLDSymposium Planning Team and the Accredited Provider, Postgraduate Institute for Medicine, will review the slides for approval.
Step 5: The WORLDSymposium Planning Team will email you once your slides have been reviewed, letting you know if changes are required or if the slides are approved.
Slides can be edited or deleted prior to their final approval by the WORLDSymposium Planning Team. If edits are absolutely necessary, please contact Amber Brown at amber@worldsymposia.org to discuss.

Supported Formats

PPT, PPTX; The Presentation Management system at WORLDSymposium 2021 is optimized for PowerPoint, whether created on a PC or MAC. To take advantage of advanced media support in PowerPoint, WORLDSymposium recommends that all PPT files be converted to the PPTX format. Presenters can find the convert feature located under “File, Help” when PowerPoint is open.
To maximize the presentation for on-screen viewing at WORLDSymposium 2021, please SET UP PRESENTATION FILES USING THE 16:9 ASPECT RATIO. This will need to be done prior to uploading the presentation.
PDF; PDF files are NOT ALLOWED. Please submit only PPT or PPTX files.
KEY; Keynote files are not supported. Please export the presentation as a PowerPoint file for upload.
Prezi files are currently unsupported for upload.

Video and Audio File Support

Please see this article for file formats supported within PowerPoint.
Please consider compressing videos. If PowerPoint is authored as a PPTX, there are tools within PowerPoint to do this automatically. Instructions are found here.
If the presenter will be converting or authoring videos, WORLDSymposium recommends H.264 encoding at less than a 5Mbps bitrate for best performance. Resolutions in the meeting room will be 1280×720 for 16:9 presentations. A 1080p, maximum bit rate encoding will bloat the size of the presentation with no visual improvement and may actually hurt performance.

Considerations for custom fonts

WORLDSymposium only supplies fonts that are included with Office 2013. For a list, see this article. If a speaker needs a specialized font, it should be embedded into the PowerPoint presentation. Some licensed fonts may not embed and should be replaced with a font included with Office. Click here for an explanation of this process.

Any Links to Web Pages?

Links to web pages will not function during a recorded presentation.  WORLDSymposium strongly recommends removing all internet links from presentations.

Before You Depart, Backup

Please bring a copy of your presentation along with you when you depart for your meeting. Copy your PowerPoint and all movies to a folder on a USB or CD-ROM. While PowerPoint 2013 and later will embed movies by default, you should still bring the videos just in case. Not all prior versions of PowerPoint will embed movies. It is a good practice to keep a second copy of your presentation and movies in your luggage.

Arriving at the Meeting

Speakers must check-in at the Speaker Ready Room at least 24 hours prior to their scheduled presentation. No changes will be allowed within 12 hours of your presentation. No exceptions. The computers in the Speaker Ready Room will be configured with hardware and software exactly like the ones in the meeting room. It is imperative that you review your presentation in the Speaker Ready Room. This is where our technicians can help resolve any compatibility or formatting issues and explain the in-room setup.

Speaker Ready Room Schedule:

Monday, February 3, 12:00 – 17:00
Tuesday, February 4, 06:30 – 16:00
Wednesday, February 5, 06:30 – 16:00
Thursday, February 6, 06:30 – 16:00
Friday, February 7, 06:30 – 12:30

Giving Your Presentation

Please arrive at your designated meeting room 30 minutes before the start of your session. The AV technician will provide you with a lapel microphone, and you will be directed to be seated at the front of the room in the speaker waiting area. At the lectern there will be a monitor set in front of you where you can follow your presentation. The co-chairs are responsible for pulling up your presentation to your title slide as you approach the stage. At the end of your presentation, the display will return to the list of presenters.
Thank You!