Congratulations, and thank you for presenting at the 2026 AACRAO SEM Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
We appreciate you lending your professional knowledge to the AACRAO community. Please review all of the resources below as you prepare for your presentation. All of the information, links, and deadlines below apply to institutional and corporate presenters.
Presenter Checklist
- Register for the Conference
Presenters are asked to register by the early-bird deadline of September 21, 2026. Sessions without at least one registered presenter by September 21, 2026, may be removed from the program and replaced with an alternate. - Arrange travel and hotel accommodations
We encourage you to make your hotel reservations as soon as possible. The AACRAO group rate is only available until the AACRAO block has sold out, which we expect will happen before the priority hotel reservation deadline of October 07, 2026. - Submit presentation files, videos, and other digital handouts by October 16, 2026. Submissions not received before the deadline may not be available for projection during your session.
- Check your presenter profile and session details in the Whova App.
Explore speaker resources such as communities, polls, and Q&A for your session. The app is expected to go live in late October. - Prepare to deliver a high-quality presentation that is inclusive and accessible to all attendees.
Please review the Presenter Best Practices for Accessibility below. - Share your session details with your networks.
Use the Social Media Toolkit below to get started. - Submit a short session highlight video.
Session highlight videos help AACRAO promote your presentation to attendees.
Presenter Best Practices
for Accessibility
AACRAO is committed to providing all meeting attendees with a high-quality experience that is accessible to all.
Diversity Awareness:
Be mindful of the diversity in your audience. When planning your presentation and presentation materials understand that some of your audience might not be able to:
- See well or at all
- Hear well or at all
- Move well or at all
- Speak well or at all
- Process information in certain formats well or at all
Your audience has both visible and invisible identities and accessibility needs.
Presenters at the SEM Conference are asked to follow these best practices:
- Use a provided microphone at all times while speaking, even if the room has only a few attendees. Sound amplification benefits attendees who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have partial hearing loss.
- Make sure all audience questions are repeated or amplified with a microphone, even in a small room. Wait to answer until the question has been asked through a microphone, even if that means asking the person to repeat it. An additional microphone (on a floor stand or wireless) will be available for audience questions in every session room.
- Use inclusive language when referring to identities and demographics.
- Prepare slides in a simple font, 28-point or larger.
- Check color contrast with a contrast checker if using color combinations other than black and white.
- Keep graphics as simple as possible. Don’t rely on color alone to distinguish information, especially in charts and graphs — pair color with text or labels.
- Click here to learn more about creating accessible PowerPoint presentations.
Uploading Presenter Materials
Presenters must use the laptop provided by the onsite AV company for their presentation. Personal laptops cannot be connected to the projection or audio equipment and onsite technicians cannot provide support for equipment not provided by the onsite AV company.
Presenters must upload their presentation materials to SEM Dropbox folder before October 31. The AV company and AACRAO staff require adequate time to review materials and prepare the on-site platform so presenters can access their session materials onsite. Presenters who do not upload materials by the deadline cannot be guaranteed projection of their presentation slides in their session room. Click here to upload presentation materials to the SEM Dropbox folder.
UPLOAD REQUIREMENTS:
- The name of the uploaded file must include the full presentation title and the full name of the presenter. Files uploaded without the presentation title in the name of the file will be deleted and will not be available to presenters onsite.
Example Acceptable File Name: “Accessing Student Data Records in Brazil – Shelly Shellerson”
Example Unacceptable File Name: “SEM” - Slide decks must be submitted only as PowerPoint files; no Word documents, PDFs, or JPEGs will be accepted.
- Co-presenters submitting separate slide decks for the same presentation must include the full presentation title and full name of the submitting presenter.
Example Acceptable File Name: “Accessing Student Data Records in Brazil – Shelly Shellerson”
Example Unacceptable File Name: “AACRAO – Shelly Shellerson”
- Video files must be uploaded as separate files (not embedded into presentations)
- Videos are to be provided in MP4 format
- The name of the uploaded video must include the full presentation title and the full name of the presenter. Video files uploaded without the presentation title in the name of the file will be deleted and will not be available to presenters onsite.
Example Acceptable Video File Name: “Accessing Student Data Records in Brazil Video1 – Shelly Shellerson”
Example Unacceptable File Name: “AACRAO2025” - Recommended max video file size: 4GB total
Powerpoint Presentation Template
Download the AACRAO-branded PowerPoint template for your session presentation. The template is provided as a resource for presenters; it is not required for use.
Fonts: Avoid using custom or licensed fonts (aka fonts that have been downloaded from the internet.) Custom fonts used in PPT decks (those not included in Microsoft Office 2016), must be provided three business days in advance of the due date for testing.
PREZI & Apple Product Users
We recommend creating all decks in PowerPoint. If slide decks were created on an Apple computer or in Prezi and then exported to PowerPoint, please check to make sure all formatting was exported correctly before submitting.
Speaker Ready Room
All presenters must check into the Speaker Ready Room at least four hours before presenting.
Speaker Ready Room Hours:
- Sunday, November 1: 12:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
- Monday, November 2: 7:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Tuesday, November 3: 7:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Wednesday, November 4: 7:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
The purpose of checking in with the Speaker Ready Room staff is to ensure your presentation slides are what you expect to use and see in your session room (read: mitigate surprises and “technical difficulties” in your session room). The laptops in the Speaker Ready room are the same equipment you will use in your session room. At your check-in, it is recommended that you click through each slide of your presentation to ensure the slide layout, animations, graphics, and video files are working as expected.
If you bring a more recent version of your presentation than the one you uploaded to the SEM Dropbox folder (deadline for upload is October 16), your check-in with the Speaker Ready Room is your opportunity to provide the AV staff with the updated version of your slides. NOTE: Updated slides provided to the AV staff fewer than four hours before the start time of your session may not be available on the laptop in your session room.