In preparation for Plenary 14 in Helsinki, please refer to the information presented below pertaining to your breakout sessions.
 
Remote Participation

Remote participation will be available in each meeting room through GoToMeeting, which will be running from the laptop provided by the University. By just opening your presentation on this laptop, remote attendees will be able to view your slides and hear you speak.

You will be using this same laptop to give your presentation to the attendees in your meeting room, so you or your co-Chair (or another group member) will also need to monitor the GoToMeeting chat log for questions/comments from the remote attendees.

Depending on room type, the audio quality of speakers may be clearer than audio quality of meeting participants. Please advise remote attendees of this possibility prior to the start of your session.

To promote remote session availability for your session, session login details have been posted at the bottom of all session pages.

 
Slides and Materials

Save your presentation to a USB drive and/or in a shared location that is accessible online, such as Google Docs, Dropbox, on your session page, etc. so that you can quickly open it from the laptop available in your meeting room.
Meeting attendees appreciate having access to your presentations at the start of the meeting, so if possible, consider adding those links and other materials to your session pages. The noted session point of contact has edit permissions to their session pages (an ‘Edit’ button will appear for that person on their session page when logged in).

 
Collaborative Notes

Your session pages include a link to a blank Google Doc to use for collaborative note taking. In the past, some Chairs have used this shared document as a means of tracking attendance. If you prefer a different platform for collaborative notes, please update the link. For an additional option to track attendance, see below.

 
Session Attendance Tracking

Printed attendance sheets will be available in each meeting room. If you choose to use this approach to track attendance rather than using the “Collaborative Notes” document (see above), circulate the sheet to attendees in each meeting room. Volunteers will collect them at the end of the session and provide the meeting chairs with an electronic version after the event.

 
Meeting Best Practices
 
RDA Breakout sessions provide an opportunity to advance your group’s work as well as receive new input. Please be aware that there will always be new members attending, so it’s important to provide a five-minute recap at the beginning to explain where the group is in its lifecycle and discussions. Please note other meeting guidelines below:

Engage with meeting attendees and try not to rely heavily on slides.
Manage your time – be sure to allot time for both presentation and discussion – 1.5 hours goes by fast!
Monitor comments from your remote attendees. Request that participants sign in to your session.
Don’t hesitate to ask for technical support as soon as a problem arises – technicians will be on standby either in your room or right outside your room.
Follow up with your attendees after your session (please be sure you track attendance).

 
The Secretariat and numerous volunteers (easily identified in yellow t-shirts) will be available throughout the Plenary to assist as needed. Please contact enquiries@rd-alliance.org, should you have questions or need assistance.
 
Safe travels,
 
RDA Secretariat