Introduction

Poster competitions allow presenters to showcase their work to a broader audience, such as campus stakeholders, community partners, and corporate sponsors. 


Presenters can vary widely:

  • Undergraduate student researchers as part of a summer or honors program
  • Graduate students sharing capstone or thesis presentations
  • Interdisciplinary teams showcasing their final outcomes
  • Faculty members highlighting findings to initiate corporate or community partnerships


Challenges

  • Different disciplines prefer abstracts and presentations in different formats (e.g., traditional poster vs. demonstration or performance).
  • Mentors or supervisors may need to approve posters, especially for undergraduates.
  • Poster presentations may need to be judged or evaluated, with awards for top projects.
  • Once information is collected, content may need to be shared widely and publicly.


Solutions

  • Collect basic project or presentation information initially on the Requirements page, including the presenter's preferred format.
  • Gather mentor information from the presenter directly using Applicant-Driven Routing Steps. 
  • Build other routing steps for judges or any others that need to provide feedback.


Tips

  • Standard posters can be collected as file uploads (PDF is best to retain formatting issues. Instruct presenters to convert PowerPoint slides to PDF for the best results).
  • Audio or video submissions should first be uploaded to an external site (e.g., YouTube, Zoom, Vimeo). Then use a text field to instruct presenters to paste the link on the submission form. They should make sure their link is public before submitting.
  • Judging rubrics are best made with the Comments & Ratings Routing Step. Use different rating scale ranges to mirror point values (e.g., If criterion "Appearance" is out of 20 points, rating scale should be 1-20).
  • Use award and reject notifications to share judges' feedback and help presenters learn.

Have more questions about this topic? Go to the Community Forum to pose the question to other users or submit a support ticket to InfoReady.