7 ms·

Pauling, scientific posters on the go

35 points by couac 9y ago

ams6110 9y ago
It would also be nice if someone built a layout app for scientific posters. I'm not sure why but the prevailing approach seems to be to cram absolutely as much text and graphic content as you can onto the poster, with no line spacing or margins. They are absolutely unreadable.
- couac 9y ago
  haha I do agree with you!
- chuckleMuscle 9y ago
  Personally I just put together a PowerPoint presentation and stick that up (as many A4 pages!). That seems to work better than the standard wall of text on one massive piece of paper, but can be seen as low effort by some people.
  - jgamman 9y ago
    or size it as A1 in ppt and get a nice print job for $25. but agree, the problem with most posters isn't sharing, it's the fact it is often the first step a grad student is taking in sci-communication. if i could wave a magic wand, it would be that their supervisors take the @#$!@3@$ opportunity to you know, like, help them.
- julienchastang 9y ago
  Having just gone down this road, here is the tech stack I used for putting together a scientific conference paper: emacs / org-mode / beamer / beamerposter.sty. I had to do a bit of reverse engineering from tex back to org-mode to determine the proper org-mode properties to have the beamer layout I wanted -- if that makes any sense. I also poked around in ox-beamer.el. In addition, I used Omnigraffle and the Gimp for graphics. I am happy with the end result, and the original org-mode file is clean and manageable. And, yes, less verbiage, the better for conference posters.
  - iak8god 9y ago
    This sounds interesting. Do you happen to have this up in a repository somewhere? I would love to use this set of tools, am familiar with beamer for slide decks, use omni and gimp for graphics, etc ... but currently just end up making my posters in a powerpoint template, which feels dirty.
    - julienchastang 9y ago
      https://github.com/Unidata/xsede-jetstream/tree/master/.org/presentations/gatewayconf2017 https://github.com/Unidata/xsede-jetstream/tree/master/.org/...
      - iak8god 9y ago
        Thanks!
couac 9y ago
Blog post and app co-author here. We'll publish the app to the stores ASAP. In the meantime, if you want to try it as a beta tester (android at least, iOS I do not remember if that works with buddybuild), then you can email us: hello@tailordev.fr. Thanks!
forapurpose 9y ago
Would someone in the world of science explain the role of posters and why that format is so popular? It's seems like there are so many other options - a video, a talk, a demonstration, an interactive computer screen, an interactive exhibit, a diorama, a play, etc ...
- vinchuco 9y ago
  My guess is logistics. What portion of your conference attendees is there to present and what portion is there to listen to talks (general, or specific?)? N>h where N is people and h is hours.
- NikolaeVarius 9y ago
  Posters. The original landing page.
- b_emery 9y ago
  The main reason to go to conferences is to meet people who are working similar things, to exchange ideas, make friends and build potential collaborations. Maybe even impress some program managers. A very efficient way to do this is the poster session, where you have enough of your work on a poster that you can get the general ideas across in a few min (or even less). Some people do bring laptops with videos and things. My experience though is that spoken words and a few graphs are sufficient to get the story across and spark deeper conversations.
- jofer 9y ago
  Having given quite a few talks and even more posters, my experience is that you get to communicate on a _much_ deeper level with a poster. (Note: I'm not in CS. I'd imagine this varies a lot by field.) You get absolutely zero feedback and discussion generated from a talk. Maybe a few questions, but no actual discussion. If you're really, really, really lucky, someone might track you down or e-mail you later. For the most part, though, you don't interact with people during a talk. In contrast, during a poster session, you talk yourself hoarse over three to twelve hours. You wind up in intense arguments and deep discussions. I've never seen that happen during talks. Personally, I find a 12.5 minute talk is a lot more limiting than a poster, where you'll be talking to people about your work for several hours. Figures are the main focus of any scientific presentation, and a poster gives a great format to walk people through the concepts using figures. That having been said, at the tech conferences I've been to, posters have always been an afterthought. It's a real shame.

35 points by couac 9y ago

It would also be nice if someone built a layout app for scientific posters. I'm not sure why but the prevailing approach seems to be to cram absolutely as much text and graphic content as you can onto the poster, with no line spacing or margins. They are absolutely unreadable.

couac 9y ago
haha I do agree with you!
chuckleMuscle 9y ago
Personally I just put together a PowerPoint presentation and stick that up (as many A4 pages!). That seems to work better than the standard wall of text on one massive piece of paper, but can be seen as low effort by some people.
- jgamman 9y ago
  or size it as A1 in ppt and get a nice print job for $25. but agree, the problem with most posters isn't sharing, it's the fact it is often the first step a grad student is taking in sci-communication. if i could wave a magic wand, it would be that their supervisors take the @#$!@3@$ opportunity to you know, like, help them.
julienchastang 9y ago
Having just gone down this road, here is the tech stack I used for putting together a scientific conference paper: emacs / org-mode / beamer / beamerposter.sty. I had to do a bit of reverse engineering from tex back to org-mode to determine the proper org-mode properties to have the beamer layout I wanted -- if that makes any sense. I also poked around in ox-beamer.el. In addition, I used Omnigraffle and the Gimp for graphics. I am happy with the end result, and the original org-mode file is clean and manageable. And, yes, less verbiage, the better for conference posters.
- iak8god 9y ago
  This sounds interesting. Do you happen to have this up in a repository somewhere? I would love to use this set of tools, am familiar with beamer for slide decks, use omni and gimp for graphics, etc ... but currently just end up making my posters in a powerpoint template, which feels dirty.
  - julienchastang 9y ago
    https://github.com/Unidata/xsede-jetstream/tree/master/.org/presentations/gatewayconf2017 https://github.com/Unidata/xsede-jetstream/tree/master/.org/...
    - iak8god 9y ago
      Thanks!

couac 9y ago

Blog post and app co-author here. We'll publish the app to the stores ASAP. In the meantime, if you want to try it as a beta tester (android at least, iOS I do not remember if that works with buddybuild), then you can email us: hello@tailordev.fr. Thanks!

forapurpose 9y ago

Would someone in the world of science explain the role of posters and why that format is so popular? It's seems like there are so many other options - a video, a talk, a demonstration, an interactive computer screen, an interactive exhibit, a diorama, a play, etc ...

vinchuco 9y ago
My guess is logistics. What portion of your conference attendees is there to present and what portion is there to listen to talks (general, or specific?)? N>h where N is people and h is hours.
NikolaeVarius 9y ago
Posters. The original landing page.
b_emery 9y ago
The main reason to go to conferences is to meet people who are working similar things, to exchange ideas, make friends and build potential collaborations. Maybe even impress some program managers. A very efficient way to do this is the poster session, where you have enough of your work on a poster that you can get the general ideas across in a few min (or even less). Some people do bring laptops with videos and things. My experience though is that spoken words and a few graphs are sufficient to get the story across and spark deeper conversations.
jofer 9y ago
Having given quite a few talks and even more posters, my experience is that you get to communicate on a _much_ deeper level with a poster. (Note: I'm not in CS. I'd imagine this varies a lot by field.) You get absolutely zero feedback and discussion generated from a talk. Maybe a few questions, but no actual discussion. If you're really, really, really lucky, someone might track you down or e-mail you later. For the most part, though, you don't interact with people during a talk. In contrast, during a poster session, you talk yourself hoarse over three to twelve hours. You wind up in intense arguments and deep discussions. I've never seen that happen during talks. Personally, I find a 12.5 minute talk is a lot more limiting than a poster, where you'll be talking to people about your work for several hours. Figures are the main focus of any scientific presentation, and a poster gives a great format to walk people through the concepts using figures. That having been said, at the tech conferences I've been to, posters have always been an afterthought. It's a real shame.