Convener Guidelines

1-1. Session Category

Each session proposal must be directed to one of the 7 JpGU categories and also to one of the subcategories therein, to be considered by the Program Committee (PC).

Exceptions are the Union and Public Sessions outside the above 7 categories (making 9 categories overall). Please refer to the Union & Public Sessions Guideline for consideration before submitting your session proposal.

1-2. Session Language

Conveners must select the session language (English and Japanese) format from the following three formats:
　- EE: All (slides/posters & oral presentations) English.
　- EJ: Slides and posters in English. Oral presentations in English or Japanese (presenter's choice).
　- JJ: Slides/Posters and oral presentations in Japanese and/or English (presenter's choice).

1-3. Session Conveners

Each session allows for one main convener and up to three co-conveners (max. 4).

The session proponent must be one of the conveners. Each convener will be required a JpGU ID in order to be registered as a (co-)convener when proposing a session.

Merged sessions may have up to 8 conveners (one main convener and 7 co-conveners).

Conveners are expected to attend the meeting and preside their session.

1-4. Joint Sessions with coordinating Unions and other co-sponsored societies

Please refer to the Joint Session Guidelines before applying for co-sponsorship with coordinating Unions (AGU, AOGS and/ or EGU) .

* For applications to hold a joint session with one or more of the Japanese co-sponsoring societies, please refer to the Joint Sessions Guidelines and contact directly the representative of each society. It cannot be requested from the session proposal system.

1-5. Session Presentation Formats

Two formats are available for presentations: oral and poster. JpGU accepts a session either as orals and posters or posters-only according to your request. Orals-only sessions may be accepted only for Union and Public Sessions.

After abstracts submission, the PC may reassign orals and posters sessions to posters-only sessions if the number of abstracts does not exceed 8 (≥9).

Each oral presentation duration is fixed to 15 minutes per talk including discussion time and may not be changed (except for Invited Talks).

1-6. Acceptance of Session Proposals

The Program Committee reviews and accepts/rejects all proposed sessions.

The Program Committee cannot accept proposals if judged to belong to one or more of the items below:
(a) Sessions that are out of the JpGU Annual Meeting's scope.
(b) Sessions with contents of inappropriate science or against social ethics such as including slanders directed to particular individuals or groups, or deviations from neutral science.

The Program Committee assigns after acceptance a Session ID according to the session category and subcategory. The PC may accept a session in a different category/subcategory from the original proposal.

The Program Committee holds the right to merge sessions with similar or near-identical scientific contents. Session proponents are requested to refer to other sessions before submission.

1-7. Merging of Sessions

JpGU encourages voluntary merges of sessions perceived as similar or near-identical in scientific contents.

All newly merged sessions have benefits on the number of conveners (max. 8) and allocated time slots (time slot will be assigned based on the previous year’s abstract numbers of individual sessions).

Voluntary merges can be requested after session proposal submission once other independent but similar sessions have been identified. Please contact PC. Title and scope may be revised until before the PC meeting.

Merges made by the PC: Converners may revise the tilte and scope until before the PC meeting. If no revision is made, the PC holds the right to select the title and scope of either one of the merged sessions.

1-8. Initial Allocations of Time slots

After session acceptance, time slots (90minutes/ slot) for oral presentations will be allocated based on the number of abstracts of the previous year.

The number of slots of the merged sessions will be calculated based on the total number of abstracts in the previous year of individual sessions.

Newly accepted sessions are initially allocated one “time slot”, but conveners may request for two time slots. PC will review the requests and finalize the number of slots.

The number of time slots may be reduced depending on the number of submitted abstracts.

Please note that NO time slots can be added even the abstracts supercedes the allocated time slots.

1-9. Additional Requests

Conveners may also indicate dates to avoid for his/her sessions with proper reasons.
*Please note however, that we CANNOT accommodate preferred dates.

Conveners may request to PC for successive scheduling or avoidance of overlaps with related sessions.

The program committee cannot guarantee to meet all these requests due to the balance of the whole science program.

Requests after the deadline are not acceptable.

1-10. Session Schedule before Abstracts Submission

Tentative session scheduling will be published before the abstract submission starts after the PC meeting.

All the time slots are not final until after the abstracts submission deadline. Some sessions may be requested to reduce the pre-assigned time slots to reflect the actual abstract submissions when the PC finalizes the program.

1-11. Invited Authors

Each session expect for Union and Public sessions can have up to TWO invited presentations (oral or poster) and ONE invited poster presentation (3 invited presentations in total) per time slot. EE sessions can have max. 3 invited presentations with no regulation on the presentation format.

The assigned number of invited presentations will not be affected by the final number of time slots after abstracts submission and by the reduction of time slots.

Only the invited authors can have presentations over 15 minutes, but a time slot cannot be extended for over 90 minutes.

Program Committee may request to add invited presentations to a session. In this case, the session will receive additional invited presentation frame.

Invited authors are NOT exempt from the fees associated with abstract submissions. They are requested to make the payments on their own as with all the other authors.

JpGU cannot cover the travel expenses of invited authors.

1-12. Discussion during the Session

Two types of discussion, Normal Discussion (free) and Extended Discussion (with charge), are available during the session. Please refer to Discussions for details.

Normal Discussion may be used for either a time adjustment or a short communication during a session with filled with normal presentations, whereas Extended Discussion is a single time frame within the 90-minute time slot to focus on the session topic and have a deeper discussion using up to a 30-minute frame outside the normal presentations but within the time slot.

Only the conveners can purchase an Extended Discussion time per time slot during the abstract submission period. The Advanced Discussion time can be extended to max. 30minutes. This discussion time will be counted as an abstract and the title, scope and all other information will be published, advertised, and archived.

If the purchased discussion becomes unnecessary, conveners can ‘rescind’ it and receive a refund. Please note that conveners must rescind the purchased discussion during the session organizing period in order to receive the refund.

*Normal Discussion will not be counted as an abstract.

1-13. Viewing Abstracts during Abstract Submission Period

Conveners can view names, affiliations and titles of submitted abstracts, but not the contents during the abstract submission period.