KSU Computer Science Department
Poster Conference Preparation Guidlines

Some important pieces of information:

1. The CS Department will pay for ONE printing of your poster, at the "official" poster size of 36"x24" (landscape).
   • You must print a small version locally and proof it carefully before you submit it to be printed poster size. If you find errors once it's printed poster size, it's up to you to arrange and pay for a reprint if you want one.
   • If you want a bigger poster you have to arrange (and pay for) that yourself; with the large volume of posters we'll be processing we can't handle special requests.
   
   
2. Lab, faculty, and both graduate and undergraduate student posters can be in color. If you're an undergraduate student preparing a poster, please coordinate with your club advisor or class instructor.
   
   
3. For the bulk of your text -- textual paragraphs or bulleted lists -- use at least a 24 point, if not 36 point, font. You may be tempted to use a smaller font to squeeze in more information, but if no one can read your poster, will it matter? Also use only white backgrounds. Colored backgrounds use extensive amounts of ink and substantially increase the cost of printing the poster.
   
   
4. Plan to turn in your file for printing no later than 5:00pm 7 April. It will take up to TWO DAYS to get your poster back.
   • You are strongly encouraged to upload your poster on the earliest possible date; if too many people wait until the last date we may not get all the posters printed in time.

What does a poster look like?

Over the past several years students and faculty have prepared posters for various scientific meetings including previous department poster conferences. Many faculty offices and labs have these poster on display. You may wiish to take a look at these poster to get an idea of how different layout look when viewed at their final poster size.

Are there other resources online?

Prof. Jonathan Maletic required a poster presentation in his Spring 2005 CS 6/73903 Software Visualization class. The web page describing his class poster requirements is online at:
http://www.cs.kent.edu/~jmaletic/cs63903/poster.html

A good general article on posters and conference poster sessions is online at:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm
Ignore the part about free beer and wine; we won't have that! ;)

A good article on poster layout and content (with Do's and Don'ts) is online at:
http://www.biophysics.org/education/block.pdf

A good article on research posters, from the ACM Crossroads Student Magazine, is online at:
http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds3-2/posters.html

Another article on preparing effective posters is:
http://faculty.washington.edu/scporter/INQUAposters.html

Finally, a good overview and list of links on academic poster displays is online at:
http://student.dcu.ie/~mcmahon4/posteradvice.html