UPCEA members are invited to propose content for 2024 Annual Conference concurrent sessions which reflect the varied areas of practice of the UPCEA community: leaders in professional, continuing, and online education. Especially of interest are presentations that are highly interactive in format, feature multiple presenters and institutions/organizations, and can address the needs of a wide range of institutional types and sizes, as well as diverse populations of credit and noncredit learners.
Click here to view UPCEA Member-Curated Resources For Submitting Proposals
Annual Conference Tracks
Concurrent sessions will be offered in the following tracks, which correspond to the key areas of practice that define professional, continuing, and online education:
Essential Elements
Proposals are expected to highlight a deeply relevant topic and to explore trends and developments in our field, share best practices and innovative solutions, and/or examine controversial ideas which evoke debate and discussion.
Proposals will offer learning outcomes/goals, a clear plan to engage the audience, and denote an anticipated presentation “level” (i.e. foundational, applied, or strategic).
Presenters must be current members of UPCEA, either institutional or corporate. Proposals by corporate members must include a current institutional member as co-presenter. Information about UPCEA membership is found here.
Proposals must include complete contact information for all presenters.
Proposals which do not meet the above elements will be considered incomplete and will not be reviewed.
Selection Process
Proposals will be selected to ensure the program offers a comprehensive, noncommercial, objective, and diverse content. Attention will be given to diversity of institutions, presenters and geographic location. Note: due to demand, members are limited to one concurrent session proposal per event.
UPCEA reserves the right to revise presentation titles, reassign the proposed track, or edit the session description of selected presentations for promotional and program publications.
There will be approximately 70 concurrent sessions. Digital copies of presentation materials will be collected from presenters in advance of the conference for dissemination via the event platform and/or mobile app.
IMPORTANT: Presenters are responsible for registering in advance for the conference, paying the event registration fee, and abiding by all UPCEA best practices for event presentations.
Concurrent Session Formats
Workshop: 75-minute session providing a deep dive wherein participants are actively, tangibly engaged in their learning, via collaboration and hands-on interaction. Workshop presenters generally spend less than half of the session sharing their ideas, using the remaining time engaged in activity that promotes interaction and discussion, ending with a takeaway for participants.
Panel: 60-minute session featuring a moderator and two to three panelists from different organizations that can provide insights on a common area of interest. Panelists establish a problem or provide context in the first half of the session and then engage participants in a solutions-focused conversation/Q&A in the latter half.
*UPCEA Talk: Quickfire introduction of an idea by a single presenter without audience discussion, and with strict guidelines (presentation can be no longer than 6 minutes and use no more than 6 slides, with font no smaller than 28pt). Up to nine or ten Talks are scheduled in one concurrent session, in sequence, to offer attendees numerous, shallow forays into critical topics. A moderator will offer opening remarks, as well as work with Talks presenters to organize a thoughtful order of topics presented, and to ensure smooth, timed transitions between Talks.
*Collaborative: 60-minute session in which presenters of multiple, similar, proposed content are invited to collectively and holistically present their ideas, together, in one concurrent session. Collaborative sessions are curated by UPCEA staff to help support presenters get to know each other and suss out commonalities and themes of import between proposed ideas, so that an updated and inclusive description and session flow are cultivated.
*Roundtable: 25 to 30-minute table-based, small-group, guided discussion about a specific and timely topic, question, or issue. During one, 60-minute concurrent session, multiple Roundtable presenters concurrently share their ideas at one round table each (up to 9 attendees can fit at each table), and promote the sharing of thoughts, solutions, and questions among their respective tables’ attendees. Roundtables are designed to provide space and time to important but particularly nuanced topics which deserve attention, and as such, attendees are free to move between tables. The Roundtable session will have a moderator who will welcome attendees, invite them to find a topic/table of their choice, and watch the time, inviting presenters to host their discussions twice during the hour, to allow attendees to engage with up to two different topics.
*Stop & Share: Hosted during one concurrent session in a large room with multiple tables, Stop & Share presenters will each have their own table, as well as a slide template of up to six slides, uploaded to the app and for presentation (on rotation) on their own laptop or tablet, to allow brief, synchronous conversations with attendees stopping in and milling about. Each informal conversation will center around a hot topic, best practice, or technological innovation. AV will be limited to one power cord per table, for presenters’ equipment.
*Indicates multi-presenter session format
Timeline
August 21: Request for Proposals announced
Late November: Selected proposals notified
Questions?
Please contact Jacqueline Romero, jromero@upcea.edu