Accessibility & Social Media Guidelines

On Campus

Guidelines for Session Chairs

• Before the session, prepare to introduce the speakers by asking each for their preferred name, name pronunciation, and pronouns. You might also ask them if it is ok for audience members to live-post their presentations on social media and share that information as part of your introduction.
• To help create a comfortable environment for the audience members, consider mentioning the following:

   

  • Location of nearest washrooms, dining services, and/or quiet spaces
  • Explicit permission for audience members to exit the room as necessary (e.g., to use the washroom or for a sensory respite)
  • Expectations for audience participation (when questions/comments will be heard, use of microphones, etc.)

Example script:

We are located in the David Lam Auditorium. The nearest washrooms are located at the top of the stairs, and the closest food outlet is Mac’s cafe outside the main building doors. There is an open lounge area in the auditorium foyer and an inner courtyard with benches for respite. If at any time you need to use these services, please feel free to quietly exit the room. We have five presentations today and we will take questions at the end of the session. All of the presenters will use microphones and audience members are also asked to use microphones for comments and questions. Microphones are located in the centre of the aisles; if you would like assistance accessing a microphone, please alert me and I will bring one to you.

• The DHSI community is generally very active on social media, including by live-posting events and presentations.
• If you would prefer to not have your presentation shared on social media, make this explicit at the beginning of your presentation. DHSI generally assumes an environment of sharing, but sensitive or copyrighted material may not be suitable for social media or other online venues. If a presenter asks that their presentation not be shared, this should be respected without question.
• In your social media posts, use the conference hashtag (e.g., #DHSI24). This makes the content easier to find and follow. Capitalize each word in a hashtag (#LikeThis) to make them readable by screen readers.
• If you’re live-posting a particular event, thread your posts if possible to keep them grouped together (but don’t forget to include the hashtag with each individual post to maximize discoverability). Consider including a post at the beginning of the thread giving context about the event: where, when, why, who, what.