Information for presenters

Thank you for agreeing to present your research in our Research-based Digitalization seminar series! We have collected some resources in this page to help you adapt your presentation for this forum and its audience.

Please let us know if you have any comments or questions regarding this page. This is work in progress and your feedback is welcome!

The process ahead

Here are roughly the steps we will go through for you to deliver your talk:

  • You go through this document to get to know the audience and see what has been presented before.
  • You agree to give a talk, and find a slot for your talk (take a look at our calendar and talk to us).
  • You agree with us about the details of the talk, e.g. if you don’t want the talk to be recorded and made available online.
  • You send us a title and an abstract.
  • We make a web page for your talk and we disseminate and invite people.
  • You give the talk.
  • We update the web page with links to online videos, material such as your slides and other background sources.

Audience

The audience can vary from one webinar to next, but in general we have people with different specialties, so it is a good idea to make your presentation for a generic audience. If you will talk about complex concepts explain them properly.

We invite practitioners from NAV and HMN and municipalities. These practitioners can be both IT and non-IT people. They are interested in digitalization and in providing public services to citizens but also to public organizations. Examples are: counselors, case managers, IT product managers, programmers.

We also invite researchers from NTNU and other universities. If you want to have a presentation for researchers only (for instance to discuss a specific research method) let us know so we invite only researchers.

The audience for the webinars is here to learn something that they can apply to their problems and their research. Everything else (e.g. methods) can seem irrelevant and boring to them!

You can also take a look at our earlier talks to see what types of topics have been presented.

Tips and tricks for good presentations

Here are some tips that we have found useful to apply in order to make a connection with the audience.

Please keep your presentation to maximum 20 minutes, to allow for ten minutes of questions and answers.

Introduce yourself, and only yourself!

  • Keep it short. You don’t need to state everything about your background or research project/collaborators/supervisors etc.
  • Briefly state your position and relevant background (education and/or previous working experience).

Set the agenda for the presentation, and reveal important things up front.

  • Avoid IMRAD structuring (introduction, methods, results and discussion). Begin by stating your main message, i.e. what is the problem and how did you address it, up front.
  • Describe the problem your research tries to solve, preferably through an example from real world.
  • Up front, list your research findings you will present later or what the goal of your research is
  • Give a quick overview of what you will address in the presentation

Research background/state-of-the-art

  • Providing concrete examples from “the real world” can contextualize research and illustrate the importance of your research. Try to find examples that are well-known or relatable to the audience.
  • Do not list a bunch of authors with their call for more research on your specific topic. When mentioning other research, focus on their findings within the specific context and not on theoretical framework or vague assertions.

Slides

  • Limit unnecessary pictures. They can often be distracting.
  • Illustrations and figures can be more helpful for visual learners than a lot of text.
  • If presentations are recorded, use less text per slide and use bullet points as reminders while focusing more on the oral presentation of your research.
  • If presentations are not recorded, add enough text for slides to be understandable when shared.

End the presentation with a concrete call to action!

This can include:

  • Asking for contact information
  • Asking for feedback on your research project
  • Telling the audience about another future workshop/presentation/event