Poster Presentations

Share your scholarly or creative work through a visually designed research posters, a common presentation format at academic conferences and symposia. Posters allow you to communicate your project using a blend of visual, and textual elements such as images, graphics, tables, analytics, brief explanations, and citations, to convey your ideas clearly and engage attendees in discussion. Poster presenters may discuss their project informally with visitors throughout the session, making this an accessible and interactive way to share work at any stage of development. Each individual presenter or co-presenting group will be funded to print one poster through the UO College of Design Output Room.

Each presenter or presenting group should be prepared to:

Put up the poster in the EMU Ballroom during a designated time frame the day before the symposium
Arrive Symposium Day: 10-15 minutes prior to the scheduled Poster Session on symposium day
Format:
- Design a poster that clearly communicates your project using brief text, graphics, charts, diagrams, images
- Posters should be engaging, readable, and visually organized, using concise language and accessible design
Content:
- Overview of Your Project: What question, problem, creative focus, or theme does your work explore? Why is it significant in your field, discipline, or community?
- Process & Approach: Describe how you carried out your work, your methods, creative process, analytical approach, or exploration
- Key Insights or Findings: Highlight preliminary, ongoing, or completed results - final results are not required
- Contribution and Impact: Explain what your project adds to your field, community, or area of scholarly or creative practice
- Future Directions: Identify emerging questions, next steps, or possibilities for continued work or exploration

Symposium Poster Size

The poster print size for the symposium is 42” x 36” landscape or 36” x 42” portrait orientation. There can be no exception for a different size because it will not fit the poster stand or the printer paper roll. All printing will be through the College of Design Output Room under the symposium's supported printing program.

Creating Your Poster

You may use PowerPoint* (to create a single slide), InDesign, Canva, Adobe Illustrator or any other platform to create a poster, as long as it adheres to the sizing requirement and can be saved in the file format (PDF/X) that is required for printing. *The web version of PowerPoint is not recommended for use due to difficulty converting to PDF/X.

Poster Templates and Tutorials
Poster development and presentation tutorials are available on the Undergraduate Research Symposium YouTube channel. Pre-designed poster templates can be downloaded by clicking Access the Templates button below. Using these template designs is optional and you may create your own, but all posters must include essential information, key project content as noted below.

Template 1:
- Top: Project title, your name, mentor(s), and program or department logo
- Left column: Introduction or background, project question, and methods or creative approach
- Center column: Key findings, results, insights, or highlights of your work
- Right column: Conclusions, reflections, next steps, references (if applicable), and acknowledgements
Template 2:
- Top: Project title, your name, mentor(s), and department or program logo
- Left column: Introduction or context, key ideas, and methods or creative process
- Center column: Visuals, graphics, or examples that illustrates results, outcomes, or main insights
- Right column: Summary, interpretations, reflections, conclusions, acknowledgements, and references (if applicable)

Access the Templates

Printing Your Poster

Once the poster design is complete, it must be a exported to a PDF/X file (if designing the poster slide in PowerPoint, be sure to use a downloaded software version and not web version as it will not convert to PDF/X, click here for a list UO campus computing labs that offer downloaded PowerPoint software if you do not have access )
- ProTip: the printing press does not offer full bleed so avoid making notations near any margins as they may be cut off
Participants should upload their poster to the College of Design Output Room for printing (standard print service, matte finish).
The Output Room team will be provided with the names of all poster presenters ahead of time, so they will expect your submission. There are very specific instructions to upload your poster, so please refer to the Submitting Jobs for Print section on the College of Design Technology Services website for step-by-step instructions.

Presenters should submit their poster to the Output Room for printing at least 4 days before you have to put up the poster to ensure timely printing. The Output Room team also requires for poster presenters to physically go to the Output Room facility to "release" their poster for print (after the upload process), so please allow for this in your schedule, so the printing occurs on time. Click here for Output Room hours of operation.

Recording a Poster Presentation Voiceover

For those who would like to upload their work to the YouTube Symposium channel, as well as to add to their digital portfolio or participating virtually. The recording should not be more than 10 minutes total and should only summarize the highlights of your project.

Once you complete your poster design, visit Microsoft’s “Turn your presentation into a video” for instructions on how to record a voiceover on PowerPoint.
You can also record a voiceover via Zoom.
The recording cannot be more than 100MB in size in order to upload.

Maximize Your Narration

Here are general recommendations to keep in mind for recording your presentation (whether you appear in the video, or not):

Speak slowly and clearly.
Avoid use of technical terms, known only in your field. You are appealing and engaging a wide audience. Address a general audience who may not be familiar with your academic subject area.
Practice and time your presentation before recording, to polish your timing and speaking delivery.
Use notes if you find helpful, but keep the delivery ‘natural.'
If you plan to appear in the video, which is optional, forgo reading directly from a script and look directly into the camera, as if you are presenting to a “live” audience.
Keep your background poster or slide (s) simple, avoid dense text, and incorporate figures and images from research work.

Pro Tips

Within PowerPoint, there is a convenient timer feature that will show on the screen (but not in the recording itself) once you select “record,” so that you can keep time.
Save your poster file in MP4 format ONLY
Do not save as .ppsx, .wmv or any other format that may not be compatible for uploading
Entitle the file in the following naming convention, so your work can be matched to you – LastName_FirstName URS2024

Submission to YouTube and UO Scholars’ Bank Archive

All poster presenters will have the opportunity to digitally archive their work via the Undergraduate Research Symposium YouTube channel and UO Scholars’ Bank.

The symposium YouTube channel hosts an expansive collection of symposium presentations. The opportunity to upload a recording of your presentation to the YouTube channel is open to all poster presenters. This is a valuable opportunity to continue to strengthen and build on your academic/professional digital portfolio and archive your work. As part of the presentation confirmation process, presenters will be provided the option to upload and showcase their work.