ePosters Replace Print Posters: KAUST Library Initiative to Better Prepare Students and Preserve Scholarly Resources

Abstract

Scientific posters are popular in conferences run by professional organizations in the UK, Europe, and North America, with the majority focused on medicine and health care disciplines. Individual events may include hundreds (and even thousands) of posters with cumulative numbers from all events (including academia) estimated in the millions annually (1). Generally, posters are not retained, in spite of their value as scholarly resources; many are the first reporting of new research and contain information months in advance of peer-reviewed articles. Printed posters have been around for many years and, with recent digital advances can be transformed into dynamic displays through multimedia inclusion and zoom functionality, whilst being made available via the web to large, geographically distributed audiences. Electronic posters (ePosters) are environmentally friendly, they eliminate printing and transport problems, and they scale well for large conferences (e.g. American Society of Anesthesiologists has used ePosters since 2013, recently with over 3000 posters at multiple sites). Most importantly, they lend themselves to being easily captured and retained as scientific resources. Following successful pilot projects (for which data on student and faculty support and cost-effectiveness will be presented), KAUST University Library has introduced a campus-wide ePoster service for the University beginning in January 2019. This service replaces printed posters and better prepares students for ePoster presentation scenarios commonplace within professional organizations and provides open access via the KAUST Research Repository. Training overheads for both students and organizers are low and uptake has been high, with weekly events scheduled for the first four months of 2019. Academia is notably behind this practitioner-driven trend. KAUST Library believes that, by rolling out an ePoster system to the University, it is the first campus in the world to offer such a campus-wide solution, reflecting a digital smart campus vision of KAUST.