AU 2010 Call for Proposals Opens March 17
We’re putting the finishing touches on the AU 2010 Call for Proposals (CFP) website, and in just a little over a week, class proposals for this year’s AU conference and AU Virtual should start streaming in. If you’re thinking about submitting a proposal, here’s a partial checklist to help you prepare some things ahead of time. If anything in the checklist is unclear, more details will be available once the CFP website is launched. By the way, a more complete version of this checklist will be available on the CFP website.
AU 2010 Proposal Checklist
☐ Verify that you meet the minimum requirements for speaking at AU. Speakers must have some experience in teaching or public speaking, and relevant background and experience for the proposed topic.
☐ Sign up as an AU member. Part of submitting a proposal includes creating an AU account (if you don’t have one), and updating your AU member profile. To speed up this process, you might want to sign up for an AU account in advance.
☐ Prepare your speaker biography. Include your current position, work history and experience, awards, publications, and academic qualifications that are relevant to your class topic. Maximum 1000 characters (including spaces). Paragraphs only. No bulleted or numbered lists.
☐ Collect secondary speakers' AU usernames. If your class will have a co-speaker or if your class includes other panelists, they need to have an AU account so you can assign them to your class. However, you do not initially need this information to submit your proposal.
☐ Take your speaker photo. You’ll need a professional-looking headshot photo of yourself front-on, facing straight or at a slight angle to the camera and with a neutral background. JPG format; 200x200 pixels minimum to 300x300 pixels maximum
☐ Pick your class title. Maximum 100 characters (including spaces). If the class will focus on a product or products, try to include the product name in the title.
☐ Write the class description. Maximum 1000 characters (including spaces). Paragraphs only. No bulleted or numbered lists.
☐ Select the class type and length. Hands-on labs, Lectures, and Panels are one, two, or three hours. Unconference sessions are one hour. Virtual classes and Product Clinics are one hour.
☐ Write your key learning objectives. Provide up to five objectives (three are required) Learning objects should relate to tasks, skills and knowledge, be action-oriented, and brief (no more than 125 characters, including spaces).
☐ Choose the audience's level of expertise required for this class. The choices are All Levels, Intermediate or Advanced.
☐ Describe the target audience. Provide a brief description of who would benefit from attending the class. Description should be no more than 300 characters (including spaces). View class examples.
☐ Pick your class keywords. Provide five keywords or keyword phrases that can help an attendee find the class when searching the AU 2010 catalog.
☐ Describe the prerequisite knowledge and skills that attendees need. Maximum 300 characters (including spaces). Determine the knowledge and skills attendees must have to benefit from this class. Optional.
☐ Determine the number of times you have been an AU Speaker.
If you need an example (or two) of good class proposals and speaker biographies, you can go to the Online Classes page and search for highly-rated classes. As editor the AU 2008 and 2009 class catalog, I had a chance to read all of the titles, descriptions, and speaker biographies. Here are two of my favorites from last year. The class titles, descriptions, key learning, and speaker bios were excellent.
Fast Track to Building Your First Autodesk MapGuide® Enterprise Site
The Complete Guide to Configuring AutoCAD® Architecture 2010 for Your Office
--sandy
4526BYYTB5GS
