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DCMI Webinars: Goals & Objectives

DCMI webinars are a key component of the DCMI education, training and outreach agendas. The goal is to provide the DCMI community with excellent webinars that address current matter regarding innovations in metadata modeling, implementation and usage best practices. As a result, the subject matter of DCMI webinars ranges along a continuum from the theoretical to the practical and from the overview to the targeted how-to recipe. Webinars are designed to achieve specific learning outcomes to meet the needs of varying levels of metadata expertise from the novice to the professional expert.


DCMI maintains synergistic partnerships with ASIS&T and NISO and schedules occasional joint partner webinars.

Presenter Selection & Agreement

  1. Proposals for webinars can be submitted using an online form: Webinar Proposal Form.
  2. Webinar selection is handled by the DCMI Education & Outreach Committee.
  3. Upon the first phase of selection, the DCMI Education & Outreach Committee will contact webinar proponents in order to get more details about the proposed webinars.
  4. Upon the final selection, the webinar presenter will be sent a letter of agreement setting out the specifics of the agreed-upon webinar including: (a) date/time of the webinar, (b) webinar title and abstract, (c) practice session date and time, (d) link to relevant DCMI Handbook pages, and (e) any further details deemed necessary. Appropriate reminder emails of both the practice session and the actual webinar should be scheduled and sent.

If you have any queries about the webinar series, or about proposing a topic, please contact the DC-EOC co-chair in charge of webinars.

Presenter Pre-Webinar Preparation

  1. Webinars in the DCMI/ASIS&T Joint Webinar Series use the GoToWebinar platform.
  2. Use a USB or wireless headset for audio functions as opposed to your computers built-in microphone and speakers.
  3. While a wireless connection may be used by the presenter, a wired connection is preferred in order to achieve the broadest quality.
  4. Close all other applications open on your desktop that may unnecessarily use network bandwidth during the webinar.
  5. DCMI webinars are customarily scheduled at approximately 14:00 UTC to accommodate participation from Europe, the Americas, and Asia and are recorded for subsequent viewing.
  6. Approximately 3-4 days prior to the webinar, the presenter must have a draft of his or her slide deck ready for a practice session using the webinar platform.
  7. It is not uncommon for presenters--even highly polished presenters--to have difficulty "connecting" with a remote audience in a webinar context. Here are several suggestions to help overcome the common sense of "awkwardness" felt by webinar presenters:
    • Present to someone -- either imaginary or real. The best way to avoid the awkwardness and feeling of isolation from the real audience with a webinar is to present to a single imaginary audience member or actually have someone in your office during the webinar and present to him or her.
    • The more you are "engaged" and focused on what you are saying, the better the pace and delivery of the webinar.
    • Avoid reading your slides -- it "distances" you from a conversational tone and is frequently very monotonous. Assume your audience can and will read your slides and instead wants to hear you discuss the slide's content.

Presenter Practice Run-through

  1. The practice session is scheduled between 2 and 4 days in advance of the actual webinar and lasts approximately half an hour. Usually, we try to schedule this session at approximately the same time of day as the actual webinar.
  2. No later than the time of the practice session, the presenter should have a draft of his or her slide deck ready to be submitted to DCMI for review.
  3. The presenter shares his or her desktop:
    • If any of the slides to be used have step-through animation, transitions should be tested to make sure they work effectively; and
    • If the presentation includes demonstrating anything outside the presentation —e.g., an application, video etc.—the transitions from and back to the presentation should be tested.
  4. It is very important that the presenter(s) be located in the same room and using the same computer and network setup that they will be using for the webinar.
  5. The purpose of the dry-run is to talk though and confirm:
    • how the opening sequence and introduction will be handled;
    • how the actual webinar will proceed;
    • how questions from participants will be handled at the close of the actual presentation;
    • whether the slides are technically acceptable for viewing; and
    • that the presenter knows how to operate the webinar controls to advance slides and handle passing control from host to presenter and presenter to host.
  6. If the presenter has last-minute changes to the slides, they can be submitted no later than on the Tuesday before the webinar.

The Day of the Webinar

  1. On the day of the webinar, the presenter and all staff involved in the webinar meet online at least 20 minutes before the start of the webinar in order to test the audio and do a last-minute check of the webinar system. Assuming everything is in working order, we simply wait for the scheduled start time.
  2. At the start of the webinar, there are brief introductions by DCMI, then the presenter will speak for about 50-55 minutes leaving approximately 15 to 20 minutes for questions from participants.