How We Build an Event – And How You Can Help

Speaker Selection – By Christine Gaudet

At events throughout the year, LTEN brings together members, industry partners, world-class speakers and all manner of leaders in life sciences training. Gatherings that eclectic don’t just happen. For this special issue spotlighting LTEN Connect 2020, we thought we’d take you behind the scenes to show how this sausage is made.

In this article, you’ll find information on how you can become a speaker at our events, how to volunteer to help shape and design the conference, how to get and give professional recognition and how to help plan for the future.

Present a Workshop

For workshop programs at events like LTEN Connect and the LTEN Annual Conference, workshop submissions are carefully considered. Each submission is reviewed by a minimum of three individuals who are experts within the topic area or track, and the scores of those reviews are collected to help produce an event with the most valuable topics and resources.

Become a Workshop Reviewer

We must send a special thanks to all the workshop reviewers this year. They had some serious work ahead of them. Their help was instrumental in putting together a memorable agenda for the inaugural LTEN Connect event.

The workshop review committee plays an essential role in shaping the content for this seminal LTEN event. Reviewers evaluate the merit of the submissions to select the actual content presented at the conference.

Once the reviews are complete, the top-rated proposals are selected for the associated available sessions. Should there be any ties or close calls, the submissions associated with the respective tracks are considered in a second round, by examining the full submission again along with any reviewer notes.

Workshops are reviewed on the following criteria:

• Presenter expertise: Do they need to add a thought leader or co-presenter?
• Whether the selected format matches the content and target audience.
• Does the workshop allow for exercises or other ways to keep learners engaged?
• Has the presenter correctly identified the target audience?
• Has the presenter identified three clear and realistic learning objectives? Do the comments and activities support the objectives?
• Is the workshop designed for the appropriate session length?
• Is the workshop topic relevant and meaningful?

Submitting an Award

The annual LTEN Excellence Awards celebrate the teams, leaders and industry partners who engage in bold experimentation and out-of-thebox training and development initiatives, learning technology and content development and delivery within the life sciences. You can submit an award submission to spotlight and reward accomplishments of yourself, your team or those of a colleague or client.

There are categories for both providers and practitioners, spotlighting Innovation, All Star Teams, Training for Change, Non-Commercial Efficiencies, Emerging Leaders, Learning Content, Industry Partnership and Members of the Year.

Become a Judge

As an Excellence Awards judge, your role is to review the applications that are assigned to you against the criteria that are presented in the judging form. You will select a numerical score that will tally for a final score. Your review and score will be averaged with others in your judging group to determine the winners.

The scoring has been set up to be consistent across the award categories and judges will provide numerical scores for each of the following criteria:

• 9-10 (Breakthrough and/or Role Model): For learning practitioners or supplier companies considered “breakthroughs” and/or “role models” for the learning and development industry. The challenge is extreme (across an entire industry) or global (large numbers of learners, many stakeholders, very difficult to accomplish), and the nominees have demonstrated role-model leadership.
• 6-8 (Outstanding): For learning practitioners or supplier companies who did an outstanding job, met or exceeded all the criteria as described and accomplished all goals. The complexity was significant and/or the nominees demonstrated clear leadership.3-5 (Meets the criteria): For learning practitioners or supplier  companies whose initiatives met the criteria but did not or could not provide clear or reliable evidence to identify initiatives as outstanding.
• 1-2 (Provided some evidence but does not meet the criteria): For learning practitioners or supplier companies whose initiatives contributed to the criteria, but did not or could not provide clear or reliable evidence to identify initiatives as breakthrough or outstanding.
• 0 (Does not meet the criteria): Did not meet the criteria established or failed to  document how the criteria were met.

Join a Committee

We have several available committees associated with various areas of training expertise, such as Advisory Council, Charity Committee, Editorial Board, Field Training Committee, Medical Device and Diagnostic Committee and the Non-Commercial Trainer Committee. If you have an interest in one or more of these areas, you might be a good fit.

The various committees have different levels of responsibilities and activity, but their work is invaluable in helping pull together the conference and keep all things LTEN on track to serve member needs.

Get Involved!

To wrap up, consider getting involved however your time allows. LTEN is as dynamic as you make it, and there are many ways to be involved.

While we’ve just highlighted a few here, any LTEN team member or leader would be happy to talk with you about how you can help build an even stronger network.

Start your journey by visiting www.L-TEN.org/MemberVolunteer.