ISCTM Poster Guidelines

ISCTM Guidelines for submission and preparation of POSTERS

The goals of the ISCTM, which emphasize methodological analyses, strategies, and applications in clinical trials in CNS disorders, result in challenges and some differences in priorities from those commonly occurring in most scientific organizations which include CNS disorders in their organizational aims.  Within the structure of the ISCTM, our policies, listed below, are intended to ensure that posters are of strong scientific merit and that they are not product promotional in nature.
The focus and content of posters should be methodology.  This may involve novel study designs, novel analytical approaches, novel assessment approaches, or other methods involved in the planning, conduct, or analysis of data arising from CNS clinical trials.  The desired content of acceptable posters is easiest to illustrate with examples:
1)    Description of a novel study design along with explanations of the advantages and disadvantages of such a design, whether or not the planned study has actually been conducted.  What would not be acceptable would be the description of a routine registration trial that has no novel features.  
2)    Analytic methods applied to data arising out of a clinical trial, even if that trial is a fairly routine trial.  It would not be acceptable to present the results of a routine clinical trial using routine analytical methods.
3)     In recent years, various groups have developed methodologies intended to improve the precision and conduct of clinical trials, e.g., novel designs, improved patient selection, detection of non-adherence to assigned treatment in trials, detection of fraudulent patients, improved assessment instruments and techniques, improved monitoring of the administration of standard assessment instruments, and novel analytical methods.  These groups typically operate independently of pharmaceutical companies, and have as one of their goals the marketing of these approaches to pharmaceutical companies.  Posters illustrating the application of such methodologies, especially if they involve actual data showing the potential advantage of such approaches are acceptable, providing they go beyond simply extolling the potential virtues of such methods with actual data, or can in some other way stimulate useful discussion at a poster session.  An unacceptable poster is one that simply promotes a particular approach for enhancing trial conduct but has no data, simulations, or other substance that could be the subject of discussion at the poster session.  It would also not be acceptable for such a group to present a poster describing an existing regulatory guidance and promoting itself an expert in the application of such regulatory advice.

4) Methodology abstracts on trial designs for which data is not yet available are acceptable providing the following, a) The trial has commenced and is ongoing, and an adequate sample size is expected to be obtained on or before the poster session, b) Authors must include within the abstract a clear description of the hypothesized results and all appropriate data that will be used to support any conclusion they wish to make; these data must include expected sample size, c) Authors must clearly outline the statistical methodology that will be used to analyze the data, and d) The abstract follows the methodological guidelines outlined above. Abstracts failing to include such projected sample size will not be considered for presentation unless it is clear from the description that hard numerical evidence of sample size cannot be expected (e.g. when presenting an innovative concept or new technology).

It is understood that the application of these criteria is not always straight-forward and will often involve discretion and judgment.  The ISCTM Poster Committee is the body charged by ISCTM with making these judgments and will be the final authority in decisions about the acceptance or rejection of a particular poster.  
We request that at least one author of the poster be present during the poster session and be qualified to answer questions about the contents. Further we ask presenters to refrain from going beyond the contents of the poster by explicitly soliciting buyers if the contents present data that suggest an advantage to a product or method.

TITLE: The title of a presentation and or abstract should be free of commercial information.  The number of characters, inclusive of spaces, should not exceed 130.

LOGOS and ACADEMIC SEALS: Logos and seals should be limited to ones which are not intended for, or could be interpreted as promoting commercial interests.  The size of logos should not be dominant and may only appear at the bottom of the poster.

AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS:  List authors names without degrees.  Include initials without periods (e.g. Abrams, BC). Affiliations of authors should be noted by superscripts in author lines, and detailed in smaller font below the author lines.

Qualifications for authorship: Those listed as authors must have contributed to one of these areas: Conception and design, data analysis and interpretation, drafting or revision of the poster.  In addition, each author must approve the final version of the poster.  For clinical studies, this policy will generally result in authorship both by investigators not affiliated with a sponsor as well as scientific personnel of the sponsoring organization(s). 

FORMAT AND LENGTH:
Abstract
-Organize the abstract with the following sections:
•    The Methodological Issue Being Addressed
•    Introduction (Aims)
•    Methods
•    Results
•    Conclusions
•    Disclosures* if applicable
-Word limit, exclusive of title, authors and references sections, should be less than 500 words. We recommend no references or figures for abstracts. However short tables and up to 2 references, sufficient to locate the article, may be included.
Poster
-Posters are Landscape orientation:  Not to exceed 4’ (122 cm) Vertical by 6’ (183 cm) Horizontal.
-To insure easy viewing of the poster, please use font size of 16 or greater for all sections except references, Table/Figure legends and superscripts for references (which may be smaller font size but should still be easily viewable).
-Narratives in all sections of the poster should refrain from statements that could be perceived as promotional or seeking commercial advantage.  As example, “Treatment X represents a new efficacious and well tolerated first line treatment for early Alzheimer’s disease” would go beyond the conclusions possible from a single clinical trial.  Additionally, words or phrases which have been patented should be avoided.
-QR Code linking to electronic version of poster is permissible.

*Disclosures: A concluding Acknowledgment should be made regarding source of support and any individuals or organizations who aided a body of work.  Along with this statement each poster shall include one of the following statements along the bottom of the poster.  If the second option is applicable, then disclosure must be included as part of the abstract.
1. “The authors report no conflicts of interest for this work” or
2. “One or more authors report potential conflicts which are described in the program”

The Scientific Program Committee appreciates very much your cooperation in complying with these guidelines.
(Version: 08/2019)