Give a Major Workshop session at our upcoming annual conference to share your successful labs with others, get ideas from participants, and add a publication to your CV. See details and the link to the proposal form below.
- ABLE Participants and Presenters
- Selection Process and Peer Review
- Information about Workshops
- Equipment and Supplies
- Timeline
- Major Workshop Committee
ABLE Participants and Presenters
Founded in 1979, the Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE) promotes information exchange among university and college educators actively concerned with teaching biology in a laboratory setting. The focus of ABLE is to improve the undergraduate biology laboratory experience by promoting the development and dissemination of reliable engaging laboratory exercises. Conference participants and presenters are instructors who either teach or coordinate undergraduate biology laboratories. Examples of past programs are available online. During the three days of the meeting, each of the approximately 250 participants will be involved in four different 3-hour Major Workshops held on Wednesday and Thursday, and several mini workshops and a poster session held on Friday.
Selection Process and Peer Review
Workshops are selected by a peer review committee each year. The criteria for selection are detailed in the following document: Criteria rubric for selection (opens as a PDF file). Conference vendors may participate in the presentation of a Major Workshop only if they are partnered with a faculty or staff from an academic institution who is teaching the exercise to students and who is the primary author and presenter of the workshop.
In addition to the peer review screening during the selection of workshops, three other peer review stages give the presenter useful feedback before the laboratory exercise is published in the conference proceedings:
- a written assessment (short form) is solicited from the approximately 40 participants in the morning and afternoon workshop sessions;
- a written assessment (long form) is solicited from 4 participants in the morning and afternoon workshop sessions;
- the publication editor reviews the chapter.
Information about Workshops
Each major workshop is 3-hours long and is usually given twice in the same day (either Wednesday or Thursday of the conference). During the workshop, participants will perform the actual student exercise, or at least critical parts, and discuss the background and context of the lab. While many participants are interested in introductory labs, presentation of intermediate or advanced labs is appropriate as well.
Equipment and Supplies
The host institution typically provides laboratory equipment and materials for major workshops. You are asked to specify your requirements on the application.
The host may ask presenters to bring some equipment (e.g., micro pipettors) if too many workshops are requesting the same type of equipment at conflicting times. If the host cannot provide certain equipment or supplies, we will alert you and give you the option of still presenting if you are able to provide this material.
Animal Use: The use of vertebrates in a major workshop requires that an animal care protocol be approved by the host institution. As a presenter you will be sent a copy of the host institution animal use protocol to be completed and returned to the host institution by late January to allow time to process.
Major Workshop Timeline
- Application deadline: October 31. The application process includes a proposal submission form and either a PDF or MS Word document that includes:
- Workshop title and name(s)of presenters
- Abstract describing the proposed workshop (300 words maximum)
- Student laboratory handout (what students in the class would be given)
- A list of equipment and supplies needed for a class of 25 students
- Notes for the Instructor on how the experiment works
- Sample results
- A description of how you will present the laboratory to conference participants
- Student/TA evaluations of this exercise as a learning experience (optional)
- Notification of acceptance by selection committee by January 15th.
- Conference announced on the ABLE website around the middle of February. This announcement will include the abstract from your application. Each Major Workshop is given one conference registration fee waiver. This waiver of registration does not include the required ABLE membership fee for the membership year following the conference (currently $35).
- Binder materials (electronic form of student lab exercise, instructor notes, preparation instructions, equipment and materials list, information about sources and suppliers for materials, and if possible student evaluation feedback on this lab) due in March–an email will go out to primary presenters giving the exact date. We suggest this material follows the general format needed for our annual proceedings publication, Advances in Biology Laboratory Education. The binder materials will be submitted to the conference host committee.
- After the conference, you will be sent the peer review comments about your workshop to guide your final edits of the chapter before submitting to the publication editors. Upon publication, each workshop will receive a $200 honorarium.
- Submit your edited chapter for publication by August 15th, via the ABLE website.
Major Workshop Committee
If you have questions or need additional information about major workshops, please contact any member of the major workshop committee.