During the pandemic there were numerous cancellations and changes to conferences, workshops, and other events. There have been many conversations and suggestions about how these cancellations and related changes could be represented on CVs and resumes. This guide pulls together examples that may be helpful to you in thinking about how to represent how your own work may have been impacted. Keep in mind that guidance on whether to include canceled conference presentations and related work in your CV or on your resume often varies by academic discipline, department, or professional organization, and may be governed by specific institutional policies related to tenure and promotion.
If the conference was canceled and you would like to list your work on your CV or resume, examples from APA and MLA are below.
Boissy, A., Davis, C., & Montori, V. (2020, March 13–22). Keeping healthcare human in the digital era [Conference session]. SXSW Conference, Austin, TX, United States. https://schedule.sxsw.com/2020/events/PP98262 (Conference canceled)
Chen, Joanne. “Strategies for Teaching Grammar to First-Year College Students.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Milwaukee, WI, 25–28 Mar. 2020. Conference canceled.
Some academics, professional societies, and universities are recommending that you include the reason for the cancellation. For example, the American Association of Public Opinion Research offers this guidance in its 2020 Conference FAQs:
Can I list the paper that I was scheduled to give on my CV or resume?
A: You can list the paper that you were scheduled to present as “Accepted for presentation at the 2020 75th annual meeting for the American Association for Public Opinion Research (Paper not presented because of COVID-19)."
NACADA (National Conference on Academic Advising)
The above recommendations and examples may also be modified (according to the style guide used by your discipline) and applied to conference work other than accepted presentations, such as conference organizer/convener, conference award, or invited keynote speaker.
Regardless of whether your conference has been canceled, postponed, or moved online, follow the steps on the "Making Your Work Available Online" tab to help broaden the impact of your work.
If the conference has been postponed, you can either wait until you have the updated conference information before referencing your work on your CV, or go ahead and list your work with a note that the conference has been postponed due to COVID-19.
If the conference will be postponed, simply update the dates and location as needed once the new information is known. There is no need to mention the postponement in the reference.
Baxter, A. B. (2020, June 22-25). Technology-aided advising: Moving quickly to break the internet [Poster presentation]. NACADA International Conference, Athens, Greece. https://nacada.ksu.edu/Events/International-Conferences/Athens.aspx. Unable to deliver; conference postponed due to COVID-19 outbreak.
Regardless of whether your conference has been canceled, postponed, or moved online, follow the steps on the "Making Your Work Available Online" tab to help broaden the impact of your work.
If the conference has moved to an online format, you may reference your work as planned.
If the conference has been moved to online only, use the template in Section 10.5 to create the reference. There is no need to indicate that the conference is online only. Online-only conferences use the same template as in-person conferences. Use the original planned location of the conference in the reference to aid readers in identifying the conference.
If you participate in the virtual conference, you can list the paper as “Presented at the 2020 75th annual meeting virtual conference for the American Association for Public Opinion Research.”
If the conference has not moved online, but you choose to give your presentation independently in real time (live) online (via Zoom, etc.) to colleagues and/or the public, it may be advisable (depending on the norms of your particular discipline) to list your presentation just once on your CV or resume. So, you could choose to cite just the conference presentation (which was part of the canceled conference) or you could choose to cite your live, online presentation (clearly distinguishing it as a stand-alone presentation, independent of the canceled conference).
What if my session was supposed to be given at a conference, but I gave it as a Zoom presentation instead?
It is not acceptable to list a presentation or poster more than once on the CV or Resume if the content is largely identical. The author decides which to cite, according to the accepted practice of the discipline or professional department/unit. (NOTE: If the Zoom session is an “invited” session and the conference presentation would have been a “peer-reviewed” session, most would select the “peer-reviewed” event to include.)
Regardless of whether your conference has been canceled, postponed, or moved online, follow the steps on the "Making Your Work Available Online" tab to help broaden the impact of your work.
Regardless of whether your conference has been canceled, postponed, or moved online, there are steps you can take to broaden your impact by making sure your work is available online.
Your work may already be included in the published (or forthcoming) conference proceedings. Some conference organizations (such as the American Chemical Society) are also setting up repositories to distribute presenters' work. There are also several well-established open repositories for various disciplines, including arXiv (physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics); Biorxiv (biology); Humanities Commons Core Repository (humanities, library and information science); medRxiv (health sciences); SocArXiv (social & behavioral science arts & humanities, law, education). To find more repositories, browse the Directory of Open Access Repositories.
As a member of the Syracuse University community, you also have the option to submit your work (abstract, conference proceedings, article, slides, recorded presentation, related information, etc.) to SURFACE (the Syracuse University Institutional Repository). Formats accepted include PDFs, videos, audio recordings, and more. For tips on submitting your work to SURFACE, see the Tutorial: How to Submit to SURFACE and the PDF of Step by Step Instructions for Authors: SURFACE. If you have questions about SURFACE, please contact SURFACE@syr.edu.
The following advice from the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Office of Academic Affairs should be relevant to the Syracuse University community as well:
List the citation on your CV as you normally would for something that was accepted, and add the link to where your scholarly work has been disseminated. This applies to scholarship presentations of accepted peer-reviewed work impacted by Covid-19 cancellations.
Example:
Love, L. M. & Smith, X. Y. (2020, July). The title of my amazing work. 2020 Group on Faculty Affairs Professional Development conference, Portland, OR. Due to Covid-19 related conference cancellation, this peer-reviewed abstract and/or presentation was disseminated on <insert date> at <insert ... link [to work]>.
If you would like to record your presentation, tips from Syracuse University ITS on recording lectures may be helpful, as well as information about video captioning.
For instance, you may record your presentation on your laptop (using the record feature in Syracuse University provided videoconferencing software, such as Zoom), download and edit your recording using standard pre-installed software (such as Video Editor) and then upload your recording to your Syracuse University provided YouTube account before following the directions for YouTube captioning. If you have questions about recording and captioning your presentation, contact your Syracuse University school/college IT department.