Office of Undergraduate Research

Fall Expo Guidelines

The 2025 Fall Expo will be a hybrid conference. The Office of Undergraduate Research is committed to providing students with a valuable opportunity to present their research and allow all Purdue faculty, staff, and students to view the presentations with in-person and virtual opportunities.

In addition to this page and the Expo FAQs, there is a checklist of items to consider for students and mentors.

To ensure a fair experience for all presenters, the following guidelines outline acceptable and unacceptable uses of artificial intelligence (AI) tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Grammarly, Copilot, etc.) in preparation for undergraduate research conferences. 

Overall: If you cannot explain or defend the content of your project without AI support, you have likely gone beyond acceptable use. 

Disclosure Requirement for Presenters 

Student presenters must document the use of generative AI, a specific subset of AI tools that create content, for purposes similar to the need to cite sources. The AI tool, the purpose of its use, and how the output was modified should be included in an explanation somewhere on your work (e.g., within acknowledgements, footnotes, or references). 

Acceptable Uses of AI: 

  • Brainstorming and Idea Generation: Using AI to help explore potential directions or organize thoughts. This can be useful when determining a way to convey a complex topic to a generally educated audience. 
  • Editing Support: Using AI for grammar, spelling, clarity, tone, and readability improvements. 
  • Presentation Practice: Using AI to generate sample questions for Q&A or simulate practice sessions. 
  • Citation Checks: Using AI tools to verify formatting or suggest citation improvements. 

Unacceptable Uses of AI: 

  • Content Creation: AI must not be used to generate full sections of your presentation’s content or your abstract. 
  • Automated Design: AI tools must not be used to fully design your research poster or slides without substantial human input and editing. 
  • Data Fabrication or Analysis: AI may not be used to fabricate data or perform analyses that misrepresent the project. 
  • Unacknowledged AI Use: Any substantial assistance from AI beyond the acceptable uses above must be disclosed to your mentor and may require acknowledgement on your presentation. 

Notes: 

  • Many AI tools “hallucinate” and fabricate information. Therefore, you should carefully assess the output of these tools. 
  • Students are expected to take intellectual ownership of their work and be able to explain all content presented. 
  • AI products are trained based on others’ words and ideas leading to potential plagiarism. 
  • Mentors are encouraged to guide students on responsible AI use in research communication. 

Ethical Considerations 

Before presenting their work, students are expected to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity. In alignment with the Purdue Honor Pledge, “As a Boilermaker pursuing academic excellence, I pledge to be honest and true in all that I do. Accountable together – We are Purdue.” This expectation extends to all non-Purdue students involved in undergraduate research events at Purdue. 

Students should ensure the content developed represents their own intellectual contributions. Using AI as a tool should support – not replace – student effort, and all participants must be able to explain and take ownership of their work. AI-assisted work is still your responsibility to defend and understand. This means checking for accuracy, bias, and fairness. Additionally, Purdue Student Conduct Policy states that plagiarism includes the “presentation of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) or similar output as one’s own.” 

When using AI tools, care must be taken to ensure personally identifiable information about participants and other protected data from the project is not shared without the permission from your research mentor. 

Final Points 

Undergraduate research and learning will be challenging. Learning deeply about a topic pushes researchers to consider multiple perspectives in the literature and data while conducting synthesis for the project or the presentation. Be careful to not replace the important process of learning how to create a research presentation with the ease of using AI tools. 

 

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact OUREvents@purdue.edu to seek clarification. You should also connect with your research mentor. 

  • Posters should be no wider than 4' (48") and no taller than 4' (48"). The "standard" poster size is 4' wide by 3' tall due to the limitations of the wide-format printing option in WALC and HSSE.
  • You will bring your printed poster with you during the poster symposium check-in of your session. November 18 check-in map.
  • Magnets will be provided to mount your posters on the whiteboards.
  • Rubric to self-evaluate your presentation: Presentation rubric.
  • Business casual for your presentation is encouraged, but not required. You should consider the Purdue Career Closet in the CCO if you need business casual clothing for the Fall Expo or to just to have in your wardrobe.
  • Although you are selected to present in person, we recommend recording a 7-minute virtual component of your poster presentation. Information on how to create and upload a presentation with a voiceover can be found below. Submit using this Qualtrics link by November 13 at 11:59pm EST. This is for a few reasons:
    • If you cannot present that day for any reason and need to present the work virtually.
    • You can submit your virtual presentation to be included in the virtual conference. This unjudged presentation will be available from November 17-21 for more people to view your work beyond those who attend in person.
  • In-person research talks are allotted 15 minutes for their presentation including Q&A.
  • You will bring your presentation on a flashdrive/thumbdrive or your laptop with the ability to connect via an HDMI cord at the time of your presentation. November 19 check-in map.
    • It is important to consider the fonts and the images you have when opening your presentation on a Purdue computer. Using a PDF of your slides may be better to retain what it should look like.
  • Rubric to self-evaluate your presentation: Presentation rubric.
  • Business casual for your presentation is encouraged, but not required. You should consider the Purdue Career Closet in the CCO if you need business casual clothing for the Fall Expo or to just to have in your wardrobe.
  • Although you are selected to present in person, we recommend recording a 10-minute virtual component of your presentation. Information on how to create and upload a presentation with a voiceover can be found below. Submit using this Qualtrics link by November 13 at 11:59pm EST. This is for a few reasons:
    • If you cannot present that day for any reason and need to present the work virtually.
    • You can submit your virtual presentation to be included in the virtual conference. This unjudged presentation will be available from November 17-21 for more people to view your work beyond those who attend in person.
  • Virtual presentations are allotted 7 minutes.
  • Rubric to self-evaluate your presentation: Presentation rubric.
  • General information for presentations
    • The goal for your final video is to have a 1920x1080 video. For those using screen capture to create the video for submission, the resolution of your screen may not exactly match the 1920x1080 resolution noted above. This is fine, but please submit your recording with a resolution that is as good as possible.
    • After recording, review your video recording for audio quality. Listen for background noises, popping sounds, etc. If these are present, please try to remove them and re-record your presentation.
    • Recording options
  • Resources for presenters
  • Students should submit a YouTube link to their presentation via this Qualtrics link by November 13 at 11:59pm EST.
    • For group projects, it is recommended that students work together to generate the content and the script, but designate one person to conduct the voiceover and mention the group effort. This is a suggestion, not a requirement.
    • Students must “unlist” the presentation for the presentation to be viewable only with the direct link and not searchable, but should turn on comments to allow for asynchronous dialogue.
    • Links to the YouTube presentations will be behind a Purdue login for faculty, staff, and students to view for a week and provide feedback to the presentations using a Qualtrics form as if they would face-to-face and ask questions in the comments section. You may receive permission from your research mentor to share your presentation with family, friends, and additional colleagues.

Student researchers must confirm with their research mentors if they can upload their research presentations in this virtual format.

Unlisting and placing the links behind a Purdue login are ways to prevent the sharing of presentations to others outside Purdue, but the links could be shared. If a researcher or research mentor is concerned about sharing the work virtually, consider if removing or providing less-specific information could make it appropriate for online dissemination. Following the Expo, students can delete the presentation or make the video private to ensure if a link was shared that it cannot be viewed in the future. Presenters should take down the presentation or make them private at the conclusion of the Conference if the research mentor does not provide approval for keeping it up.

If a student decides to withdraw their submission, they should withdraw the abstract submission on OURConnect.

If you have questions, contact OUREvents@purdue.edu.

Last updated: September 22, 2025