Running an online session

Running an online session combines technical support, clear opening instructions, questions, polls and follow-up. Hosts and presenters may see different screens, so the session also depends on checking what reaches the audience and specifying what the recording and handouts will contain.

Support and rehearsal

For a slide-based webinar, the setup includes a slideshow, online platform, quiet room and reliable internet connection; a second person to introduce and support the speaker is optional. ¹ A colleague can handle recording, questions and controls while the speaker concentrates on presenting, although a practised speaker who knows the software can work alone. ^{1, 2} Hosts need not share a room: one EMWA webinar was supported from southern France and northern Italy. ³ EMWA's September 2022 environmental-risk webinar similarly separated moderation from head-office technical support. ⁴

Platform preparation involves both the website used to set the date, time, notifications and features and the controls used live for screen sharing, recording, attendance, raised hands and polls. ^{5, 6} Provider videos and account-based technical support can help hosts learn the software. ⁷ Learning its basics and interactive features, having colleagues review the slides, and recording a rehearsal allow the speaker to check timing and delivery, including speed, accent and distracting pause sounds. ^{6, 8} Test runs reveal glitches and how to handle them; a rehearsal recording can be emailed to attendees if, for example, a thunderstorm interrupts the live connection. ⁸

Small mock webinars with three or four people taking turns at every task, including recording, provide hosting practice when the software may still produce surprises. ^{9, 10}

Opening instructions and handover

EMWA webinar openings have warned that a fully stable internet connection cannot be guaranteed and promised email notification if cancellation becomes necessary. ^{11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 4} Control-panel walkthroughs identified the panel at the right and explained minimising and expanding it with an upper-left arrow, sometimes allowing practice. ^{11, 13, 15, 16, 21, 20, 22} One opening also asked attendees to confirm sound. ¹⁵

Question instructions identified the questions or chat pane and explained that submissions would be collected during the talk for answers afterwards. ^{23, 12, 24, 25, 21, 17, 26, 18, 19, 20} Raised hands could instead lead to unmuting and a spoken question. ^{14, 27, 26, 18, 20, 22} In February 2021, technical questions were to receive prompt typed replies, while speaker questions would be read at the end and raised hands called by name. ²² In August 2019, hosts preferred the questions pane to chat because questions were easier for them to see there. ²¹

Recordings were announced with access through the association website. ^{23, 24, 25, 28, 21, 26, 29, 19, 30, 22} Some openings also supplied a Twitter hashtag to extend discussion beyond the event. ^{23, 24, 25} At the 2026 AI seminar, attendees wishing to remain anonymous were asked to rejoin without a name and turn off their camera because the session would be recorded. ³¹ The host also explicitly identified the sponsor leading the session, and a speaker returned to a disclaimer slide to clarify that the talk represented personal experience and opinions rather than the employer's. ^{32, 33} The agenda was introduced as signposts rather than a strict running order. ³³

In the patient-registry webinar, the moderator transferred webinar control and then told the speaker to start; the first-time webinar presenter skipped the biography already given and hoped the fifteen-minute question slot would enable discussion despite less direct interaction than in person. ^{34, 35, 36} In the personal-branding webinar, the moderator introduced the speaker and handed over directly. ^{37, 38} The 2024 CORE Reference webinar instead opened with the subject and speaker order, inviting chat questions with time for answers at the end if possible. ³⁹

Questions and time limits

Question time should be protected, with prepared questions available for a shy audience; once discussion starts, others may contribute. ^{2, 40} An hour-long webinar can pause every twenty minutes on a questions slide so that uncertainties are clarified promptly. ⁴⁰ For a technical presentation of about forty-five minutes, fifteen to twenty minutes for questions is suggested, while allowing the duration to vary with circumstances and participants' time. ^{41, 42}

The medical-writing question-and-answer webinar explicitly encouraged questions without fear of seeming uninformed and reserved thirty minutes for them. ^{43, 23} Its speaker asked the moderator to collect questions during the presentation and send them afterwards because reading questions and presenting together would be confusing. ⁴⁴ The device-regulation and patient-registry webinars each announced fifteen minutes for questions. ^{25, 24} The 2026 AI seminar assigned someone to monitor chat and invited audience questions alongside planned discussion topics. ⁴⁵

The personal-branding speaker invited questions at any time through chat or raised hands, then accepted a further five-minute question period and an informal stay after the planned wrap-up, with email available afterwards. ^{46, 47, 48, 49, 50} During the webinar-organising demonstration, a question was answered immediately because the speaker could not launch it a second time. ⁵¹

An introductory medical-writing webinar began questions around forty-four minutes in, later stopped accepting new ones, regrouped similar questions and directed further questions to Twitter. ^{52, 53, 54, 55} Medic Footprints announced a 19:00–20:15 session with about forty-five minutes of presentations, moderated questions and the speakers' agreement to extend if needed; the host monitored questions throughout, intervening where timely and otherwise holding them for the question round. ^{56, 57} Near the end, the host asked for concise answers to about seven waiting questions and checked that the speakers could continue briefly before the final two. ^{58, 59, 60}

Interaction and shared controls

Attendees can speak through raised hands or type comments and questions; one demonstrated platform had separate chat and questions panes with private or group sending options. ^{40, 61} Hosts could see the attendee list and raised hands and had to agree which host would unmute a volunteer. ⁶² In the conference webinar, several attempts to unmute participants produced no audible question, so hosts read typed questions instead; one participant did successfully speak. ^{63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68}

Changing presenter can let another person share a screen, while keyboard-and-mouse control permits work inside the presenter's computer for shared presentations or technical assistance. ^{61, 69} Screen sharing also permits leaving the slides, demonstrating a task live and returning to the presentation. ^{69, 70} A PDF handout was demonstrated as a downloadable document, analogous to handing out a sheet in a classroom. ^{3, 71} The speaker thought this sharing worked only live and suggested posting relevant files or links through the association website for recording viewers. ^{72, 73}

In the writing-tips webinar, a question concerned the relationship between ideas in a slide sentence; the moderator could neither unmute the questioner nor return to the slide while the speaker shared it, so the speaker paraphrased the issue and obtained confirmation through another typed message. ^{74, 75, 76}

Polls and audience exercises

In the September 2019 pharmacovigilance webinar, three opening polls explored the audience and its expectations; the presenter could not see the displayed poll or results, and the moderator launched, closed and read them. ^{77, 78, 79, 80} The January 2020 slide-design presenter also needed results read aloud. ⁸¹ In July 2020, results were visible to the presenter only in a side panel without exact percentages, and attendees were warned to leave full-screen mode to vote. ^{82, 30, 83} In February 2021, a presenter seeing the poll on a second screen checked whether the audience could see it. ⁸⁴ In the 2026 AI seminar, the speaker could follow responses live and then asked whether others could see the displayed results. ^{85, 86}

In the conference webinar, one host could not display results, and the other explained that sharing them depended on whose screen was shared before closing and displaying them. ^{87, 88, 89} Hosts monitored participation before closing: responses to its last poll rose from 60% to 80%, the Medic Footprints opening poll reached 96%, the 2026 AI poll rose through 78%, 80% and 81% before a five-second final wait, and a January 2020 poll closed at 85%. ^{90, 91, 92, 85, 93}

The January 2020 presenter questioned whether asking about lack of confidence with tools would have been clearer than asking about confidence, and the moderator clarified that percentages referred to those voting on each item. ^{93, 94} The July 2020 speaker used an opening poll to distinguish self-taught subject knowledge from classes or workshops, and later used a question explicitly labelled as a trick. ^{83, 82, 95} A webinar-organising session asked about telework and prior need to show visual material during teleconferences, then treated the responses as evidence of the session's relevance. ^{96, 97}

The personal-branding webinar asked about online presence and marketing at the start, then personal-brand awareness and confidence at the end. ^{98, 99, 100, 101, 102} It also asked attendees to search their name immediately and inspect the results, with the exercise offered afterwards to those unable to do it live. ^{103, 104, 99} Medic Footprints opened with a multiple-response poll about reasons for attending and closed with intended next steps, explicitly permitting the answer that medical writing was not suitable. ^{105, 92, 106, 107}

In the CORE Reference webinar, one presenter asked the fifty-two participants for an alternative approach to a document problem, and another asked for a show of hands about difficulties accessing published clinical data. ^{108, 109, 110}

Technical failures and recovery

A host in the conference webinar could not share a PDF because she was not sharing her screen; the other host displayed it, while email was offered as an alternative. ¹¹¹ Another handover required asking the other host to advance a slide. ¹¹² In February 2021, the audience kept seeing a poll while the presenter thought slides were showing, until the moderator intervened. ^{113, 114} At the CORE Reference handover, the second speaker needed a mute reminder and checked that sound and screen sharing worked. ¹¹⁵

In the introductory medical-writing session, questions appeared too small to read until the presenter found the enlargement control; they were ordered alphabetically rather than by arrival, with one new question appearing at the top. ^{116, 117, 118, 119} An echo of the speaker's voice improved after the moderator's sound was changed, and was attributed to sound passing between them. ¹²⁰ The presenter also experienced difficulties changing slides. ^{121, 122}

Recording scope and access

The September 2022 environmental-risk session announced that only the presentation, not questions, would be recorded; attendees could type questions for reading at the end or speak during discussion. ^{4, 123} Anyone leaving early could use the later recording and email questions to the webinar team for forwarding. ¹²³ The February 2021 session likewise promised recording access to people leaving early. ²²

The August 2019 first-conference panel was open to non-members, so its recording was promised in the public news area; the device-regulation webinar promised member-area access. ^{21, 25} Medic Footprints promised its recording in its members' website section for later viewing or review. ^{105, 124}

Closing and follow-up

EMWA closes have requested feedback to shape future events, promised a recording soon afterwards, thanked participants and explained leaving through File and Exit. ^{125, 126, 127, 42, 128, 129, 130, 55, 131} The July 2020 survey specifically invited suggested improvements and future topics. ¹³⁰ The speaker turned the camera off after the introduction to focus attention on slides and back on at the end, offered later email replies and promised reference handouts; when hosts could not find the handout-sharing control, they offered to email it despite one attendee having downloaded it. ^{30, 132, 133}

In April 2020, literature requests were answered by directing attendees to slide references in the later recording or offering more by email; the speaker also showed resources for later review and sent an email address to everyone through chat. ^{134, 135, 136, 137, 138} Medic Footprints routed contact with one speaker directly and with two others through the host for triage, while announcing the next event and its date, time, speakers and approximately twenty-five registrants. ^{139, 124, 107} The CORE Reference close invited subscriptions to monthly professional-development updates. ¹⁴⁰

At the 2026 AI seminar's close, feedback was voluntary, responses were to be analysed in aggregate, and any personal data such as an email address would be handled under EMWA's privacy policy; giving an email address was optional. ^{141, 142} The notice was also put in chat, the meeting remained open briefly for replies, and the call closed when responses stopped arriving. ^{142, 143} Hosts invited requests for similar sessions and proposed reviewing remaining chat questions for possible follow-up. ^{141, 142}

Platform reports

A demonstrated platform offered registration reports with registration dates and answers, attendee reports with questions and attendance duration, performance reports covering registration, attendance and feedback, and general statistics across webinars. ¹⁴⁴ Downloaded spreadsheets could retain questions, typed answers and asker contact details, but did not capture replies spoken aloud. ¹⁴⁵ Reports also showed average attendance time, an attentiveness measure and a funnel from registration-link clicks through registrations to attendance, supporting business tracking or training evaluation. ^{144, 145, 146}