DNP Public Presentation Resources

Objectives:

  1. Expectation for OSU-DNP students to refine professional development skills (poster, presentation, Q&A)
  2. Opportunity to have final product for potential professional poster presentation of DNP project at local, regional, national, international organization.
  3. DNP Essential III-Clinical Scholarship

Description:

Students will have the option to create a poster for their public presentation for the DNP Final project defense (in lieu of a 20-30-max slide PowerPoint presentation). The students will be provided a template and resources, but final approval from advisor is required prior to public presentation. Students who choose this option may earn up to 10 Immersion hours total to create the poster.

Logistics:

Student will publicly present the poster at their DNP Final Project Public Defense for 25 minutes, with a 5-minute Q and A.

Template

PowerPoint slide—This is a guideline. Advisor can make edits, enhancements, deletions, additions as needed and agreed upon by advisor and student.

  • Background/Significance of problem (include the problem statement)
  • Clinical Inquiry—include PICOT
  • Summary of appraisal, synthesis, and evaluation of the evidence
  • Practice change recommendation and Project Objectives
  • Outcomes and measurement/analysis of results (interpretive statements)
  • Sustainability
  • Dissemination Plan
  • QR code: Contact information, evaluation and synthesis tables, and references.

Guidelines: These are recommendations and can be adjusted with advisor approval.

*PRO-TIP: Caution with using too many words, white space adds emphasis on your most important information, words should be chosen carefully, an abstract should not be simply inserted; avoid complete sentences/paragraphs and use bullet points to communicate information

Fonts— Use the same font for titles and headings and use the same serif font for text and captions. Text should be justified (aligned) left. Use italics or bold for emphasis. Do not underline or use all caps.

An example of effective font choice and size:

Title = 100 pt bold (Ariel)
Section Headings = 48 pt bold (Ariel)
Body Text = 28 pt (Times New Roman)
Captions = 24 pt (Times New Roman)

Color—Dark text on a light background is easiest to read. If you have a very dark background, use large, bold white text. Be very careful about this option because the text will look much less defined in the printed version than when viewed on a computer.  Avoid color-on-color, especially bright hues. Keep backgrounds simple. If you want to use a photo, choose “Watermark” to make it light and unobtrusive. Choose a simple color scheme with only two or three related colors. Change colors on graphs and figures in a way that they complement the background color.

Title—Try to keep poster title to fewer than 12 words with important words first and leaving out unnecessary words. Keep your title formal; be wary of making claims that the data does not support. It is customary in the title section to put a logo from your academic institution, your healthcare organization or setting, sponsor and/or any other appropriate institution. Full names of the authors and their affiliated institutions are listed directly below the title.

QR Code—A QR (Quick Response) code is often placed in the lower right-hand corner of the poster with other contact information or wherever there is room somewhere along the bottom of the poster. You do not have to use a QR code, but it adds a level of professionalism to your work. A QR code allows your audience to scan your poster with a smartphone to receive more information.

The code can open a text document, website, video, e-mail address, phone number, map page or WiFi connection. This would be a good way to present evaluation and synthesis tables, as well as our contact information and references.

To generate a new QR code, go to: http://www.qr-code-generator.com Enter the URL to which you want to link. It will generate a jpg image of the QR code that you can download. More information about QR codes: http://researchexplainer.com/2012/04/03/use-qr-codes-to-amplify-your-work/

Images (Graphs, Charts and Tables) —While it is possible to create graphs and charts directly within PowerPoint, the process is limited. It is recommended to use Word or Excel to create graphs, tables, and charts.

Inserting Graphs from Excel—While it is possible to simply highlight the graph in your spreadsheet and copy and paste it into your poster, the process often has “glitches”.  Instead, convert your graph into an image file (a “.png” file) first, then insert the .png file into the poster.  (If you insert a graph by the “cut-and-paste” or “Insert Object”, the graph will still be live. This means it will still be linked to the Excel workbook. If you break that link — by trying to print the poster, for example — it breaks.) You can also do a screenshot or screen clip.

How to make a .png file from an Excel graph:

  1. Open Excel and enlarge your graph until it fills the entire screen (10-15 columns wide). If you have multiple graphs in your workbook, enlarge all of them.
  2. Choose “Save as Web Page.”
  3. An .htm file will appear, along with a folder with every chart in the entire workbook saved as separate .png files. You won’t use the .htm file but keep it.
  4. Rename each .png file so you know what it is.
  5. Insert the .png file into your poster by “Insert → photo → picture from file.”

Do not use “Insert → Object → Microsoft Excel Graph.” as it leads directly back to inserting a live graph and all the glitches of being linked directly to an Excel workbook.

If you need to change your graph. You can always go back to your Excel workbook, change the graph and make a new .png file to insert.

Illustrations and Photos—Images should be ~300 dpi. Insert-picture-from-file to bring the image into PowerPoint.

Using Images Found Online

  1. Check to be sure that the image falls under fair-use copyright rules. Typically, an image used to illustrate an educational poster is considered fair use.
  2. Online images are low resolution. Although the image appears crisp on your computer screen, it will not be sharp in poster size. Many sites, especially microscope image databases, provide the option for higher resolution images. Choose 220 dpi or slightly higher.

Copyright-Free Images Resources

 

Oral/Written Final Project Defenses

Remain the same as required by the Graduate School and the CON DNP Program Handbook.

 

 

*Adapted from Whitman College online guidelines.

Updated 5/2/25