Students will be assigned to groups (if class size is moderate then individual projects may be possible) in the first week of class and throughout the course will collaboratively develop a research proposal. There will be weekly class time (wedneday B) dedicated to training in the specifics of developing research proposals and for group work on the proposal. However, the groups will be expected to coordinate with one another and work on the proposal outside of class time as well. The final reports will be presented by the groups to the rest of the class during the last week of the course with Q&A from the other course participants. This will be followed by submission of a group written report including a statement of contribution that clearly indicates each team member’s contribution to the proposal. This component of the course is based on the MicroResearch model.

A completed proposal should be worked on throughout the course and will be approximately 10 pages. The proposal should contain the following sections:

  • Abstract: concise & informative expert overview
  • Lay Summary: clear general public summary of problem, solution, and relevance
  • Introduction: problem/knowledge gap justification/explanation of relevant methods
  • Literature Review: critical appraisal of broad relevant literature that supports method and question
  • Methodology: appropriate method, data gathering/access, that solves the research question and is justified by literature review
  • Budget: reasonable/appropriate timeline and cost estimates
  • Ethics: explores hurdles/risks/benefits and impact of question, method and KT
  • Discussion : addresses limitations, implications, and future directions/extensions.
  • Knowledge Translation: robust/impactful plan to mobile results across a range of settings

There are no strict formatting requirements just appropriately cite literature and aim for legibility!

Submission will take place via the course brightspace page.

See schedule or syllabus for key due dates.

The full marking rubric is available in the syllabus

  • Proposal Class 0 - Papers and Research Questions
    tl;dr: An overview to reading papers and developing a proposal research question
    [slides] [recording]
  • Proposal Class 1 - Data Access Considerations
    tl;dr: Challenges and steps to accessing medical datasets

  • Proposal Class 2 - Proposing Ethical Research
    tl;dr: An overview to how to develop and evaluate an ethical research proposal
    [slides]
  • Proposal Class 3 - Proposal checkpoint
    tl;dr: Intermediate check-in and proposal troubleshooting

  • Proposal Class 4 - Knowledge Translation Plans
    tl;dr: An overview of developing an effective knowledge translation plan for your proposed research
    [slides]