Giving a Project Proposal Meeting (PPM)

All studies conducted at the DDCN of the Donders Institute must undergo the PPM procedure. This involves of a presentation where your study is evaluated on terms of quality, feasibility, methods, analysis, ethics and alignment with the DCCN’s research objectives. Additionally, reserchers are required to submit an online form. Upon completions of the previous steps, you will receive a project number which gives you access to the facilities of the insitute.

A detailed description of all the steps you must follow for the PPM meeting can be found here

Presentation

Two ways to become familiar with PPM:

  1. Attend the weekly Thursday PPMs in the Red Room. Information on this week’s presentation can be found here or in the DCCN mailing list.
  2. Visit the Predictive Brain Lab page on the Project Database to access slides from previous presentations by lab members. These slides can be downloaded in a PDF format under Attachments. Alternatively, you can search for a specific lab member in case you want to see how they presented specific methods of theoretical backgrounds.

Feeling intimidated about giving a PPM? No need to worry! The researchers in the audience are here to support you and help you improve your project, not to crticize your work! Donderians are genuinely interested on the research happening at the institute!

Presentation Tips:

  • Use the General Lab Meeting to practice your presentation! These time slots are perfect to receive some valuable feedback from the group on your design, analyses, presentation structure, and (if you want) on your presentation skills! Moreover, the questions and comments you get from the group might also be informative of those that you can expect from the audience during the actual PPM.
  • Schedule your practice session well in advance (at least a week before your real PPM), so you will have enough time to incorporate the feedback. You can find the organizer of the Group Meetings here
  • Take notes during your (practice) PPM or ask a group member to do so for you. This ensures you will caputre all the important and interest comments and suggestions people bring up during your presentation!

Calculating Sample Size

  • Sample size should be established before data collection begins. Whenever possible, conduct a power calculation to determine sample size. We recommend using G*Power software for it. It contains useful tutorials and videos on how to get an informed sample size for your study.
  • If a power calculation for your study is too complicated, you can follow this default rule: Aim for studies with at least 80% power to detect effect sizes of at least moderate magnitude (Cohen’s d > 0.5).
    • For within-subject designs, recruit N = 34 subjects with good data quality.
    • For between-subjects designs, recruit N = 64 subjects per group.

Project Proposal Sheet

Part of doing a PPM entails filling in the Project Proposal Sheet online.

Tips

  • Most projects in the lab fall under the blanket of approval CMO2014/288. This means you may not need to request ethical approval for your individual project! See here if that is the case for you.
  • For behavioral projects the standard storage quota is usually enough. For neuroimaging projects, you will calculate your own storage quota. Keep in mind that is you need to store in-between analyses steps, you may need storage space for that.
  • To make the process as smooth as possible, get all the required signatures of your Project Proposal Sheet before the PPM presentation. Thus, you can start your experiment right away.