These are the current members of the Ethiktool team:
Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bendixen (TU Chemnitz, project lead and contact for general question)
Dr. Thomas Wegner (Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID), main software developer and contact for technical questions)
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Einhäuser-Treyer (TU Chemnitz)
Tina Frenzel, M.Sc. (TU Chemnitz)
Dr. Inka Schmitz (TU Chemnitz)
Dr. Katarina Blask (Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID))
Dr. Eva-Maria Berens (Bielefeld University)

Our mission is to facilitate the generation and evaluation of ethics proposals. Hence we provide the Ethiktool free of charge to all interested ethics committees. The Ethiktool development is based on our longstanding experience in ethics committee work and our experience with the predecessor software, which was developed under the leadership of Alexandra Bendixen and introduced at TU Chemnitz in 2021. The development of the current version has been financially supported by the Volkswagen Foundation since 2023, with their support set to continue until 2026.

For more information about us, please visit our project website.

You are using version 1.3.2 of the browser-based Ethiktool. A list of changes relative to previous versions can be found here.

The Ethiktool simplifies the generation and evaluation of ethics proposals for research involving human participants, in particular for non-medical research. Based on your responses to questions that are automatically adapted to your input, the Ethiktool generates the application documents as well as all participant documents (including information, consent, and data privacy). The Ethiktool is a joint development of a project team headed by Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bendixen (Chemnitz University of Technology, TUC), which comprises members from TUC, the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID), and Bielefeld University. The development has been based on experience with a predecessor software developed and used at TUC.

We continuously extend and improve the Ethiktool. We therefore greatly appreciate your support by sending us error reports, questions and remarks via email to ethiktool@tu-chemnitz.de*. If you experience technical issues with the current version, please contact ethiktool@leibniz-psychology.org.

Are you a member of an ethics committee, IRB or otherwise involved in evaluating or processing ethics applications? If you are interested in introducing the Ethiktool at your site, you are very welcome to contact us at ethiktool@tu-chemnitz.de*.

If you use the Ethiktool for your research, please cite our work.

*E-mails to this address are processed via a ticket system; please note the privacy statement (in German).

Your browser must have cookies and JavaScript enabled for the Ethiktool to function properly. Please do not delete cookies during the session. It is not advisable to work with the Ethiktool in more than one open browser tab. Moreover, please do not navigate forward and backward within the browser; instead, use the Ethiktool's “next page“ and “previous page“ buttons.

To start the application process, begin with “Proposal data“ and click through the form step by step via the “next page“ button. Alternatively, you can also jump directly to specific sections (e.g., project details) in the navigation bar on the left.

On the right-hand side, you will see a preview of the application document and the participant documents. You can click on the questions or headings to jump directly to the related sections in the Ethiktool. In the area above the preview, you are informed about missing or incorrect input.

Please save your entries regularly. The files are stored locally on your computer in XML format. You can pause the process at any time, reload your saved entries as an XML file later and continue editing them.

Once you have made all entries, please use “Check entries“ to ensure that everything is complete and consistent. If necessary, please correct your entries.

If the technical check reveals no errors, you are ready to generate the documents for submission by selecting “complete proposal“. During the process, you may need to add your own PDF documents, depending on the information your entered.

Ultimately, you will receive an integrated document as a PDF file, along with the underlying XML file. Both files need to be submitted to your ethics committee. You will also receive individual documents for each part of the application for your own use. Please note that you will need the XML file for any revisions to your application.

The Ethiktool is regularly updated automatically. You are using version 1.3.2; a version history can be found here.

The use of the Ethiktool is free of charge. You use the software on your own responsibility. Neither the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID) nor Chemnitz University of Technology (TUC) nor any party otherwise connected to the Ethiktool assumes any responsibility or liability for the correctness of the generated documents in terms of content or lawfulness, nor for the assessment of the ethical admissibility and legitimacy of the planned research. The responsibility and liability for conducting the research in a legally and ethically impeccable manner remains solely with the researchers, or – in cases that include responsibility or liability of other bodies – with those bodies. The responsibility for ethics assessment remains solely with the applicable ethics committee or review board or with the persons, bodies and organisations that are commissioned by the respective committee or board.

Information on data protection and the processing of personal data as defined by the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can be found at https://leibniz-psychology.org/datenschutz.

The Ethiktool, all its texts, content and links (including texts, content and links on all of its subpages) as well as its source code are subject to the open source software licence “European Union Public Licence” in its version 1.2 of May 19th, 2017 (EUPL v. 1.2) and constitute “the work” in terms of this licence. In particular, any derivative works (e.g., extension, modification) are also part of the work. Moreover, the work may only be distributed or communicated under the terms of this licence, and no additional terms or conditions may be offered or imposed on the work (“CopyLeft”). The source code is available here .

We are happy to support you in introducing the Ethiktool at your institution and to include a version tailored to your institution's needs within our software. If you are interested, please contact us at ethiktool@tu-chemnitz.de*.

*E-mails to this address are processed via a ticket system; please note the privacy statement (in German).

This is a translation of the German version (“Nutzungsbedingungen”). In the event of differing content, the German version shall prevail.

We are looking forward to your feedback. For questions and suggestions on content, please refer to the Ethiktool contributors at Chemnitz University of Technology (ethiktool@tu-chemnitz.de*). For technical questions, please refer to the Ethiktool contributors at Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID) (ethiktool@leibniz-psychology.org).'

*E-mails to this address are processed via a ticket system; please note the privacy statement (in German).