New “Ethiktool” Introduced at Chemnitz University of Technology

Software development achieves important milestone: dialogue-guided generation of ethics proposals now browser-based, bilingual and with modern user interface

Since the university-wide ethics committee was established in 2021, researchers at Chemnitz University of Technology (TUC) have been supported by an innovative, dialogue-oriented software when preparing their ethics applications. Based on the experience with this software and with financial support by the Volkswagen Foundation, a new “Ethiktool” has been developed by a project team led by Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bendixen (head of Professorship Structure and Function of Cognitive Systems and chair of the ethics committee). This browser-based, platform-independent software can be used on virtually any device without the need for installation. In addition to a substantially modernized user interface, the new Ethiktool encompasses a series of new functions, including a live preview of the automatically generated application form and participant documents as well as extended options to capture studies with multiple groups and multiple timepoints. The generation of consistent texts for the participant documents from the information queried during the user dialogue has also been extended substantially. Importantly, the Ethiktool is now bilingual: Both the user dialogue and the automatically generated documents are available in English and German language. Bendixen explains the tool’s advantages: “Even more than the previous version, the new Ethiktool allows applicants and members of ethics committees to focus on core issues of content and ethics considerations, while the software takes care of standard phrases, consistency checks and document generation. The Ethiktool also provides persons who so far have had limited ethics-application experience with step-by-step guidance through all ethically relevant aspects of research on and with humans. Last but not least, it will relieve the ethics committee, which handles more than 200 applications per year at TU Chemnitz. And this, in turn, benefits applicants, whose applications will be processed faster and more efficiently.”

The current Ethiktool project team consists of members from TUC, Bielefeld University and the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID). From now on, ZPID will provide the Ethiktool to all interested research institutes indefinitely and free of charge. “I am delighted that we are already in touch with many more ethics committees to adapt the tool for their use. By introducing software-guided ethics applications four years ago for the TUC ethics committee, we have been pioneers. Now we can use our experience to support ethics committees at other sites and thereby contribute to the advancement of digital research infrastructure”, Bendixen adds.

At TUC, the new Ethiktool is now available to all researchers to generate their ethics proposals. For a transition period, applications with the previous software will still be accepted, but it will eventually be entirely replaced by the new Ethiktool. In due time, the Ethiktool will be evaluated with a structured user survey. Independent of this evaluation, the Ethiktool project team will gladly receive any user feedback at ethiktool@tu-chemnitz.de at any time. As it has been the case with the previous Ethiktool, all feedback will directly foster the further development of the software.

More information is available from Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bendixen, phone +49 371 531-31681, email alexandra.bendixen@physik.tu-chemnitz.de

Mario Steinebach
26.06.2025

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