Terms of Service

Welcome to Open Lab, operated by Open Lab Online UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Konstanz, Germany ("Open Lab", "we", "us"). These Terms of Service govern your use of Open Lab as a researcher: research.open-lab.online, builder.open-lab.online, and the services through which your studies run (run.open-lab.online) and are offered to participants (app.open-lab.online). By creating a researcher account or using the service as a researcher you agree to these Terms. Please also read our Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle personal data.

If you take part in studies as a participant, the participant terms apply to you instead of these Terms.

Where these Terms refer to a business customer, they mean a researcher who uses Open Lab in the course of their professional activity or on behalf of an institution such as a university (an entrepreneur within the meaning of § 14 of the German Civil Code, BGB). If you use Open Lab as a consumer, the provisions for business customers do not apply to you, and your mandatory statutory rights are not affected.

You decide how your studies are designed and run, and you are responsible for the research you carry out with Open Lab. In particular, you are responsible for:

• testing each study before you collect data from participants, including that conditions and group codes are assigned as you intend, that your tasks record the data you need and that redirects reach their destination;
• checking the data you collect before you rely on it, for example with the checks on your study's Data page and by inspecting your exports;
• keeping your own copies of the data you need, by exporting it regularly and in any case before you delete a study or your account and before data reaches the end of its retention period;
• the scientific validity of your analyses and of anything you publish based on the data.

Open Lab provides the tools. We do not review your study designs, your data or your results.

8.1 Please report defects to info@open-lab.online without undue delay after you notice them, with the information we need to reproduce them, such as the study, the steps you took and what you expected to happen.

8.2 We remedy defects within a reasonable time. Defects that may affect data being collected are given priority.

8.3 If we become aware of a defect that may have affected the integrity of data collected through Open Lab, we inform the researchers whose studies may be affected without undue delay. We describe the defect and its likely effect on the data and, where we can, provide a way to identify the affected records. This is in addition to our obligations under the Data Processing Agreement, including the notification of personal data breaches.

8.4 If a defect significantly impairs a paid plan, we credit, at your request, the fees for the affected period pro rata. Your statutory rights in respect of defects are not affected. Claims for damages are governed by Section 9.

9.1 We are liable without limitation for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz), and where we have given a guarantee.

9.2 For damage caused by simple negligence, we are liable only for the breach of an essential contractual obligation, that is, an obligation whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose fulfilment you may regularly rely. In that case our liability is limited to the damage that is typical for this kind of contract and was foreseeable when the contract was concluded.

9.3 For business customers, our liability under 9.2 is in addition limited, per calendar year, to the greater of EUR 10,000 and the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the event that gave rise to the claim.

9.4 If you use Open Lab free of charge, we are liable only for intent and gross negligence. Liability for injury to life, body or health, under the Product Liability Act and under a guarantee remains as set out in 9.1.

9.5 If data is lost or corrupted, our liability is limited to the cost of restoring it that would have arisen had you kept copies as described in Section 7.

9.6 For business customers, liability without fault for defects that already existed when the contract was concluded (§ 536a(1) BGB) is excluded.

9.7 The limitations in this Section also apply to the personal liability of our employees, representatives and agents.

9.8 Your study uses end-to-end encryption by default, where the data is encrypted so that only you — and any collaborators you authorise — can read it, and Open Lab cannot recover it for you. You unlock it with your account password (or, for social-login accounts, a separate encryption passphrase) and are issued a one-time recovery code as a backup; you are responsible for safeguarding that recovery code, and if you lose both your password/passphrase and your recovery code the data cannot be recovered. (If you opt a study out to server-side encryption, Open Lab manages the keys and can recover the data as your processor.) If you instead use the self-managed study key option (you generate and hold your own key file), you are solely responsible for safeguarding that key file — if it is lost, the data cannot be recovered.

9.9 Liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability towards data subjects under the GDPR, is not affected.