Why do we ask for a licence?

Why do we ask for a licence?

We do not make the questionnaire openly available in the first instance. We have found that asking users to sign a licence first is a better method. Our main concern is that people have been carrying out studies without either telling us or letting us incorporate their data into our benchmarks. As a result, the feedback loop was not being properly managed.

We ask for a licence:

to develop the benchmarks by incorporating your data (anonymously) into them;
to subject the technique to continued scrutiny and testing by third parties;
to develop relationships with like-minded people worldwide;
to cover our costs (but the licence is free to supervised postgraduates, and, in exceptional cases, undergraduates as well) (q.v. Charges);
to open up opportunities for new projects;
to help protect the method (which has taken 20 years in development and refinement).