Licensing and permitted use

License and Use

Documentation, manuals, and measurement specifications on this site are released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Hosted software is available for non-commercial academic and educational use. Commercial use of any component requires written permission.

Commercial Licensing How to Cite Resources

Documentation and specifications

CC BY-NC 4.0

Written materials on this site — including the manuals, the Self-Complexity Measurement Specification, the Identity Strength Index Specification, the Salience Measurement Specification, and the Identity Archetypes Operational Specification — are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

Under these terms, the documentation and specifications may be used by researchers, instructors, and students for non-commercial scholarship, teaching, and applied practice, with attribution.

Share
Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Adapt
Remix, transform, and build upon the material.
Attribution
Give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
NonCommercial
The material may not be used for commercial purposes without separate permission.

Full license text: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Software

Non-commercial academic use

Hosted versions of the Everythingist Self-Space app and the research dashboard are made available for non-commercial academic and educational use. This includes use in coursework, supervised student projects, dissertation research, and grant-funded studies conducted by academic and non-profit institutions.

The source code for these tools is not currently distributed under an open-source license. Researchers interested in replication, extension, institutional deployment, or local installation are encouraged to make contact directly, and accommodations can usually be arranged.

Software questions: etcresearch@illinois.edu

Commercial use

For-profit, paid product, or commercial training contexts

Commercial licensing is available

Commercial use of the documentation, specifications, or hosted tools — including paid training programs, integration into for-profit products or platforms, use within commercial coaching or consulting practices, and any use that generates revenue or commercial advantage — requires a separate written license.

Commercial licenses can typically be arranged on reasonable terms, and inquiries are welcome at an early stage of planning rather than after a product or service is in market.

To open a conversation, contact sean@selfcomplexityresearch.org or etcresearch@illinois.edu. Briefly describe the intended use, the audience or market, and the timeline so the right path can be identified quickly.

Attribution

How to cite

A consolidated list of recommended citations for the manuals, measurement specifications, the Self-Space app, and the research dashboard is maintained on a dedicated citation page. Use that page to pull the correct reference for each component of the ecosystem when preparing a manuscript, syllabus, or technical report.

Open Citation Page

Before using this in a study

Three things to do up front

Pin versions

Record version numbers

Document the version of the Self-Space app, the research dashboard, and each measurement specification in use at the time of data collection. Reporting these versions in the methods section keeps the work reproducible as the platform evolves.

Longitudinal designs

Watch for updates between waves

Major updates to the measurement specification or platform between collection waves can affect comparability across time points. Plan to either pin a single version across the full study or document any mid-study migrations and their analytic implications.

Get in touch first

Reach out before launching

For new studies, particularly those extending the framework into a new population or domain, an early conversation about version-specific guidance, planned changes, and recommended configurations is encouraged. Write to etcresearch@illinois.edu before the protocol is finalized.

CC BY-NC 4.0 is a well-established and widely accepted license for academic re-use and is the appropriate default for the documentation and specifications on this site. For high-stakes commercial licensing arrangements, sponsored-research agreements, or formal institutional intellectual property review, the University of Illinois Office of Technology Management and university counsel are the authoritative resources, and any binding commercial terms will be coordinated through them.