TERMS AND CONDITIONS

The Futures Consciousness Profile Database is a paid service that is intended for responsible research, education and development use. The database administrators reserve the right to grant or deny access to use the database based on an evaluation of prospective users. Users of the site are required to adhere to ethical principles of research with human participants. If the administrators suspect misconducts or unethical practices, we reserve the right to suspend the corresponding user account. On ethical principles, see the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity guidelines at https://www.tenk.fi/en/tenk-guidelines.

We reserve the right to update and modify these terms and conditions. We will notify registered users of notable changes that affect current users.

We charge all users a database management fee. For more information, see the pricing page.

By conducting research using the Futures Consciousness Profile Database, you agree that the database administrators can view your research data. Other users of the database can see aggregate average results of all projects in the database. If you are conducting research with employees of organizations, you are responsible for acquiring any permits that may be required for gathering their data. Please note that users may not remove data collected in the database. If it is necessary to remove data, for instance for legal reasons, please contact the database administrators.

When you create a project in the database, you give a license to the database administrators and to researchers at the Finland Futures Research Centre to use your research data under the following terms.

  • Finland Futures Research Centre may use aggregate data from the database, which include your results in a non-identifiable form, immediately for research and educational purposes.
  • There is a four-year embargo period for using specific datasets. During the embargo period, researchers at Finland Futures Research Centre must ask permission to make use of a specific dataset from the corresponding user. After this period, Finland Futures Research Centre may use specific datasets for research and educational purposes without permission.
  • This license only concerns responses to the 20-item Futures Consciousness test and the demographic questions included in the standard survey. It also includes additional questions added by users but not the data gathered with these questions. Any data gathered with additional questions added by users will not be used by administrators or researchers at the Finland Futures Research Centre.
  • Finland Futures Research Centre reserves the right to grant licenses to our cooperation partners to use the data under the same terms for research and educational purposes.
  • In case the ownership of the database is transferred in the future, Finland Futures Research Centre reserves the right to transfer the license to use the data under the same terms.
  • The copyright to the data is not transferred to Finland Futures Research Centre and remains with the original copyright holder. To maintain records of copyright holders, we store information of users and their projects by default. User information is only deleted when users request it. When user information is deleted, Finland Futures Centre retains the license to use the research data.

As a registered user, you are allowed to use the texts in the futures consciousness profiles under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This means that you are allowed to share and adapt the texts in different formats and purposes, including commercially, as long as you give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license and indicate if changes were made. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Example citation of the website:

Ahvenharju, Sanna, Matti Minkkinen, Martyn Richards and Fanny Lalot. 2019. The Futures Consciousness Profile Database. https://futuresconsciousness.utu.fi

The Futures Consciousness Profile Database may not be used to collect personal data from respondents. Personal data include, for example, names, identification numbers, location data or specific physical, cultural or social characteristics that allow identifying individuals. The administrators are required to remove any questions that collect personal data from respondents. In addition, we reserve the right to anonymize database analysis and export results by excluding demographic variables that may allow identification from the output.

The Futures Consciousness Profile Database is not an open research data repository because it is only available to registered users. If users wish to open their data for broader use or to store it permanently, we ask our users to deposit their research data in a data repository in addition to using the Futures Consciousness Profile Database. Data repositories may be found, for example, by using the Registry of Research Data Repositories (https://www.re3data.org/). For more information on sharing research data, see https://www.fairdata.fi/en/.

If you publish research that was made possible by the Futures Consciousness Profile Database, we request that you cite the database website and the Futures Consciousness scale article in your publication.

Examples of citations:

Ahvenharju, Sanna, Matti Minkkinen, Martyn Richards and Fanny Lalot. 2019. The Futures Consciousness Profile Database. https://futuresconsciousness.utu.fi

Lalot, F., Ahvenharju, S., & Minkkinen, M. Aware of the Future? Adaptation and Refinement of the Futures Consciousness Scale (Open Access) Psychological Test Adaptation and Development, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1027/2698-1866/a000014

Research ethics is paramount to us. Therefore, we require our users to analyze, discuss and present their results in an ethically responsible way. It is important to remember the following aspects.

  • Answering the Futures Consciousness test must be voluntary.
  • The Futures Consciousness results and profiles are private information of each individual and they cannot be required to share them with others, for example in a classroom or workshop setting.
  • In a classroom exercise, workshop or other similar setting, individuals can use the mock version available in the database if they do not wish to test themselves or share their results.
  • Interpretations of Futures Consciousness profiles must be made responsibly. The psychological research on interpreting Futures Consciousness profiles is ongoing, and researchers should avoid far-reaching interpretations that could have significant implications for individuals.
  • The results of the Futures Consciousness test may not be used to discriminate or otherwise cause harm to the individuals involved.

If you have questions about these terms and conditions, please contact the database administrators: fcprofile@utu.fi