Changes to commercial activities of the 1KA

1KA is an open-source application for online surveying at the Center for Social Informatics (CDI), Faculty of Social Sciences (FDV), University of Ljubljana. Interested users can install it on their servers for internal, public, and commercial use without restriction. There are numerous installations (independent of FDV) within this framework. For users in the education and research sector in Slovenia, the relevant ministries enable free use on the 1KA.arnes.si installation.

The FDV also has several commercial installations on its servers, where it offers hosting and user support to companies and organizations, primarily in terms of virtual domains and their own installations.

However, it has become apparent that the public sector is not suitable for commercial online survey services. As a result, the FDV incurs a significant financial loss on 1KA's commercial services, which must be covered from other sources.

The issue was discussed by the FDV Management Board in 2023, which decided that 1KA's commercial activities could be transferred outside the FDV, provided that the FDV remains the owner of the intellectual property, all regulations are complied with (especially regarding data protection and the protection of business information), the open source nature of the application is preserved, and the 1KA.si domain remains at the FDV. Regardless of the decision of the FDV Management Board, any installation of the open source 1KA tool that is independent of the FDV may independently market user support and hosting services.

In this context, the commercial activities of 1KA will be gradually phased out at the FDV. All companies and organizations that use commercial hosting and user support services will be able to easily switch to commercial providers, where these services naturally belong.

A permanent call for tenders has been published for the provision of 1KA commercial services; on this basis, the services are offered by the company Gotel. Gotel already enables the purchase and payment of individual 1KA packages (which the FDV cannot offer) through a special contract with the FDV. In 2025, it will also be possible to transfer virtual domain services and own installations to Gotel. These services are provided entirely by external contractors, as the FDV does not employ the relevant staff nor does it have these activities in its mission.

The transition will be completely invisible to users. Domains, prices, technical capabilities, services, and user support will remain unchanged. As mentioned, development, maintenance, server hosting, and user support are already fully performed by external contractors, who will continue to perform their work unchanged in the future. The only difference will be in the order form or contract that users will conclude with Gotel after the formal expiry of their existing contractual relationship with FDV.

Users can, of course, also look for another provider or arrange for the installation of 1KA directly at their premises. In principle, they can also remain at FDV, but FDV will have to conclude a corresponding contract with Gotel for them, which will result in additional indirect costs.

If you have any questions, please contact the Help Center.