About
Current software version: 1.0.3
Who we are and why we built L-Rex
L-Rex is developed by Marta (GitHub profile↗) and Alexej (GitHub profile↗). We have been continuously working on it since February 2019. The idea for L-Rex stems from Marta's work as a linguist with a research focus on acceptability rating experiments. The main motivation is to make setting up this specific kind of experiment quick, easy, and error-proof.
The project is also a great learning experience for us regarding developing and maintaining a free and open-source software project. We hope to provide a useful, accessible and privacy-friendly research tool for everyone working with rating experiments.
How is the project funded?
We have developed L-Rex in our free time and without external funding, which gave us full control of the project and the freedom to focus on aspects important to us. The L-Rex code is free and open-source.
We maintain an L-Rex server under l-rex.de. Everyone is welcome to use it for free for their studies.
Users can optionally support us financially. This helps us to cover our running expenses for the server, and to invest time into maintaining L-Rex, fixing bugs, and implementing new features. Support from users who have funding for experiments makes it possible to offer the service for free to students and researchers with limited financial resources.
Acknowledgments
The L-Rex project has benefited greatly from contributions and feedback by various people:
- We thank David Muigg-Spörr↗ for comprehensive support and advice regarding the design, and for the L-Rex logo.
- We thank Kuba Wierzba↗, Tobias Bengfort↗, and Johannes Dillmann↗ for feedback on technical implementation, design and usability.
- We thank Marta's colleagues Mira Grubic, Henry Fominyam, Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss, and Radek Šimík for entrusting their research projects to L-Rex at relatively early stages of development, and for giving us valuable feedback and reporting bugs.
- We also thank Radek Šimík for his help in conceptualizing a predecessor of L-Rex.
How to cite L-Rex
If you want to cite L-Rex in a publication, you can use a bibliography entry along the following lines:
Alexej Starschenko and Marta Wierzba (2025). L-Rex: Linguistic rating experiments [software], version 1.0.3, GNU General Public License v3.0, https://github.com/2e2a/l-rex/.
If you use Bib(La)TeX, you can use the following entry:
@Misc{,
title = {{L-Rex Linguistic rating experiments [software], version 1.0.3}},
author = {Alexej Starschenko and Marta Wierzba},
year = {2025},
note = {{GNU General Public License v3.0}},
url = {https://github.com/2e2a/l-rex/}
}
