MISS-ABMS promotes a collaborative practice of modelling and simulation. The trainers are agent-based modelers involved in pluri-disciplinary grounded projects and all of them believe that models are powerful objects for emulating collective work and thinking. During the training, you will carry out the practical work in collaboration with some other participants and you will learn tools and techniques to design and communicate your models.
The different stages of an agent-based modelling process are presented, with a focus on model design and implementation. In the first days, you will learn and practice conceptual modelling through an introduction to a graphical conceptual modeling language called UML (Unified Modeling Language), a protocol called ODD (Overview, Design concepts, Details), a co-design methodology called ARDI (Actors, Resources, Dynamics, Interactions). An introduction to the 3 platforms through a tutorial on how to implement from scratch a simple ABM is given to all participants. After selecting the platform on which they wish to improve their skills, participants follow a directed practical course which teaches them how to code a benchmark model.
The remaining of the training is mainly dedicated to group work to go through the various stages of developing an ABM. Participants will be invited to form groups of 2 to 4 people according to their interests. A set of typical situations and problems that can be studied with ABM will be proposed by the trainers. Choosing one of them, each group will design, implement and explore a model inspired from this situation. We encourage that in each group, framing and conceptual modeling is done collectively but that each participant implements the model on one platform. It means that ideally there will be in each group only 1 conceptual model, but as many implementations (possibly on different platforms) as participants.