There are a number of books on complex systems, and a few on agent-
and
individual-based modeling, including our 2005 monograph Individual-based
Modeling and Ecology. However, none
of these books are really designed as a complete, hands-on, practical
textbook to
lead college classes or individuals through the basics of designing,
implementing,
and analyzing models. Our monograph, for example, was
intended to provide conceptual and theoretical
foundations for the use of individual-based simulation in one
scientific field, ecology. While that book has been used in
several university courses (including some for non-ecologists),
it was not designed as a textbook and it provides little help
with one of the most difficult challenges: learning to program
individual-based and agent-based models. In fact, at the time we
wrote Individual-based Modeling and Ecology we could not
offer clear guidance on what software platform was best for
beginners to use.
Now, NetLogo
is clearly fantastic software for
scientists and students to use as they learn agent-based
modeling—and to continue using for many kinds of very serious research.
Uri Wilensky, the author of NetLogo, and his staff at
Northwestern
University's Center for Connected
Learning have produced an incredibly powerful and easy-to-use
platform. Their development of NetLogo into a tool for science as
well as education made it easy for us to write a textbook that
moves students through programming and into modeling and
scientific analysis.
We designed this book to fill the need for an introductory text
on agent-based modeling for scientists, for use both in
university courses (graduate or upper level undergraduate) and by
people teaching themselves. The book is not specific to any
particular field of science; instead, we intend it to be useful
in fields ranging from social and economic sciences to the
natural and biological sciences; any field in
which systems of unique, behaving, and interacting entities are
of interest.
In fact, our book is designed to be introductory for the instructor as
well as
the students: we designed it specifically for use by instructors who
themselves
have little experience with either agent-based modeling or programming.
We realize
that few professors and scientists have such experience now; one of our
main
goals is to overcome this barrier to the adoption of agent-based
modeling as a
research technique.
The book concentrates on four general topics: