Agent-based and
Individual-based Modeling:
A Practical Introduction
Welcome to our textbook on scientific agent-based (or “individual-based”) modeling of complex systems. The book is about designing models to solve specific problems of real systems, implementing models in NetLogo software (Wilensky, 1999), and analyzing models to develop theoretical understanding and predict system behaviors. Use the links above to learn about the book’s objectives and content, download supporting materials, learn about the authors, get more information about NetLogo and how we use it, find links to related materials, and learn how to contact the authors and provide feedback. Use the 1st edition link to download supporting materials (including instructor materials) for the first edition.
Information
The book is available, in paper and e-book versions, through your local bookstore, its site at Princeton University Press, and on-line bookstores. If you are an instructor considering this book as a course text, please see this page at Princeton University Press for free preview materials. The second edition, released in 2019, includes hundreds of changes to improve clarity in challenging sections, use the newest version of NetLogo, update model development and analysis guidance with advances since 2012, provide new and more examples and exercises, and address many comments provided by users. The instructor materials are completely revised and expanded.
The book has been used at many universities. According to our publisher, this textbook has been adopted for courses at schools including: Amherst College, U. Arizona, Brigham Young, U. British Columbia, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Duquesne, Emory, Free University of Berlin, Indiana, Johns Hopkins, Kokugakuin U. (Tokyo), Miami U., Michigan, Technical University of Munich, Northwestern, Old Dominion, Oregon, Portland State, Rhodes College, Qingdao University, U. South Florida, Susquehanna U., U. Texas-Austin, Tokyo U., University College Dublin, Valparaiso, and U. Virginia.
An on-line forum for instructors is available here, thanks to the QUBES project. At this web site you can see and contribute teaching resources, links to related materials, and announcements; and participate in mentoring sessions with the book’s authors and others.
Short courses on modeling and NetLogo: We and colleagues have presented numerous short courses, starting in 2005. These included Dr. Uta Berger’s Dresden University of Technology summer school in individual- and agent-based modeling, and the Cal Poly Humboldt short course for instructors using our textbook. Our most recent course was 29 July – 2 August, 2024, in Łódź, Poland (www.physalia-courses.org/courses-workshops/course52/). We look forward to future courses; watch here for announcements.
We also offer custom short courses for other organizations; contact us if you are interested in such a course.
Several other courses have come to our attention; we are not familiar enough with either to recommend who they might be most beneficial to but encourage you to consider them. They were presented in 2023 and may be again in the future. They are the European Social Simulation Assoc. Summer School and the BEHAVE Summer School in Brescia, Italy.
News & Updates
New journal: Individual-based Ecology
The new journal Individual-based Ecology (IBE) has just been launched, with editors-in-chief Volker Grimm, Mark Hauber, Florian Jeltsch, and Karin Frank. IBE “promotes new experimental and monitoring designs and models that focus on individual organisms and their variation and interactions as drivers of eco-evolutionary feedbacks within communities and ecological networks”, and “embraces basic and applied, as well as theoretical and empirical research, as theory and models must emerge from real situations and provide answers that can support mitigation and management decisions”. There are currently no publication charges. Please consider submitting your work and helping us establish this important new publication!
Short course, July 2024, Łódź, Poland
Volker Grimm and Steve Railsback conducted a one-week short course on agent-based modeling with NetLogo, 29 July – 2 August, at the University of Łódź, Poland. The course was a great success and we look forward to future courses. Check here for announcements.
Ecological Society of America recognizes Volker Grimm
The Ecological Society of America awarded Volker Grimm the 2023 Robert Whittaker Distinguished Ecologist Award, which is presented every two years to an outstanding non-American ecologist.
Reusable building blocks for agent-based models
Uta Berger, Volker Grimm, and others recently submitted a manuscript promoting reusable components of ABMs, and established the web site www.rbb4abm.com to promote them.
New software development resources from CoMSES Net
CoMSES Net, the Network for Computational Modeling in Social and Ecological Sciences,is making training materials for good software practices available.
Review paper on identifying patterns for ecological IBMs
Students of the Uta Berger’s 2018 Summer School in Agent-based Modeling–Cara Gallagher, Magda Chudzinska, Angela Larsen-Gray, Christopher Pollock, Sarah Sells, and Patrick White–just published practical guidance on pattern-oriented modeling (POM) in ecology.
New ODD guidance published in JASSS
A new article in the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation provides updated guidance on the ODD protocol for describing and developing agent-based models.
“Modeling Populations of Adaptive Individuals” for sale
The new book Modeling Populations of Adaptive Individuals is now for sale from Princeton University Press.