Aim of the SIME 2004 course
Teaching Staff : Esben S. ANDERSEN, Tommaso CIARLI, Robin COWAN, Koen FRENKEN, A.LORENTZ, Marco VALENTE
 

The course aims at three goals:
1) Discuss the power of simulation modelling as a research tool
2) Teach the technical skills required to exploit simulation models
3) Implement students’ own projects.

Concerning goal 1), there will be a general presentation on simulation models, and there will be four presentations by researchers who used simulation models. Basically, this aspect will be discussed mainly by examples. Students will be invited create small groups interested in similar models.

Concerning goal 2), there will be common lectures on the use of the Lsd platform and individual tutoring for each students. Experience shows that on technical aspects students vary greatly both in their needs and in their learning speed. Everybody will be free to attend the common lectures or work on his/her own, after consulting with the staff.

Goal 3) means that students are expected to implement at least a basic version of the model of their interest, typically a model for a PhD thesis. This aspect of the course aims mainly at teaching students at designing models and at learning on how to find solutions to technical problems. Students will work on their own with the staff available for individual tutoring.

The schedule of the course is roughly divided in three parts. Initially, presentations by the staff will introduce simulation models by examples of works by users of simulation models. At this stage students will also participate to joint sessions with the parallel ETIC doctoral course. Students will be invited to briefly present their aims, such as the type of models, so that other participants can possibly find potential collaborations.

The second stage will consist in the implementation of simulation models to get accustomed to the programming tools. These tools will be exploited to implement, firstly, example models and then individual students’ models.
The last two half-days will be devoted to the presentation of the students’ works. Such requirement is expected to press students to think of a model in practical terms, involving not only the programming part, but also the presentation of model results, frequently a highly neglected aspect of simulation modelling.

Before coming, students should prepare their presentation, as a 10-20 minutes talk, highlighting the nature of the problem they want to work on. Moreover, students are strongly invited to download the Lsd package and install it on their own computers (www.business.auc.dk/lsd). Most of the teaching materials that will be used in the course are available on the Lsd site. Any earlier experience with Lsd will be useful to better exploit the introductory lectures. In any case, the talks will start from the scratch, assuming no knowledge by the students.

Students are encouraged to use their own computers, to avoid problems due to different international standards. The software used runs under both Windows and Linux OS. However, the course will be held in a computer lab with available machines for those without personal ones.