Method supporting collaboration in complex system participatory simulation

Abstract

Major researches in the domain of complex systems are interdisciplinary, collaborative/participative and geographically distributed. Therefore, the simulation of complex systems is usually a collaborative/participative work that highly demands the exchange, from distance, of participants. However, most of the actual simulators cannot support this exchange. In this paper, we will present a new method to create a participatory simulator supporting the collaboration/participation from distance in the complex system participatory simulation. The method includes: (i) a collaborative software infrastructure, named PAMS, containing common collaborative tools (videoconferencing, instant messaging, and many other communication tools) and specific tools dedicated to the simulation domain (sharing experiments, results, experience exchange and various type of manipulation tools) and (ii) a role-based meta-model facilitating the integration of actual simulators into PAMS.