Documenting and Exchanging Simulation Specifications: A Language-Agnostic Approach

Abstract

Simulation experiments have increased their influence on social science, creating a need for documentation tools and practices that facilitate replicability. Two crucial components common to many simulation experiments require particularly detailed documentation: the baseline parameterization, and the experimental designs. This paper explores the adaptability to these needs of a recent but already popular file format. It demonstrates how to produce easily human-readable documentation of baseline parameterizations that also supports automated, programming-language agnostic information exchange. This format is additionally useful for documenting certain experimental designs.