All posts by someeditorialcontent

RofASSS to encourage reproduction reports and reviews of old papers&books

Reproducing simulation models is essential for verifying them and critiquing them. This involves a lot more work than one would think (Axtell & al. 1996) and can reveal surprising flaws, even in the simplest of models (e.g. Edmonds & Hales 2003). Such reproduction is especially vital if the model outcomes are likely to affect people’s lives (Chattoe-Brown & al. 2021).

Whilst substantial pieces of work – where there is extensive analysis or extension – can be submitted to JASSS/CMOT, some such reports might be much simpler and not justify a full journal paper. Thus RofASSS has decided to encourage researchers to submit reports of reproductions here – however simple or complicated.

Similarly, JASSS, CMOT etc. do publish book reviews, but these tend to be of recent books. Although new books are of obvious interest to those at the cutting edge of research, it often happens that important papers & books are forgotten or overlooked. At RofASSS we would like to encourage reviews of any relevant book or paper, however old.

References

Axtell, R., Axelrod, R., Epstein, J. M., & Cohen, M. D. (1996). Aligning simulation models: A case study and results. Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory, 1, 123-141. DOI: 10.1007/BF01299065

Edmonds, B., & Hales, D. (2003). Replication, replication and replication: Some hard lessons from model alignment. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 6(4), 11. https://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/6/4/11.html

Chattoe-Brown, E. Gilbert, N., Robertson, D. A. & Watts, C. (2021) Reproduction as a Means of Evaluating Policy Models: A Case Study of a COVID-19 Simulation. medRxiv 2021.01.29.21250743; DOI: 10.1101/2021.01.29.21250743

Call for responses to the JASSS Covid19 position paper

In the recent position paper in JASSS, entitled “Computational Models That Matter During a Global Pandemic Outbreak: A Call to Action” the authors suggest some collective actions we, as social simulators, could take.

We are asking for submissions that present serious comments on this paper. This  could include:

  • To discuss other points of view
  • To talk about possible modelling approaches
  • To review simulation modelling of covid19 that includes social aspects
  • To point out some of the difficulties of interpretation and the interface with the policy/political world
  • To discuss or suggest other possible collective actions that could be taken.

All such contributions will form the the: JASSS-Covid19-Thread


RofASSS is also for discussion about RofASSS!

Comments concerning, the philosophy, working, structure or editorial decisions of RofASSS may be discussed on the site.  Comments intended for this purpose should be submitted using the normal submission page, by using the “Comment on RofASSS” option there. These are permanent and public, but not intended to be cited.

There is a paper describing RofASSS, its motivation, structure etc. here: The proposal for RofASSS. Comments about this paper are welcome.