There are many opportunities for students to contribute to the advancement of ecological and environmental modelling - building new models, developing software systems to support the modelling practice, undertaking simulation experiments, and working on datasets required by models.
However, one important one, and the one that inspired STEEMI, is the conversion of many of the vast pool of already-constructed models into a common format to make them readily available for others to use. This page largely focuses on the methodology for doing this.
Methodology for re-implementing an existing model
For the community:
Gather up references to candidate models
Characterise candidate models in terms of their ease/suitability for conversion
For an individual or group working on model-conversion:
Choose a model to work on
Choose the modelling software for re-implementing the model..
- Currently, this is Simile.
If the model already has a System Dynamics diagram...
Recreate the diagram
If the model is just a set of equations or program code, without a System Dynamics diagram...
Identify the stocks (state variables)
Identify the flow processes which contribute to the rate of change of the state variables.
Construct the stock-and-flow part of the diagram
Add in intermediate and input variables.
Add in an equation or value for each variables, as appropriate
Check that the model is runnable
Run the model and check for stupid behaviour
Run the model and check the behaviour is a fair reflection of original results
Run the model and check for precise quantitative agreement with original results
Upload the model, any input parameter set, your own notes on teh conversion process, and any available documentation