Schedule:
The class meets all day every Tuesday and Thursday for four weeks, with additional assignments and exercises to be completed by the participants working individually and in teams. The course includes formal lectures and intensive computer lab workshops. There are also a limited number of spaces available for appropriately qualified students and faculty to audit the formal lecture components of the course. The formal lectures will be recorded for future broadcast and use. The first week will be held as a short course, providing an introduction to ABM and its applications, with additional demonstration of simulations and research seminars on Wednesday.
Aims:
Agent-based simulation models of business, psychological, social, economic, biological, climate and materials systems are revolutionising the way research is done in many disciplines. This intensive course for research students and faculty is designed to teach participants how to use agent-based simulation methods, including NetLogo, to further their research interests. Students who successfully complete the course will be able to design, develop, test and implement ABM relevant to their research interests. While the application focus of the course is on marketing and management, researchers from other social science disciplines will also benefit.
Fees:
Students accepted on the course will not be charged any fees but will be responsible for their own accommodation, travel and meal expenses for attending the course. Refreshments and a light lunch will be offered free of charge during class meeting days. Several course dinners are planned which may require the charging of fees.
Scholarships:
A limited number of scholarships are available for students living outside Sydney. Some of these, but not all, are restricted to members of the Australia New Zealand Marketing Academy. If you seek funding support to attend the course, you will need to indicate this in your online application.
Accreditation:
The course is not a formal postgraduate course offered by the University of Sydney. It is offered to assist researchers to become competent in ABM using NetLogo. It is up to the students themselves to gain appropriate credit for participating in the course from their home institution. There is the possibility that students might be able to obtain credit for the course as miscellaneous UNSW students.
Applications for Course Participation:
There are a limited number of places available on the course and acceptance is based on application and merit (see below for details of application procedure). Students may apply to be full participants or to audit the lecture components of the course.
Application procedures and forms are available at http://abmsydney.myreviewroom.com/
- Full Participation: Students and faculty accepted into this program will attend lectures, participate in workshops and completed assigned readings and tasks. They will receive feedback on their assignments, a certificate of attendance and have the option of receiving a formal grade for the course based on their individual assignments, group work and pseudo-code development project. They can use the grade and certificate to seek appropriate accreditation for the course at their home institution.
- Audit Only: Students and faculty may apply to audit the course, which means they can attend all the lectures but will not be expected to complete assignments and receive formal feedback on them, or participate in the group (pseudo?) code development assignment.
- Short Course: The first week will be held as a short course, providing an introduction to ABM and its applications, with additional demonstration of simulations and research seminars on Wednesday. Registration is open for all interested parties. Depending on student numbers, it may be possible to extend the short course and continue on an audit only basis.
Applicants ideally should have completed a minimum of two years of graduate study in marketing, management, or other social science fields and have identified an area of application for ABM and simulation techniques. Applicants for full participation should submit a recent curriculum vitae, a letter of recommendation and a one page outline of a current or proposed research project in computational social sciences. Preference will be given to applicants who best demonstrate the ability to successfully complete research in this area.
*** First round applications close June 2 2011 ***
While applications will be accepted up to the start of the course there are a limited number of places available and acceptance is based on merit, demonstrated in the application documents and recommendation. An initial round of offers of places on the course will be made from those received by June 2 2011. Depending on availability additional students may be offered places after this cut-off date, alternatively they may be offered a place on the waiting list or be permitted to audit the course.
Prerequisites
Fully participating students should have completed prior coursework in research design. Although not a requirement, some prior coursework in statistics and/or formal modelling (for example, game theory) might be helpful.