ODD: Level Up Your Model Documentation Game!

Overview

Paper Summary › Explain Like I'm Five › Conflicts of Interest › Identified Limitations › Rating Explanation › Good to know › Topic Hierarchy › File Information ›

Paper Summary

Paperzilla title

The paper presents an update to the ODD (Overview, Design concepts, and Details) protocol, a standard for describing agent-based models (ABMs). This update aims to address limitations of the original protocol, such as lack of guidance, document length, difficulty with complex models, and missing design rationale, to improve clarity, reproducibility, and integration with design methodologies like pattern-oriented modeling.

Explain Like I'm Five

Scientists found a better way to write down the rules for make-believe computer worlds. This helps other scientists understand and build the same world so they can learn from it.

Possible Conflicts of Interest

None identified

Identified Limitations

Limited Guidance Materials

The lack of detailed, open-access guidance materials has made it difficult for some researchers to understand and fully utilize ODD, particularly the "state variables" and "design concepts" elements. This has sometimes resulted in incomplete or inconsistent use of the protocol, hindering standardization.

Length and placement in supplements

The length of ODD documents, especially for complex models, often necessitates their placement in supplementary materials. This limits their visibility and may discourage careful review, which is counter to the goal of transparent model description.

Lack of rationale

ODD does not explicitly cater to the rationale behind model design choices, making it difficult for readers to understand the justification for model structure and for authors to fully document their design process. This limits transparency and the potential for re-use of modeling techniques and theory.

Ambiguity and lack of code linking

The lack of explicit linking between ODD and model code can create ambiguity for readers. While a thorough textual description is aimed at, code-level details may be necessary for full understanding and replication.

Lack of POM integration

ODD's existing structure does not provide a clear way to describe the emergent patterns used in pattern-oriented modeling (POM). This makes it difficult to integrate POM, a valuable tool for model design and evaluation, with the ODD protocol.

Rating Explanation

This paper addresses significant limitations of the widely used ODD protocol for documenting ABMs and provides concrete solutions to improve clarity, replication, and integration with other modeling practices like pattern-oriented modeling. It also proposes expanding the use of ODD beyond ABMs, creating a shared language for simulation modeling. While the update isn't revolutionary, it represents important progress in standardizing and enhancing model documentation and thus improving the reproducibility and transparency of simulation research.

Good to know

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Topic Hierarchy

Domain: Social Sciences

Field: Decision Sciences

Subfield: Information Systems and Management

File Information

Original Title: The ODD Protocol for Describing Agent-Based and Other Simulation Models: A Second Update to Improve Clarity, Replication, and Structural Realism

Uploaded: July 14, 2025 at 06:54 AM

Privacy: Public