Work in progress - Agent Based Social Simulations by cross-cultural student teams

Intelligent software agents are particularly well suited for the simulation of complex collective behavior and interaction. Agent Based Social Simulation (ABSS) is currently being used within a multi-year, multi-university research project to develop a flexible benchmarking platform on which to test customer-facing algorithms. Along the process, the educational potential of the approach has become apparent. Given the user friendliness of the existing open source development environments, carefully designed assignments for the development of specific chunks can be carried out in a timeframe compatible with normal graduate coursework. However, operating within the framework of a project encompassing institutions in such different cultural environments as India and Europe enables taking advantage of the broader perspective it provides to design collective, interacting assignments, in which each studentpsilas ABSS interacts with the others in a meaningful way. This project is modeled upon prior rewarding experiences by the research team in cross-cultural student teams in other environments. It involves combining students attending courses in each partner university in integrated assignments, interacting over the Internet. This cross-cultural educational experience could be fine-tuned to focus on various potential development opportunities, ranging from the technological to the capability development. The fact that what they are simulating are social systems, which students from different cultures are likely to model very differently, will further raise their awareness of diversity and develop their skills to harness its positive potential.