I am working on creating a series of articles aimed at teaching agent-based modeling using NetLogo. The intended audience is folks who have never done modeling and computer programming in the past. This means the articles will start from absolute scratch and I intend to cover all the concepts required in an easy-to-understand manner.
While I think that the official NetLogo manual is a wonderful and comprehensive resource, and gets the job done as reference material for experienced programmers, a lot of newcomers to programming may find it overwhelming and difficult to follow.
I intend to write a series of articles that can be followed by newbies, in a strict sequence, and start feeling confident in both modeling and implementing it by writing code using the NetLogo programming language.
I am seeking input from the more experienced members of this forum if it would be a good idea to post something like this in the forum and if yes, what would be the correct categories or tags to use. If something like this is welcome on the forum, I could certainly use feedback, criticism, corrections and input from the members of the community.
Hi, the forum is definitely a great place to put this! It also has a built-in NetLogo syntax highlighting feature. My intuition is that we should create a “tutorial” sub-category in “Share & Showcase” and also give a link in the “New to NetLogo.” Moving forward, I am thinking about allowing you to embed NetLogo Web models - so you can add some “practicum” as well
Regarding your thoughts about creating a category and/or subcategory, providing appropriate link and title and embedding the Web models, I feel we can use some feedback from the greater community regarding the naming and placement.
About creating the material, I am visualising having a series of articles adorned with any necessary code samples, visuals, animations (GIFs, videos) that can be consumed in a strict linear sequence and which can be easily understood by absolute newcomers to both NetLogo and coding. Basically creating accessible learning material which can prepare newbies to productively and further use the NetLogo environment and the dictionary.
@john-chen I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether it would be a good idea to post an article on forum once its fully finished (after self/peer review), or to start by posting a decently good version and iteratively edit it to refine by incorporating feedback from community members with experience using NetLogo?
Do you have people in mind already who will use these articles? If so, I think posting them here and getting feedback from your readers is a great idea.
If you want a strict linear sequence, you can always include a table of contents at the top/bottom of each post with links to other posts in the sequence.
Thank you for your very valuable and much sought feedback @jzkelter. Excellent points, both of them.
I have a group of researchers and scientists in a social science domain, seeking training with simulation using NetLogo, who have never done computer programming before.
I am intending to use this opportunity to create a set of articles, a mini book of sorts, which takes absolute beginners like themselves to productively modeling using NetLogo and the referring the NetLogo dictionary.
I have two fold goal with creating the articles, helping with training sessions as well as for use by other students or professionals intending to become produtive with modeling and implementing it via writing code.
That sounds great. I just made a tutorial sub-category in the Share & Showcase category. Feel free to post your articles there.
If you end up wanting to hosting them somewhere else later, you can always edit the post on the forum to just include the link to wherever they are posted in the future.
Good luck with your project! Once you are done, we are happy to share your work with the broader NetLogo community through our channels. The next NetLogo release may include a link to the tutorial category, so more people can benefit from your work
