Code Reusability and Transparency of Agent-Based Modeling: A Review from a Cyberinfrastructure Perspective

Agent-based models have been increasingly applied to the study of space-time dynamics in real-world systems driven by biophysical and social processes. For the sharing and communication of these models, code reusability and transparency play a pivotal role. In this chapter, we focus on code reusability and transparency of agent-based models from a cyberinfrastructure perspective. We identify challenges of code reusability and transparency in agent-based modeling and suggest how to overcome these challenges. As our findings reveal, while the understanding of and demands for code reuse and transparency are different in various domains, they are inherently related, and they contribute to each step of the agent-based modeling process. While the challenges to code development are daunting, continually evolving cyberinfrastructure-enabled computing technologies such as cloud computing, high-performance computing, and parallel computing tend to lower the computing-level learning curve and, more importantly, facilitate code reuse and transparency of agent-based models.