Article ID: | iaor1994399 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 41 |
Issue: | 3 |
Start Page Number: | 435 |
End Page Number: | 449 |
Publication Date: | May 1993 |
Journal: | Operations Research |
Authors: | Bankes Steve |
Keywords: | systems, computers |
Exploratory modeling is using computational experiments to assist in reasoning about systems where there is significant uncertainty. While frequently confused with the use of models to consolidate knowledge into a package that is used to predict system behavior, exploratory modeling is a very different kind of use, requiring a different methodology for model development. This paper distinguishes these two broad classes of model use, describes some of the approaches used in exploratory modeling, and suggests some technological innovations needed to facilitate it.