At Oxford Brookes University the module Simulation & Modelling has been a feature of the Mathematical Sciences syllabus for a number of years. Students enrolled on this module are Statistics and Mathematics undergraduates in the second or third year of their degree course.
Teaching simulation modelling in the traditional way is not an easy task especially if students have little or no programming skills. Visual Interactive Simulation Modelling systems (VISM) are ideal for addressing this problem. Fitzharris gave an overview of how a VISM such as ARENA works.
At Oxford Brookes the simulation package WITNESS is taught as part of the course and used as a modelling tool for assignments and exercises. It offers large flexibility in modelling and enables the students to create a dynamic display of their model and even interact with the running program.
In this article we are not intending to review the software but to share our own and the students’ positive experience with a WITNESS based group project. We use WITNESS Release 9.30 the Educational Version.
