Evidence Traces for Multi-agent Declarative Rule-Based Policy Simulation

In the field of policy modeling, a trend to growing complexity and complication of simulation models can be observed. One of the reasons for this development is the fact that for many policy cases of practical interest there are no theories available from which "simple" simulation models could be derived. Instead a sometimes vast amount of information-scenarios describing stakeholders views, documents providing background information - has to be taken into account by the simulation model. Methods and tools for utilizing such evidence bases have a great importance for the success of respective modeling activities. This paper outlines a novel approach in that regard which has been developed within the OCOPOMOproject and basically consists of a policy development process specification, and a software toolbox supporting this process. Main focus of this paper are simulation related aspects of both the process and the toolbox, with the aim to demonstrate the impact of trace ability for modeling, simulation and result analysis.