Your assignment has two parts:

• a practical exercise that makes use of the software tools and principles to be introduced and demonstrated in the course

• a written exercise in relating the principles discussed in the course to a familiar topic of your own choice

In computing your final percentage, the marks awarded to each part will be combined according to the ratio

30:70 40:60 50:50 60:40 70:30

as specified by you on submission. This will enable you to direct your effort somewhat unequally between the two parts without prejudicing your final mark.

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Part 1: The practical exercise

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate familiarity with the scout, donald and eden visualisation tools, and with the principles of agent-oriented specification and animation using LSD and the ADM or eden.

Developing a simulation for aspects of a game of cricket will be the theme of the practical workshop sessions; this will be an optional default choice for your assessed exercise. Several appropriate alternative exercises will be identified during the tutorial sessions: you are free to devise your own mini-project or suitable programme of exercises to fulfil the practical requirement with the agreement of the module tutor.

In the assessment of the practical exercise, there will be an opportunity (at your request) and there may be an obligation (at the module tutor's discretion) to demonstrate the software you have developed.

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Part 2: The written exercise

Compare / contrast / relate definitive methods for concurrent systems simulation and an approach based on ............. with respect to ................... .

You decide to what extent you would like to compare / contrast / relate, and decide how to fill in the dots. For instance: possible topics are

statecharts wrt requirements specification

object-oriented analysis wrt software development

JSD wrt software development

object-oriented prog wrt visualisation / user interface

Simscript wrt simulation

CSP wrt behavioural specification

Z wrt software specification

functional programming wrt parallel programming

expert systems wrt knowledge representation

situation theory wrt agent-oriented modelling

but you are welcome to devise your own topic to suit your particular areas of prior knowledge and expertise. Your submission should take the form of an extended abstract for a research publication, length not exceeding 3000 words. Marks will be awarded on the basis of the quality of your arguments and explanations – favourable comparisons, though welcome, will not necessarily attract extra marks!