Awesome Modeling Practices

An opinionated list of resources to help modelers follow good modeling practices. Developed by the Early Career Scholars Working Group of the Open Modeling Foundation.

Contributions are welcomed! Please read our Contribution Guidelines before submitting your Pull Request.

Contents

• Modeling Principles
• Modeling Standards
• Model Libraries
• Societies Discussing Modeling Practices
• Journals Discussing Modeling Practices
• Papers
• Workshops and Tutorials
• A hitchhikers guide to AI for a FAIR and TRACEable World

Modeling Principles

• FAIR - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable.
• CARE - Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics. Principles for Indigenous Data Governance.
• INSPIRE - Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe.
• PAVE - Purpose, Assumptions, Validity, and Exploration. Method to communicate the suitability of models to inform a particular purpose.

Modeling Standards

• ODD - The Overview, Design concepts, and Details protocol standardize descriptions of individual-based and agent-based models.
• TRACE - The TRAnsparent and Comprehensive model Evaludation protocol provide standardized approach to documenting a model’s formulation, implementation, testing, and application.
• CSDMS Standard Names - Comprehensive set of rules, patterns and standards for naming variables in models.
• UML - The Unified Modeling Language is a standardized visual modeling language to visualize the architecture and design of a system.
• STEP - The Standard for the Exchange of Product model data or ISO 10303 is a standard to provide interoperability between software.
• OMF Standard - Open Modeling Foundation (in development) modeling standards.
• ODE - The Overview, Data, and Execution protocol for a standardized use of machine learning in environmental, social and related interdisciplinary sciences.

Model Libraries

• CoMSES Model Library - Open repository containing models. Developed by CoMSES Net and based on the United States
• OSF - Open repository containing models, research papers, data sets, software and more. Developed by the Center for Open Science and based on the United States.
• Zenodo - Open repository containing models, research papers, data sets, software and more. Developed by CERN and based on Europe.

Societies Discussing Modeling Practices

• OMF - The Open Modeling Foundation is an alliance of modeling organizations to develop and promote a community developed body of modeling standards and best practices.
• CSDMS - The Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System promotes the modeling of earth surface processes by developing, supporting, and disseminating integrated software modules.
• CoMSES Net - The Network for Computational Modeling in the Social and Ecological Sciences is an open community to improving the way we develop, share, and use computational models.

Journals Discussing Modeling Practices

• Environmental Modelling and Software (EMS)
• Ecological Modelling
• Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS)
• Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling (SESMO)
• PLOS Computational Biology

Papers

• Jakeman et al., 2024. Towards normalizing good practice across the whole modeling cycle: its instrumentation and future research topics - Outlines research gaps and concrete actions to embed good modeling practice across the entire modeling cycle.
• Elsawah et al., 2017. An overview of the system dynamics process for integrated modelling of socio-ecological systems: Lessons on good modelling practice from five case studies - Shares lessons from five system-dynamics cases to guide good practice in integrated socio-ecological modeling.
• Micheletti et al., 2024. Beyond guides, protocols and acronyms: Adoption of good modelling practices depends on challenging academia’s status quo in ecology - Identifies academic barriers to good modeling practice and proposed changes to promote broader adoption of reproducible modeling.
• Hamilton et al., 2022. Fit-for-purpose environmental modeling: Targeting the intersection of usability, reliability and feasibility - Proposes a fit-for-purpose framework to ensure models are useful, reliable, and feasible for decision support.
• Kherroubi Garcia et al., 2025. Ten simple rules for good model-sharing practices - Presents ten practical rules to help researchers share computational models effectively and promote wider adoption of better model-sharing practices.
• Swannack et al., 2025. Cracking the code: Linking good modeling and coding practices for new ecological modelers - Offers guidance for new modelers building strong coding and documentation habits to support reproducible ecological models.
• Sun et al., 2026. A catalogue of Do’s and Don’ts in the modeling of environmental systems - Offers practical “Do’s and Don’ts” guide for defensible modeling in every phase.

Workshops and Tutorials

• Scientific Programming e Reproducible Workflows - Complete set of teaching materials for an innovative, hybrid block course on Scientific Programming and Workflow Management, designed for Master’s and PhD students in the environmental sciences and related fields.
• Good Enough Practices in Scientific Computing - Carpentries’s tutorial on good scientific computing practices for researchers.

A hitchhikers guide to AI for a FAIR and TRACEable World

• Get lazy with LLMs Clinic (by humans for humans) - A toolkit and guide for using LLMs effectively on moderately complex tasks through better prompting.
• A Crash Course on the Julia Language and Ecosystem - Julia Workshop delivered by Accumulation Point to the Australian Institute of Marine Science.