Agent-based modelling is a complex systems method to simulate individuals making decisions based on their own characteristics, social influences and situation. For several years, colleagues and I have been running ABM short courses. Those courses include a substantial tutorial in NetLogo, freely available specialist software.
Many people wanting to use agent-based modelling are sociologists, public health researchers, geographers, environmental scientists or other disciplinary based scientists who may not have programming experience or access to experienced agent-based modellers. I have adapted the tutorial from the course so that such people can work through building a model of protective behaviour during an influenza epidemic. As well as the NetLogo language and programming environment, the tutorial is intended to teach the way that agent-based models represent the world and good programming practices.
An updated version of this tutorial is included in our textbook, which also has chapters about theory, ethics, experimentation, and other important aspects of agent-based modelling. The book is published by Routledge.
I hope you find it useful. Comments and suggestions are welcome, by email.
Jen Badham (May 2026)
NetLogo software is freely available for Windows, Mac OSX or Linux, from the developers at: NetLogo.
Download the (pdf) tutorial here. It assumes no background in programming or agent-based modelling but you are expected to be comfortable with standard computer operations such as saving a file.
Some of the models that you will build are also available: