A Simulation Framework for Socially Enhanced Applications

The emergence of complex computational problems, which cannot be solved solely by software and require human contribution, have brought the need of designing systems that efficiently manage a mix of software-based and human-based computational resources. Simulations are very appropriate for research on these systems, because they enable testing different scenarios, while avoiding the cost and time limitations of research in real systems. In this paper, we present a framework that enables the simulation of socially-enhanced applications utilizing both software and human based resources. Our framework addresses challenges in human-software environments, such as identifying relevant comparable metrics for mixed resources, mixed-resource selection, composition and scheduling algorithms, performance monitoring and analysis etc. We show the framework’s usefulness and usability through a use case.