ICONS User Manual: Simulation Methodology

ICONS Simulations

Early Simulation Trials
ICONS Simulations

ICONS was based upon Professor Noel's POLIS simulations, and was
founded in the early 1980s at the University of Maryland by Professor Jonathan Wilkenfeld of the Department of Government and Politics and Professor Richard Brecht of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages. As the program has developed and grown, ICONS has received substantial funding support from the U.S. Departmen of Education, IBM, the state of Maryland, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Although ICONS originally supported only university-level simulations, it
became involved in secondary school programs in the mid-1980s. In 1985, the Maryland State Department of Education approached ICONS about running a "summer center" to provide an enrichment activity in international relations for gifted and talented Maryland junior high and high school students. The success of this program led ICONS to begin conducting simulations at the high school level in 1988.

During the 1990s, ICONS has continued to run "International System"
simulations at both the university and secondary school level. In addition, with grants from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education of the U.S. Department of Education, ICONS has developed programs to meet more specific curricular needs. The International Negotiations Seminars Project supported the bringing the ICONS experience to lower-division students. The Africa-Americas Classroom Technology Project has the goal of helping instructors at minority-serving institutions--Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs)--use experiential learning to help students grasp theoretical issues. As a part of these initiatives, ICONS has begun conducting regionally-based simulations. The New Europe simulation has run since 1993, and the Africa and Americas simulations since 1997.

ICONS simulation software has undergone a number of changes since the
program's inception. In the early 1980s, the original software used in California was enhanced and ported to the University of Maryland, where it ran on a PDP-11/44, and later on a Micro VAX II. The redesigned POLNET II software used until 1997 ran on a DEC-Station 5000 on ULTRIX 4.2, with users maintaining a constant connection to the system through telnet.

While POLNET II well supported the needs of simulation participants, it was far more cumbersome for users than the graphical user interfaces which had become quite common by the early 1990s. Consequently, ICONS set out to make the system more intuitive and user-friendly, as well as reduce the burden on the users of maintaining a constant connection to the ICONS server. By 1995, the World Wide Web and related technologies made it possible for us to provide users with an easy-to-use interface and minimal local computer requirements. ICONS developed an entirely new software package that replicated and enhanced the essential features of POLNET II in a web-based application. ICONSnet, which debuted in 1997, is written in Oracle PL/SQL and runs on Oracle Database and Oracle Application Server. All that is required to access the system is an Internet connection and a web browser. Many faculty members have reported that ICONSnet enriches the students’ learning experience because they can now concentrate on their simulation negotiations without having to worry about technological demands.

The number of participating institutions has increased, both in the United States and abroad, so that a typical ICONS exercise involves as many as 25 universities or high schools representing more than 20 country-teams, and as many as 750 participating students. Since 1990, 162 universities and 129 secondary schools from 37 countries have participated in ICONS simulations.