A Simulation Page
From OSPDocs
A Simulation Page
A basic simulation page is shown in Figure 1. It has two components: a header section and simulation section.
Header Section
The header section (shown in blue) contains basic information that locates the player in the simulation: the name of the organization that created the simulation, what the scenario is, which simulation session is in play, what role they are playing, etc. It also contains a list, shown to them as a set of tabs, of all of the different simulation sections they can enter.
Simulation Section
Simulation sections are shown below the header section. A section can be thought of as one particular web page where the actor can see or do something. Actually a simulation section is precisely a web page: ‘frames’ are used to divide up the entire web page into two parts. The top frame is the header section and the bottom frame is the simulation section. This web page can be on the same server that is hosting the simulation, but it does not have to be.
Since a ‘simulation section’ can either be on the same host as the simulation or on a completely different host, defining them must specify where the section is located. We will discuss ‘section definitions’ later. Also, since sections can be on different hosts, the communication to the particular sections is handled special. We will also discuss that later.
The figure above shows a more concrete example of simulation sections. In it, the simulation ‘One Version One’ has two actors assigned to it (Actor 1 and Actor 2) and also has two phases (‘Started’ and ‘Completed’). In phase ‘Started’ the Actor 1 has four simulation sections available to them. The user assigned to the role of Actor 1 can get to each of these sections (Introduction, Your Role, Chat and Actions for 1) by selecting the tab heading for that section.
Continuing with our example, when the simulation transitions into the phase ‘Completed’ the players will have different sections available to them. They will no longer be able to ‘chat’ or take actions. They will only be able to read the ‘After Action Report’ and see the basic information they started the simulation with.
One view of a simulation is just a set of simulation sections organized by actor and phase.
