Create a Configuration Group

The first step in creating a configuration file is to create a Configuration Group. A Configuration Group is created automatically if you use one of the prepared configurations. Otherwise, you can follow these instructions to create one. A Configuration Group is something like a directory that you can use to store your configurations. The Configuration Group should help you manage information effectively. To create a Configuration Group, follow the five steps below.

1. Open a new browser window from this page and click on the 'Experiments' tab. You'll want two browsers open so that you can read these instructions in one browser and complete the steps in another browser.
2. Make sure that you are still logged in to your EconPort account on the new browser.
3. In the "User Menu" on the left sidebar, click on the "Configurations" link. After you've clicked on the Configurations link, you should see a display that looks like figure 1. Click on the button labelled "Add New Group".
4. Once you click on "Add New Group" you will need to enter a name for the group and a short description for the group, and click on the button labelled "Add".

Open the MarketLink Configuration Editor

This paragraph describes a set of six steps that you need to complete in order to view and work with the MarketLink Configuration application. Once you've completed these steps, you'll see the MarketLink Configuration, which is shown in figure 2 below.

1. On the same page where you created your Configuration Group, now click on the button labelled "Add New Configuration". When you do this, a drop down box appears with several options.
2. Select "MarketLink" from the drop down box.
3. Give your Configuration a name, such as 'ICV-DA for "Induced Cost and Value Double Auction," and provide a short description.
4. To begin configuring your MarketLink experiment, go to the column labelled "Actions" in the row for the configuration that you just created and click the "Edit" button. On a new page, you'll see the name that you gave to your configuration and your short description.
5. Click the button labelled "Parameterize Configuration" to start the MarketLink Configuration application.
   1. Before the MarketLink Configuration application starts, you may see a "File Download" dialog box.
   2. If the dialog box does appear, click "Open".
6. The MarketLink Configuration editor should now be open. The editor looks like figure 2 below.

Edit a MarketLink Configuration

Once the configuration editor is opened, you can see (either in figure 2 or in the MarketLink Configuration application if you have it open) that the "MarketLink - Setup" page has three tabs, which are labelled Markets, Base Environments, and Inducements. Each of these three tabs are explained briefly here and in more detail on separate pages for each tab.

1. Markets
   The Markets tab is used to edit the settings for the market mechanism, such as the length of the trading period, the number of trading periods, whether the asks by sellers and the bids by buyers are queued, and so forth. For additional information on the markets tab, click here.
   
   
2. Base Environment
   The Base Environment tab is used to determine basic settings for the economy that will be represented in the experiment, such as the number of buyers, sellers, and traders, the number of commodities, the amount of currency, and the number of units of each commodity that the agent begins with in each trading period.
   
   
3. Inducements
   The MarketLink applications currently supports market experiments for a commodity market (in which each buyer has a list of unit values and each seller has a list of unit costs), and an asset market (in which traders have a dividend schedule for an asset). The 'Inducements' tab is used to edit these values, costs, or dividends.

Save your MarketLink Configuration

The configuration that you have opened is currently set up to run a commodity double auction experiment session. This configuration is ready to use once it is saved to your Configuration Group on EconPort. You can save it by going to the top left corner of the configuration editor application and going to File -> Save. This will save your configuration to the Configuration menu on the "My Configurations" page.

When you save a prepared configuration, you'll see a check box labelled "Create experiment." If checked, a default configuration group will be automatically created (if you don't already have one) and the experiment will be included in the default experiment group. If you choose to create an experiment group manually, there are two steps that you need to complete: (1) create an experiment group and (2) create an experiment session.

Create an Experiment Group

An Experiment Group is created on the same page where you created your Configuration group. Follow the six steps below to create an Experiment Group.

1. If you don't currently have the page with "My Configurations" and "My Experiments" open in a second browser, open another browser and click here.
   
2. Click on the "Add Experiment Group" button.
   
3. At this point you'll see a text box with your e-mail address in it, and a smaller text box to the right of your e-mail address.
   
4. Enter a short code into the smaller text box.
   When your students come to EconPort to participate in an experiment, they will enter your e-mail address followed by the access code that you enter here. For example, if your e-mail is 'your_name@your_school.edu' and you enter the access code 'da' then students will access your experiment on EconPort by entering the access code 'your_name@your_school.edu-da'.
   
5. Enter a name for the experiment and a short description.
   
6. Click 'Add' to create the experiment group.

Create your Experiment Session

Your Experiment Session will be ready after you complete the five steps below.

1. In the experiment group that you've created, click on "Add Experiment".
2. A drop-down menu with the label "Select a parameter set" appears.
3. Scroll down this drop down menu and select the parameter file that you created earlier.
4. Enter an experiment name and short description, and click "Add".
5. You've now completed the setup for your experiment.

Click here to return to the main configuration page.