Acknowledgements and Release History

This article describes the contributors to the current version of the SEBoK. For information on contributors to past versions of the SEBoK, please follow the links under "SEBoK Release History" below. To learn more about the updates to the SEBoK for v. 1.9.1, please see the Letter from the Editor.

The BKCASE Project began in the fall of 2009. Its aim was to add to the professional practice of systems engineering by creating two closely related products:

• Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK)
• Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE)

BKCASE History, Motivation, and Value

The Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) is a living authoritative guide that discusses knowledge relevant to Systems Engineering. It defines how that knowledge should be structured to facilitate understanding, and what reference sources are the most important to the discipline. The curriculum guidance in the Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE) (Pyster and Olwell et al. 2015) makes reference to sections of the SEBoK to define its core knowledge; it also suggests broader program outcomes and objectives which reflect aspects of the professional practice of systems engineering as discussed across the SEBoK.

Between 2009 and 2012 BKCASE was led by Stevens Institute of Technology and the Naval Postgraduate School in coordination with several professional societies and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), which provided generous funding. More than 75 authors and many other reviewers and supporters from dozens of companies, universities, and professional societies across 10 countries contributed many thousands of hours writing the SEBoK articles; their organizations provided significant other contributions in-kind.

The SEBoK came into being through recognition that the systems engineering discipline could benefit greatly by having a living authoritative guide closely related to those groups developing guidance on advancing the practice, education, research, work force development, professional certification, standards, etc.

At the beginning of 2013, BKCASE transitioned to a new governance model with shared stewardship between the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC), the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society (IEEE-CS). This governance structure was formalized in a memorandum of understanding between the three stewards that was finalized in spring of 2013. The stewards have reconfirmed their commitment to making the SEBoK available at no cost to all users, a key principle of BKCASE.

Please see http://www.bkcase.org for more information or signup for the BKCASE newsletter.

As of the end of February 2016, SEBoK articles have been accessed more than 1,000,000 times. We hope the SEBoK will regularly be used by thousands of systems engineers and others around the world as they undertake technical activities such as eliciting requirements, creating systems architectures, or analysis system test results; and professional development activities such as developing career paths for systems engineers, deciding new curricula for systems engineering university programs, etc.

Governance

The SEBoK is shaped by the BKCASE Editorial Board and is overseen by the BKCASE Governing Board. A complete list of members for each of these bodies can be found on the BKCASE Governance and Editorial Board page.

Content and Feature Updates for 1.9.1

This version of the SEBoK was released 12th October 2018. This is a micro release of the SEBoK which includes the new Editor in Chief, R.J. Cloutier, updates to the editorial board, and a number of updates to the wiki software. Software updates include the newest version of MediaWiki, a switch to the new comment feature of MediaWiki, replacing the previous comment feature of DISQUS. The SEBoK PDF was also updated (see Download SEBoK PDF).

For more information about this release please refer to Version 1.9.1.

SEBoK Release History

There have been 19 releases of the SEBoK to date, collected into 10 main releases.

Main Releases

• Version 1.9.1 - current version.
• Version 1.9 - A minor update which included updates to the System Resilience article in Part 6: Related Disciplines, as well as a major restructuring of Part 7: Systems Engineering Implementation Examples. A new example has been added around the use of model based systems engineering for the thirty-meter telescope.
• Version 1.8 - A minor update, including an update of the Systems of Systems (SoS) knowledge area in Part 4: Applications of Systems Engineering where a number of articles were updated on the basis of developments in the area as well as on comments from the SoS and SE community. Part 6: Related Disciplines included updates to the Manufacturability and Producibility and Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability articles.
• Version 1.7 - A minor update, including a new Healthcare SE Knowledge Area (KA), expansion of the MBSE area with two new articles, Technical Leadership and Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability and a new case study on the Northwest Hydro System. 
• Version 1.6 - A minor update, including a reorganization of Part 1 SEBoK Introduction, a new article on the Transition towards Model Based Systems Engineering and a new article giving an overview of Healthcare Systems Engineering, a restructure of the Systems Engineering and Specialty Engineering KA.
• Version 1.5 - A minor update, including a restructure and extension of the Software Engineering Knowledge Area, two new case studies, and a number of corrections of typographical errors and updates of outdated references throughout the SEBoK.
• Version 1.4 - A minor update, including changes related to ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015 standard, three new case studies and updates to a number of articles.
• Version 1.3 - A minor update, including three new case studies, a new use case, updates to several existing articles, and updates to references.
• Version 1.2 - A minor update, including two new articles and revision of several existing articles.
• Version 1.1 - A minor update that made modest content improvements.
• Version 1.0 - The first version intended for broad use.

Click on the links above to read more information about each release.

Wiki Team

In January 2011, the authors agreed to move from a document-based SEBoK to a wiki-based SEBoK, and beginning with v. 0.5, the SEBoK has been available at www.sebokwiki.org Making the transition to a wiki provided three benefits:

1. easy worldwide access to the SEBoK;
2. more methods for search and navigation; and
3. a forum for community feedback alongside content that remains stable between versions.

The wiki team is responsible for maintenance of the wiki infrastructure as well as technical review of all materials prior to publication.

• Nicole Hutchison, Stevens Institute of Technology.

The wiki is currently supported by Ike Hecht from WikiWorks.

SEBoK v. 1.9.1, released 5 October 2018