Editor's Corner

The “Editor’s Corner” provides perspective from the Editor in Chief on critical topics for systems engineering, either through their own words or by inviting a guest writer.

31 May 2023

Change is hard, change is good… This is the last update to the SEBoK in which I will be the Editor in Chief. I became the third SEBoK Editor in chief in July 2018, replacing Richard Adcock, who replaced Art Pyster. Version 1.9.1 was released that October. Since then, there have been 9 major releases of the SEBoK counting this one, version 2.8. I have thoroughly enjoyed my 5-year tenure in this role. Thank you to all of the SEBoK participants and consumers for your continued support.

Changes to the SEBoK in the past 5 years:

• The position of Managing Editor was created, replacing the role of Assistant Editor. Nicole Hutchison transitioned to become the first SEBoK Managing Editor.
• The SEBoK began giving recognition to our article authors of SEBoK by creating a by-line for primary and supporting authors. We also did our best to look at the past articles and give those authors the same recognition.
• The SEBoK celebrated its 10^th anniversary in 2022
• We lost a beloved colleague, Dr. Barry Boehm that same year.
• We now have 6 corporate and academic sponsors: Project Performance International, George Mason University, University of South Alabama, Caltech, Missouri S&T, and Weber State University.
• IEEE Systems Council is now part of the Governing Board, replacing the IEEE Computing Society.
• During this time, the SEBoK has been visited by 1.9M customers, with a total of 4.3M pageviews.
• We added a new section to the SEBoK – Part 8 to address emerging technologies.
• There is a new Part editor for virtually every section of the SEBoK.

Changes to the practice of Systems Engineering in the past 5 years:

I wrote my first article on MBSE in 2003, titled “Modeling a System of Systems Using UML”, Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER), Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ with my coauthors Andrew Winkler, Clay Fickle, and John Watson. Only we did not call it "MBSE" then. Now, 20 years later, MBSE is the way we do systems engineering. I do not know if the fact that it took 20 years to get here is a good thing or a bad thing, but, we continue to update the SEBoK to reflect this approach.

New challenges…

And, we have new challenges in front of us. I have been writing about the challenge of systems engineering the concept of metaverse as it relates to digital twins and blockchains. However, since the last SEBoK version update, artificial intelligence tools and usage has exploded. The Systems Engineering Research Center ([www.sercuarc.org SERC]) is leading the pack on thinking about this, but I believe the community as a whole is in catchup mode.

Finally, looking forward…

Beginning July 1^st, my friend and colleague, Dr. Nicole Hutchison will become the next SEBoK Editor in Chief. My tenure as Editor in Chief would not have been as successful without her strong support. I want to wish her best of luck, fair winds, and following seas…