Editor's Corner

A very warm welcome to all SEBoK users!

The BKCASE Editor in Chief (EIC) has overall responsibility for the continuing review and update of the SEBoK. Many thanks to the BKCASE Governors and the current members of the Editorial Board for supporting me.

It is an honor to become the third EIC for the SEBoK. Since being named to this position, I have held listening sessions at the INCOSE IS in Washington, D.C., met with the Board of Governors and the SEBoK Editors for the various parts of the SEBoK. Let me share some of those ideas and insights with you. Below are the more significant inputs:

1. A large number of systems engineers know of the SEBoK, and have used it from time to time
2. The PDF version of the SEBoK is very popular - it is portable and searchable - and we should continue to produce this product with each new release of the SEBoK
3. The organization of the SEBoK still needs some tweaking
4. There are recommendations for potential new sections to be added: SE Research, SE 2025 Vision, and Systems Engineering for Non-systems engineers
5. Additional topics that should be added: Systems Thinking, TRIZ, Digital Thread/Digital Twin are some of the recommendations
6. Provide more related engineering topics: Civil engineering, Coastal engineering, Mechanical engineering, Data engineering, etc.
7. Need a better tool for submitting new knowledge to the SEBoK editors
8. Time to incorporate multimedia into the SEBoK
9. Add more examples of successful systems implementations, tool information, and modeling techniques

From those listening opportunities, a vision for SEBoK 2.0 has emerged.

SEBoK 2.0 will be multimedia enabled. We will begin to incorporate video and audio links. Because we need to be sensitive to copyrights, original content from our user base will be solicited. If you are an expert in areas that are already a part of the SEBoK, and would like to create short, 3-5 minute vignettes, please contact one of the editors or myself. We will also be leveraging the INCOSE YouTube channel for some of this content. Since many are accessing the SEBoK via their phones and tablets, we will work to improve the accessibility on mobile devices. Finally, we will continue to fine-tune the organization of the SEBoK, adding more content "as appropriate".

Why put "as appropriate" in quotes? As you may know, the SEBoK is a curated Wiki. That means that the information contained in the SEBoK should be established knowledge. While research is becoming more and more important to systems engineering, it is also important to differentiate what is new knowledge, and what is considered 'settled' knowledge, or general knowledge. To handle this, the editors are considering adding a new section to the SEBoK where research type topics can be cataloged, but with the understanding that it is still research.

The SEBoK Editorial Board is always seeking more collaborators and new and/or updated content. It is important to note that the editors primary role is not to create the content (though many of them are also content creators). It is to edit and curate the content. Content creation should be coming from the consumers of the SEBoK.

SEBoK Version 1.9.1 Changes

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This minor update, Version 1.9.1 contains minor updates - fixed links, updated Editorial Board members and their contact information, and this letter.