Guidance for Educators and Researchers

For educators or researchers, the SEBoK should be used together with the GRCSE (Graduate Reference Curriculum for System Engineering).

SEBoK is a guide to the knowledge that constitutes the system engineering domain, while the GRCSE “describes a program for a professional master’s degree focused on developing student ability to perform systems engineering tasks and roles” (Pyster and Olwell et al. 2011).

An educator, for purposes of this use case, is a university faculty member or a professional trainer. Educators use the SEBoK and the GRCSE to develop curricula or courses focused on system engineering generally, on domain-centric systems engineering, or on another engineering discipline that touches on systems engineering. The SEBoK and the GRCSE are means to assure accuracy, completeness, and effective assessment at all levels, from lessons through objectives.

A researcher, for purposes of this use case, is a person interested in learning about the state of systems engineering, or in exploring how to advance that state.

The Use of Topics

Educators use SEBOK topics and their primary and additional references as:

• assigned readings for courses
• supplemental references for student research
• content for curriculum development

Educators can also use the concepts, perspectives, and references to develop or refine course objectives and the techniques for assessing them.

Researchers use SEBoK topics and their primary and additional references to learn about the state of the art in the subject areas of topics, and to look for opportunities to advance those areas by further research.

A good course or research topic should reflect multiple perspectives, which the SEBoK provides. And, cataloging the wide diversity in accepted practices across systems engineering is an important function of the SEBoK, from the researcher's perspective.

For both educators and researchers, the fact that the SEBoK provides both primary and additional references in each topic is useful. See How Systems Engineers Use Topics. So is the fact that the SEBoK is a wiki, which allows frequent updates to keep pace with the dynamic evolution of the systems engineering domain. See SEBoK Development.

Implementation Examples

Good examples make for good teaching. The Systems Engineering Implementation Examples in the SEBoK consist of relatively in-depth case studies and shorter vignettes, which are linked back to appropriate areas of the SEBoK. A matrix shows which SEBoK topics are addressed by each case study or vignette.

Each case study in the SEBoK is actually a summary of an original from the SE literature, and is accompanied by a reference to the full, published case study.

Case study summaries or vignettes from the SEBoK may be incorporated in curricula.

Educator

University faculty use the SEBoK and the GRCSE to develop:

• a complete system engineering curriculum,
• a single course in system engineering, either for use in an SE curriculum, or in a curriculum that belongs to some other discipline
• assessment criteria for curricula or courses

Likewise, professional trainers use the SEBoK to develop training material, or to evaluate or update existing training courses.

Both faculty and trainers pursue professional development, in the form of SE study, using the SEBoK.

Vignette: Curriculum and Course Development

A university designates a faculty team to investigate the feasibility of developing a graduate degree in systems engineering.

Results of preliminary feasibility analysis (including evaluating the market, competing degree programs, and so on) are encouraging. The faculty team then begins to design the program, by identifying:

• program constituents
• potential objectives, outcomes and entrance requirements, based on review of the GRCSE
• one half of the of the curriculum content, based on review of the typical curriculum architecture (GRCSE chapter 5) and the Core Body of Knowledge (CorBoK) section (chapter 6) of the GRCSE
• the other half of the curriculum content based on review the SEBoK (Parts 2 through 7)

According to the GRCSE, 50% of the total knowledge conveyed in a graduate program should be based on the CorBoK, to assure a common foundation among programs offered at different institutions. At the same time, restricting the CorBoK to no more than 50% encourages a healthy variety in those programs.

Once these steps are complete, the overall architecture and the content and the scope of the curriculum are defined. Now the faculty designs the courses themselves, defining in turn:

• the prerequisites for each course
• the overall course sequencing for the curriculum, based on the course prerequisites
• the objectives and goals for each course
• the expected outcomes of each course

Finally, the faculty is ready to develop the content for each individual course.

Defining course content is done based on topics in the SEBoK that cover the subject of the course.

Using primary and additional references as much as the topics themselves, the faculty responsible for course design defines:

• the scope of the course content
• the course coverage, that is, what within the course content scope is actually taught in the course

Given the scope and coverage, the next and final step is to develop the course material.

A professional trainer designing the training material performs the same kinds of activities. To customize the training course for a specific industry or customers, the trainer may integrate domain-specific content as well.

Researcher

Researchers use SEBoK topics and their primary and additional references to learn about the state of the art in the subject areas of topics, and to look for opportunities to advance those areas by further research.

Vignette: Software Engineering Research

William, a software engineer by training is interested to learn more about Software Intensive Systems (SIS). More specifically, he wants to learn about some of the best practices that are currently used throughout the software development life cycle, and to try to adopt those practices as they relates to software intensive systems. As part of his research, William has spent an extensive amount of time and effort reviewing the SWEBoK (SoftWare Engineering Body of Knowledge) and its corresponding primary references to find any special treatment of activities and practices as they relate to SIS.

As part of his research, he learns about the SEBoK, and he decides to spend some time reviewing the SEBoK to see if there is any special treatment of the software intensive systems throughout that document. Although, he was not able to find any specific discussion of the SIS as part of SEBoK, he realized that there are number of activities throughout the system development life cycle which can be adopted/customized to deal with the development of SIS. Therefore, William decided to invest some time, and learn about the system development life cycle in SEBoK part 3, and to try to customize some of the activities and practices mentioned in this section to address the development of the software intensive systems.

Summary

Educators can check current curriculum against the SEBoK to identify potential gaps in many areas of the curriculum and to support putting a plan in place to address those gaps. They can also use the SEBoK as a framework for determining what subject matter should be included in a new curriculum and as a resource in designing individual courses. Educators can leverage the case studies and vignettes provided in the SEBoK directly in the classroom. Educators should use the SEBoK in tandem with GRCSE for development of curricula at the program level. Finally, educators and researchers can use the SEBoK for continuing education and research.

References

Works Cited

Bloom, B.S., M.D. Engelhart, E.J. Furst, W.H. Hill, and D.R. Krathwohl. 1956. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives the Classification of Educational Goals Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. London, UK: Longman Group Ltd.

Primary References

Pyster, A., Olwell, D., Squires, A., Hutchison, N., Enck, S., (eds); T. Ferris (lead author). 2011. Graduate Reference Curriculum for Systems Engineering (GRCSE). Version 0.5. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Stevens Institute of Technology. Released for review, December, 2011. Available at http://www.bkcase.org/fileadmin/bkcase/files/GRCSE_0.5/GRCSE_Version0_5_Final.pdf.

Additional References

None.

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