[SystemSafety] Making Standards available .....

[Philip Koopman]

One of the things I've been taught as an academic is to stress "lifelong 
learning" and enduring principles over transient techniques.

I agree that the summary version is going to be a lot more important to 
teach than the entirety of a standard in this vein of principle vs. 
technique.  Standards will change every few years, and many students 
will use a standard other than IEC 61508 anyway depending upon their 
domain.  So maybe which standard we teach doesn't really matter near as 
much as students touching a real standard.  Given all that, 61508 is a 
nice starting point to show how the texture of the detail plays out in a 
real standards document.

Why not simply teach with an older version of 61508 that is publicly 
available?  Yes, the Indian standard currently available is from 1998.  
So what?  In class the approach can be: "Here is a general description 
of how safety standards work. As an exercise let's go to page W of IEC 
61508-x:1998 and work through a table so you've actually had some 
experience working directly with a real standard."  Followed by "go 
found out how to handle xyz by looking through the full-size set of 
standards documents."  Who cares if it is old instead of new?  With just 
a little bit of care probably this can be done with minimal difference 
compared to using a newer version of the standard.  And it lets them 
feel the heft (even if in just bits) of a full-up standard instead of a 
handful of fair use excerpt pages.

Arguably we should be teaching how to use a standard and what kind of 
information is in a standard rather than the details of what's in this 
year's standard.  (With appropriate caution to students that yes, this 
is in fact an old one, so they need to read the new one appropriate to 
them when they get to industry.)

-- Phil

On 5/16/2016 9:17 AM, Michael J. Pont wrote:
>
> Les,
>
> I’m in the UK.
>
> Personally, I like real tables (and lots of whiteboards) for this type 
> of discussion.  In my experience, real meetings have a greater chance 
> of reaching a conclusion.
>
> In this case, we may need to settle for a virtual table, or several 
> different tables in different parts of the world – or simply a website 
> where we can add links to the material / notes / book references that 
> people are offering.
>
> In terms of IEC 61508, I think the Reader’s Digest version would be 
> fine here (and it seems much less likely that the IEC would have 
> objections to this being circulated). Perhaps someone already has such 
> a summary available?
>
> Michael.
>
> *From:*Les Chambers [mailto:les at chambers.com.au]
> *Sent:* 16 May 2016 13:21
> *To:* M.Pont at SafeTTy.net; systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
> *Subject:* RE: [SystemSafety] Making Standards available .....
>
> RE: The table, Where are you Michael? Are you talking virtual table?
>
> RE: " I think many students would be put off by the standard. "
>
> The standard in its entirety is a cure for insomnia but the Reader's 
> Digest version can be quite compelling. If all you do is just cover 
> safety life cycle activities and focus on the big picture. For 
> example, do a hazard analysis, generate safety requirements, keep a 
> hazard long, close out the log before you complete the project. And by 
> the way if you work on one of these big projects you won't get paid 
> unless you do all this so pay attention, son.
>
> And don't forget the worst-case scenario: you could be responsible for 
> killing someone.
>
> Cheers
>
> Les
>
> *From:*systemsafety 
> [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] *On 
> Behalf Of *Michael J. Pont
> *Sent:* Saturday, May 14, 2016 5:17 PM
> *To:* systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de 
> <mailto:systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
> *Subject:* Re: [SystemSafety] Making Standards available .....
>
> My summary of this discussion.
>
> We have a list made up of people who are interested in functional 
> safety and in “making the world a safer place”.
>
> It has been proposed that – to help make the world a safer place – we 
> should:
>
> 1.
>
> give students free access to standards (such as IEC 61508);
>
> 2.
>
> reduce the price of key textbooks;
>
> 3.
>
> agree a list of material that students need to know.
>
> ---
>
> Personally, I don’t think “1” is going to happen, and I’m not sure 
> that it would contribute very much to the “safer world” goal even if 
> it did.
>
> [Let’s stick with IEC 61508.  I think many students would be put off 
> by the standard (it’s hardly a page turner).  We want to inspire these 
> students!]
>
> In my view, students can deal with the standards after graduation, and 
> – if we have the time available to teach functional safety – we should 
> be introducing practical techniques for developing safe systems (and 
> discussing various case studies).  If lower-cost textbooks help with 
> this, then this can be no bad thing.
>
> ---
>
> It seems to me that one of the most influential “standards” that has 
> emerged in recent years is MISRA C.  The standard is not free (but 
> neither is it expensive).   It has (in my view) made a positive 
> contribution to the goal of making the world a safer place.
>
> MISRA C is (of course) a coding standard.  What would also be useful 
> would be a similar, pragmatic document that discussed design 
> guidelines for software in safety-related systems. We also need a 
> document that describes how to record safety requirements and system 
> requirements.
>
> This (in my view) is the kind of material that we should be teaching 
> our students.
>
> If the documents proved to be useful then they could also form the 
> foundation for future standards (just as MISRA C is referenced in 
> existing standards).
>
> ---
>
> Members of this list could perhaps make a useful contribution to the 
> development of such documents?
>
> There would be costs involved in this (I think we’d need to start by 
> getting round a table).
>
> Would anyone have any interest in getting involved?
>
> Michael.
>
> Michael J. Pont
>
> SafeTTy Systems Ltd.
>
>
>
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> systemsafety at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE


-- 
Phil Koopman -- Phil at Koopman.us -- www.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman

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