Systems Engineering for the Digital Age

Chapter 38Using the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK)

Nicole Hutchison¹, Art Pyster², and Rob Cloutier³

¹ Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA

² George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

³ University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

Development of the SEBoK

The Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK – pronounced “see‐bach”) is a global resource that is freely available. Beginning in 2009, the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) began pulling together this collaborative team. Initially led by Art Pyster (then Stevens Institute of Technology) and David Olwell (then Naval Postgraduate School), the initial author team consisted of over 70 subject‐matter experts from around the world. The initial effort to create the SEBoK was a three‐year endeavor funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in the US Department of Defense (DoD). Though the funding was US DoD, the vision was that the SEBoK should be a resource that would be useful globally.

The SEBoK provides an overview of critical resources for systems engineering. It is not a compendium – something that has all of the resources fully incorporated – but provides references and links to critical information. It is maintained as a wiki (www.sebokwiki.org).

Starting in 2013, the SEBoK has been maintained by a Governing Board consisting of representatives from the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), IEEE (currently the IEEE Systems Council, previously the IEEE Computer ...