Deepwater Horizon oil spill as seen from space, captured by NASA Terra satellite on May 24, 2010. (This image is in the public domain, by NASA.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. Nancy Leveson
MIT Course Number
16.863J / IDS.340J / (formerly ESD.863J)
As Taught In
Spring 2016
Level
Graduate
Course Description
Course Features
- Online textbooks
- Selected lecture notes
- Assignments: activity (no examples)
- Assignments: written (no examples)
Course Description
This course covers important concepts and techniques in designing and operating safety-critical systems. Topics include the nature of risk, formal accident and human error models, causes of accidents, fundamental concepts of system safety engineering, system and software hazard analysis, designing for safety, fault tolerance, safety issues in the design of human-machine interaction, verification of safety, creating a safety culture, and management of safety-critical projects. Includes a class project involving the high-level system design and analysis of a safety-critical system.
Other Versions
Other OCW Versions
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