 When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more. |
Many of the course notes are based on handouts from Professor Leveson as well as her text book:
Leveson, Nancy. Safeware: System Safety and Computer. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995. ISBN: 0201119722.
Note: In the following, S-n stands for Chapter n in "Safeware" and New-n stands for Chapter n in a draft version of A New Approach To System Safety Engineering (PDF - 2.2 MB).
Course readings.
| SES # |
Topics |
READINGS |
| 1 |
Introduction to Class, Accident Causation, System Safety |
S-1 and S-2 (PDF), New-1, New-2, New-3, New-4, MIL-STD-882B |
| 2 |
Discussion Questions and In-class Debate on Responsibility for Risk, PHA and Risk Assessment, Traditional Hazard Analysis Techniques, Intent Specifications |
S-7, S-8, S-9, S-13, S-14, New-11 Follensbee notes, Safeware Appendices (at least Therac-25, DC-10, Challenger, Bhopal, Three Mile Island) |
| 3 |
Discussion Questions and In-class Debate on Responsibility for Risk (cont.), A New Systems-theoretic Accident Model, Review Preliminary Hazard Analysis for ACC |
S-4, New-Appendix B, New-5, New-6, New-7, New-8 |
| 4 |
STPA |
New-9, STPA paper by Howard and Kelley |
| 5 |
Catch Up |
|
| 6 |
Requirements Analysis and Level 1 Reviews for ACC |
S-15 |
| 7 |
Design for safety |
S-16, Knight and Leveson (PDF)
A Reply to Our Critics (PDF) |
| 8 |
Humans and Automation |
S-5, S-6, S-17, Bachelder and Leveson (PDF) |
| 9 |
Robert Francis Visit, Accident Investigation, Presentation of STAMP Analyses of Ueberlingen Accident |
DOE standard |
| 10 |
Operations and Management by Prof. John Carroll |
S-11, S-12, Carroll, Rudolph, Hatakenaka. Learning from Experience in High Hazard Organizations (PDF)
Carroll. Organizational Learning Activities in High-Hazard Industries: The Logics underlying Self-Analysis (PDF) |
| 11 |
Visitor |
S-18 |
| 12 |
Visitors from Electric Boat (Submarine Safety) |
Time to catch up |
| 13 |
Review of ACC Designs, Wrap-up |
Epilogue (Safeware, pp. 509-511) |