A Technical History of the SEI

medical devices. It is helping to create what could eventually become a routine practice of using
assurance cases throughout the lifecycle to provide justified confidence that a system will perform
as intended. Additionally, the SEI is developing a theory of argumentation that shows promise in
helping to understand the contribution of specific evidence to system claims. The SEI has also applied
assurance cases to claims about security and co-organized several workshops on that subject.
Work on assurance cases continues and is focused on creating a theory of argumentation that can
be used to reason about the amount of confidence in a claim that is provided by particular pieces
of evidence. The expectation is that this will lead to the ability to determine how to more effectively
use scarce assurance resources. The theory is borrowing and extending concepts from law,
philosophy, artificial intelligence, and other relevant disciplines.
References
[Gluch 1997] Gluch, David & Weinstock, Charles. Workshop on the State of the Practice in Dependably
Upgrading Critical Systems (CMU/SEI-97-SR-014). Software Engineering Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University, 1997. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=12775
[Gluch 1998] Gluch, David & Weinstock, Charles. Model-Based Verification: A Technology for
Dependable System Upgrade (CMU/SEI-98-TR-009). Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie
Mellon University, 1998. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=13105
[Heimerdinger 1992] Heimerdinger, Walter & Weinstock, Charles. A Conceptual Framework for
System Fault Tolerance (CMU/SEI-92-TR-033). Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon
University, 1992. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=11747
[Jackson 2007] Jackson, Daniel; Thomas, Martyns; & Millet, Lynn. Software for Dependable Systems:
Sufficient Evidence? The National Academies Press, 2007 (ISBN 0309103940).
[Kelly 1998] Kelly, Timothy P. Arguing Safety–A Systematic Approach to Managing Safety
Cases. PhD thesis. University of York, 1998. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/dependability/tools/assurancecase/upload/ArguingSafetyCases.pdf
[Weinstock 1993] Weinstock, Charles & Schneider, Fred. Dependable Software Technology Exchange
(CMU/SEI-93-SR-004). Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University,
1993. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?assetID=11785
[Weinstock 2009] Weinstock, Charles & Goodenough, John. Towards an Assurance Case Practice
for Medical Devices (CMU/SEI-2009-TN-018). Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie
Mellon University, 2009. http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?AssetID=8999
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