Development and delivery of a software analysis training course

ONR is seeking to engage one of the Technical Support Contractors (TSC) appointed on Lot 2 of its Technical Support Framework.

The TSC is required to develop a training course for the purposes of training ONR inspectors in software analysis techniques, recognising the needs of inspectors, including: • Inspectors will have attended a pre-requisite course on the causes of failures of software based systems, so inspectors will understand how software can contribute to failures, but not what can be done to efficiently identify and eliminate the causes of failures.

This course should fill this gap. • Inspectors will not be able to undertake significant pre-reading due to operational demands, so the training course should be stand-alone. • Inspectors will have a range of previous levels of understanding and experience of software analysis techniques, from very limited to significant knowledge in a specific technique.

The course should be sufficiently detailed to allow inspectors less experienced in software analysis to learn, whilst giving the more experienced inspectors the information they need. • Inspectors are likely to be presented with a wide range of proposals from licensees or requesting parties regarding how software analysis techniques will be used, and claims of their efficacy.

After attending the course inspectors should be better able to understand the benefits and disbenefits of a number of commonly used techniques, and the reasonable practicability of different techniques for risk control, allowing them to make informed regulatory judgements. • The training course should be formatted so that the material can be used as a reference source by inspectors in future assessment work.

For this reason the material should be available in a suitable electronic format and machine searchable to allow inspectors to quickly access the information in it. • Inspectors should be provided with material for making notes during the training course.