Work in progress - Designing an elective course on fault tolerant systems, aiming partnership between industry and academia

The present globalization trends and needs drive universities offering engineering degrees to find new avenues in the programs that they are offering, in order to be attractive for their prospective students and competitive on the job market. Universities and departments within universities are concerned about the curricula, the type and content of offered courses. Under these auspices, the elective courses have to be chosen carefully, providing the students with updated topics, research opportunities and the skills needed by today´s demanding industry. An elective course on the Design of Fault tolerant Systems is the main focus of this paper, trying to relate the topics of the course to the industry´s needs as much as possible. What the course will try to bring new is a set of integrated laboratories using industrial CAD tools performing various dependability (reliability, availability, safety) analyses, Fault Tree Analysis and Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis.