Teaching Dependability Issues in Systems Engineering at the Technical University of Tallinn

This paper describes the results of co-operation between universities and research institutions from more than ten countries in Europe within the framework of the TEMPUS, EUROPRACTICE, COPERNICUS and ESPRIT programmes. As a consequence of these projects, a new competence centre in the field of electronics and systems engineering was created at the Technical University of Tallinn. A new set of research and teaching-oriented tools, TURBO-TESTER, has been developed and introduced into courses on system dependability issues. The courses are oriented to the concept of learning by doing, and to instilling in students problem-solving, teamwork and selflearning skills. An international virtual laboratory is being established to support joint research and co-operative activities in order to increase the quality of teaching.