The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) High Integrity Software System Assurance program is currently involved in several high integrity software activities. This includes work performed as a result of contracts with other agencies, developing technical products in software engineering, organizing the NIST High Integrity System Lecture series, organizing the annual COMPASS conference, and other tasks in the high integrity area.

High-Integrity software is necessary in order for United States industries and government to function properly. NIST created CHISSA to identify criteria for software assurance for use by organizations that build or evaluate high-integrity software systems. CHISSA was organized to enable industry to build high integrity software systems using technology with defined benefits. To achieve this goal, CHISSA has these objectives:

- Collaborate with industryto determine high integrity software technology requirements,

- Identify high leverage research topics and potentially beneficial research results,

- Identify technology issues between software and other system components,

- Provide a mechanism for linking research, measurement, and transfer of software technology related to similar efforts for other system components,

- Provide for measurement and assessment of technology in real application projects,

- Identify mechanisms for integration of technology,

- Promote continuous training for engineers and scientists,

- Promote development of guidance and standards, and

- Provide results that will be made available to those organizations developing rules, policies, or contracting requirements to help them ensure that the rules, policies, and requirements are economically and technically feasible.

An outside Steering Committee of industrial, government, and academic experts has been organized to provide an independent assessment of the role for CHISSA and for providing program guidance on CHISSA plans. A series of Calls for White Papers provided the opportunity for industry, government, and university experts to make their needs known to CHISSA. In late 1994 a call for white papers resulted in 94 submissions to CHISSA. The papers were reviewed and formed the basis for CHISSA's activities.

CHISSA will provide focus for research organizations interested in working on specific problems with other companies and government agencies sharing those problems. CHISSA will act as a clearinghouse for reports to be shared among all participants, for data to be made available to the community, and for making tools available for others to evaluate. CHISSA will work with other funding agencies (e.g., National Science Foundation) in order to identify and propose programs that address mutual concerns in high integrity software.

CHISSA must address several large issues immediately to have a positive impact on industry. The white papers influenced CHISSA short and long term goals:

- Many U.S. industries are unaware of usable technology,

- Many research experiments are not being conducted with appropriate analysis of the collected data,

- There is no current service providing guided access to information on software methods or industry needs, and

- Research results are not packaged in a manner conducive to industry adopting the technology.

CHISSA's primary short term goal is to address the role of measurement within software engineering. CHISSA's long term goal is to understand effective technologies for producing high integrity system software.

CHISSA will provide a mechanism for disseminating results by creating a Demonstration Facility, which will provide a resource at NIST with links to other relevant technology. The demonstration facility will be built on the Internet to make the results of CHISSA activities available to a large audience. Initial plans are to create a World Wide Web (WWW) site for browsing among available data. A longer-range goal is to populate the Demonstration Facility with other tools that support the production of high integrity software. Of particular concern is the requirement to make research and prototype tools available for study and evaluation without implying NIST endorsement of a particular product.

CHISSA will provide the clearinghouse, through workshops, conferences, and publications, to facilitate industry and universities to meet and to develop projects of mutual benefit. Industry must understand that its problems are amenable to academic study, and the academic world needs to know what the industrial problems are as a source of interesting research.

For additional CHISSA information, please contact:

Dolores Wallace
NIST
(301)975-334
[email protected]

Note: This article was prepared from NIST Report, "Center for High Integrity Software Systems Assurance - Initial Goals and Activities, NISTR 5677, " by Dolores Wallace and Marvin Zelkowitz.