Body of Knowledge
DICRI Body of Knowledge
The DICRI Body of Knowledge (DBoK) sets out the doctrine and professional reasoning behind DICRI's approach to governed infrastructure evidence, certification and assurance.
It is DICRI's doctrinal and professional knowledge foundation. It explains how governed evidence, evaluation and assurance relate to the requirements that apply to infrastructure; those requirements continue to come from the authorized sources that govern each condition.
Why a Body of Knowledge
Governed evidence, Engineering Determinations and certifications are relied upon by professionals who did not produce them, often in other organizations and years later. That reliance depends on the concepts behind them keeping a consistent meaning wherever and whenever they are used.
The DBoK gives those concepts a stable definition. It states what DICRI means by terms such as the Engineering Basis, Governed Engineering Evidence, Engineering Evidence Evaluation and the Governed Engineering State, together with the principles and doctrine that govern their use.
It also sets out the professional reasoning that connects them: how evidence is made sufficient for its purpose, how it is evaluated against an applicable Engineering Basis, how a determination remains traceable to its evidence, and how assurance is preserved as infrastructure changes.
That doctrine is stated independently of any particular application, platform or information system. The systems used to record and present infrastructure information change over an asset's life; the meaning of governed evidence remains a property of the governed record, not of the system that displays it.
What the DBoK Establishes
The DBoK is written for professional practice. It states its concepts as definitions, principles and doctrine, works through cases drawn from engineering practice, and applies each part to the professional's own work, identifying the competencies it develops. Its doctrine falls into four areas.
Trusted infrastructure
Why infrastructure decisions depend on evidence that is authentic, independently verifiable and preserved through the asset lifecycle, and the Trust Layer through which confidence in infrastructure information becomes supportable.
Engineering confidence through the lifecycle
The DICRI Assurance Framework and its interdependent Assurance Domains; how Engineering Confidence is inherited across lifecycle transitions and established again through time, including Birth and Health Certificates.
Governed evidence practice
The professional competency, equipment assurance and evidentiary conditions under which governed engineering evidence is produced, including the progressive professional credential framework and the planning of evidence to meet its purpose.
Evaluation and verifiable assurance
How governed evidence is evaluated against an applicable Engineering Basis to reach an Engineering Determination, and how the resulting record remains authentic, traceable and independently verifiable through time.
Its principles are intended to apply across infrastructure sectors, including communications, energy, transportation, water and wastewater, wherever engineering decisions depend on trustworthy information.
Parts of this doctrine are presented elsewhere on this site: the Assurance Domains and Engineering Confidence in The DICRI Assurance Framework, and Birth and Health Certificates in Infrastructure Certification.
The DBoK, Certification and Assurance
The DBoK codifies doctrine and professional reasoning; DICRI's institutional functions apply it. Certificates are issued, credentials established and Engineering Determinations made through those functions and their requirements, on the basis the DBoK sets out. Its doctrine reaches DICRI's work in two ways.
Through the Assurance Framework
The DBoK defines the DICRI Assurance Framework: an integrated system of interdependent Assurance Domains through which the evidentiary basis of Engineering Confidence is established, preserved and made independently verifiable. For each domain, it also states how DICRI puts that domain into practice.
Professional Certification and Equipment Assurance apply this doctrine through the corresponding Assurance Domains. Professional Certification applies the Professional Competency domain through the progressive professional credential framework. Equipment Assurance applies the Equipment Assurance domain by establishing equipment identity and eligibility for governed use. The DICRI Assurance Framework explains the Framework and its domains.
Through evaluation and certification
The DBoK sets out how governed evidence is evaluated against an applicable Engineering Basis, how an Engineering Determination remains traceable to that evidence, how Governed Engineering States are established and extended through time, and how a certificate derives its authority from the governed record.
Infrastructure Certification applies that doctrine when DICRI certifies infrastructure against the applicable Engineering Basis.
Edition and Status
- First public edition
- Edition 1.0, in preparation
The first public edition of the DICRI Body of Knowledge is being prepared for release. Publication information and access will be provided on this page when Edition 1.0 is released.