Skip to content Accessibility statement
Department of Computer Science
HomeDepartment of Computer ScienceProfessional development and trainingShort courses in systems safety engineeringHuman Factors for Safety (HUFS)

Human Factors for Safety (HUFS)

Book your place
Delivery format
Blended learning (face-to-face and online)
On-campus teaching dates
Tuesday 6 April 2027 to Thursday 8 April 2027, University of York campus
Duration
Three teaching days (plus online study)
Fees for 2026/27 entry
£2,250 per person

This course aims to introduce students to the principles and practices of Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) as a design-oriented discipline that supports the development and evaluation of safety-critical systems.

Designed for flexibility, this course can be taken on a stand-alone basis for continuing professional development (CPD) or can count towards the completion of a postgraduate award.

Students will explore how people interact with technologies, tasks and organisational environments, and learn to apply HFE methods to analyse and improve system performance and safety.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

  • Identify and describe the implications of human factors on the safety of a system.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of a range of human factors techniques and understand their limitations.
  • Describe and evaluate an organisation’s processes with respect to the human contribution to system safety.

Course topics

This course will cover a range of topics including:

  • Introduction to HFE in safety critical systems
  • Understanding systems thinking
  • Developing a task analysis
  • Safety culture and its assessment
  • Approaches for understanding work-as-done (eg Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM))
  • User-centred design
  • Organisational learning
  • The impact of human characteristics
  • Human-centred design and development of AI in complex work systems

Course delivery

This course is taught in a blended format, comprising face-to-face sessions on campus and online learning. 

Face-to-face teaching will consist of three days of on campus teaching, taking place from Tuesday to Thursday of the teaching week at the University of York. The on-campus teaching will include lectures as well as extensive group exercises where you will have the opportunity to apply what you have learned through case studies.

You will also have 15 hours of self-study to complete in your own time. This includes preparatory work to finish before your on-campus sessions – which we’ll send on Thursday 25 March 2027 – as well as materials to review afterward.

Assessment

Once you complete the taught element, you can opt to complete a coursework-based assessment.

The assessment is completed remotely, and is expected to take around  65 hours to complete including additional reading. The assessment for this course comprises of coursework and is compulsory for students who require the module to be credited towards a degree award.

Progression to postgraduate awards

This module can count as credit towards the following postgraduate awards, subject to eligibility criteria. 

If you pursue further study, you may be eligible to credit a portion of your current course fees toward your future tuition. 

For full details, please see the terms and conditions.

Book your place

Booking for this course closes on Friday 12 March 2027.

To secure your place, please complete the two-part process below. Please also ensure you have read our terms and conditions.

Step 1: Register

Complete the registration form.

​Step 2: Payment

Complete the payment form. You can choose to pay by card or invoice.

If paying by card, once you have completed the payment form, use the 'book' link in the card payments section below. This will prompt you to pay via the University Shop.

Card payments

Only required if you're paying by card.

Searching for available dates...

If you have a question about the booking or payment process, please contact cs-safety-courses@york.ac.uk.