Software Testing and Quality Assurance

General Description

We will devote slightly more than half of the class time to topics related to software testing, or executing the software in order to observe its behavior to ensure that it conforms to our expectations or to identify behavior deviations and possible underlying problems for correction. We will emphasis formal/systematic testing techniques and their applications, including:

• black-box or functional testing, with a focus on covering (or thoroughly testing) external functions or services required or expected by target customers and users;
• clear/transparent/white-box or structural testing; with a focus on covering (or verifying/testing) implementation details, including internal components and structures;
• usage-based statistical testing (UBST), with a focus on adequately testing operations or services important to and commonly used by target customers and users to ensure overall product or system reliability (a quality view most meaningful to customers and users) after product delivery or system deployment.

• Testing techniques based on "flat" structures, such as lists, partitions and equivalent classes, include t1) basic partition testing (PT), t2) input domain boundary testing (BT), and t3) Musa's operational profiles (Musa OP) or usage model for UBST.
• Testing techniques based on finite-state machines (FSM) and related variations include t4) basic FSM testing, t5) control flow testing (CFT), t6) data dependency analysis and data flow testing (DFT), and t7) Markov operational profiles (Markov OP) for UBST.

Specific testing techniques to be covered: Besides the formal/systematic ones mentioned above (t1-t7: PT, BT, Musa-OP/UBST, FSM, CFT, DFT, Markov-OP/UBST), we will also briefly cover various forms of informal or ad-hoc testing, checklists, fault injection and mutation testing. Specialized testing techniques for specific purposes and/or applicable to different application domains, such as usability testing, Web testing, Cloud testing, embedded system testing, performance and stress testing, etc. will also be briefly covered.

Test activities, management, automation, and related issues, such as team organization, testing process, people's roles and responsibilities, test automation tools, test integration, etc., will be briefly discussed. Applicability and effectiveness of specific testing techniques in different sub-phases and for different purposes will also be briefly discussed.

The rest of the class time, beyond various testing-related topics mentioned above, will be devoted to the following topics:

• General concepts about quality, quality assurance (QA), and software quality engineering (SQE). Concepts related to quality will be covered, including reliability, safety, security, usability, dependability, maintainability, availability, etc. QA activities and SQE process will also be discussed, in the context of overall software development and maintenance processes.
• Other QA alternatives beyond testing, including, activities and related techniques for defect prevention and process improvement, inspection/review/walkthrough, formal verification (and its prerequisite, formal specification, briefly), fault tolerance and safety assurance. A good understanding of each alternative's relative strengths and weaknesses will help us construct and carry out a comprehensive QA strategy that more often than not will include and integrate several such alternatives.
• Quality assessment and improvement, including, overall strategy for quantifiable quality improvement, measurement and feedback mechanisms, quality models and measurements, defect classification and analysis, risk identification and analysis, and software reliability engineering. These activities will help us monitor, assess, improve the overall SQE process to achieve our quality and reliability goals effectively and efficiently.

Workload, Grading, and Notices

Notices and relevant SMU policies:

• Plagiarism of any kind is strictly prohibited by the SMU Student Honor Code.
• If you need to make alternative arrangements for turning-in material or taking exams, you must contact the instructor ahead of time, unless it is truly an emergency. (Otherwise you'll receive 0 for the specific item.)
• Relevant SMU policies regarding disability accommodations, religious observance, excused absences for university extracurricular activities, etc., and how to access the services and accommodations available (linked here too). .

Textbook and Other Information

• Jeff Tian, "Software Quality Engineering: Testing, Quality Assurance, and Quantifiable Improvement" John Wiley and Sons, Inc., and IEEE Computer Society Press, 2005.
  ISBN: 0-471-71345-7
  Available at SMU bookstore, official Wiley website for the book, or your favorite local/online booksellers.

• List of topics and tentative schedule.

• Other references, reading material, and selected class material will be listed or posted online or in Canvas.