Spring 2008 IS 698 IS 800 Special Topics in Information Systems Fundamentals of Software Testing Syllabus Instructor Dr Sreedevi Sampath Office hours Tuesdays 1 to 3pm Office ITE 451 Email sampath umbc edu Phone 410 455 8845 preferred method of contact is by email Class time Thursdays 4 30 to 7p m Class location ITE 239 Course Description Software is becoming increasingly complex and there is a growing need for systematic strategies for testing and maintaining software This course will examine the fundamentals of software testing and the main phases in the software testing process Problems that arise from testing different types of software such as object oriented component based concurrent distributed Graphical User Interfaces and web software will be discussed and the relevant program analysis techniques used will be studied Topics include but are not limited to a general overview of the software testing process approaches to automatic test case generation test oracles coverage analysis to decide when to stop testing test prioritization mutation testing and regression testing Course objectives At the end of the semester a student completing the course should have a solid knowledge of the fundamentals and the state of the art in software testing a keen awareness of the open problems in software testing and maintenance improved skills in reviewing papers critically and identifying open problems ability to listen and carefully evaluate a research presentation experience in the process of research proposal preparation from topic identification through literature review open problem identification brainstorming and writing a mini research proposal Required Textbook There is no required textbook for this course We will use research papers as our main source of information The reading list consisting of research papers will be posted on Blackboard Reference Textbooks Paul Ammann and Jeff Offutt Introduction to Software Testing ISBN 13 978 0 52188038 1 Cambridge University Press 2008 Mauro Pezze and Michal Young Software Testing and Analysis Processes Principles and Techniques ISBN 13 978 0 471 45593 6 John Wiley and Sons 2008 Robert Binder Testing Object Oriented Systems Models Patterns and Tools ISBN13 978 0201809381 Addison Wesley 2000 Boris Beizer Software Testing Techniques 2nd edition ISBN 13 978 0442206727 Van Nostrand Reinhold June 1990 Blackboard site A Blackboard site will be maintained for the course throughout the semester It can be accessed through myUMBC or at http blackboard umbc edu The page will contain all project deliverable descriptions lecture slides solutions to exams grades and all announcements pertinent to the course Each student is responsible for checking the web page regularly and for being aware of any information posted there Class format and attendance Since we have a 2 and a half hour class the class will be broken into two sessions with a minibreak in the middle In each class meeting after a brief introduction to the topic by the instructor we will cover either one or two papers The time will be divided as follows Professor s lecture on topic around 15 minutes may not happen every class Presentation of paper 1 with interruption for clarification questions as needed around 40 minutes Questions discussion points around 20 minutes 5 minute break Presentation of paper 2 with interruption for clarification questions as needed around 40 minutes Questions discussion points around 20 minutes Students are strongly encouraged to ask questions and participate in class activities While attendance is not required you are strongly encouraged to attend all lectures and participate actively in discussions Please note that 7 of your total grade is derived from class participation If you miss a class you are responsible for getting the relevant notes and hand outs to help you prepare for the quizzes and exams Please come to class on time Tardiness will affect your class participation grade There will be in class discussions and material covered in lectures that will not be available in the research papers and on the Web page You will be responsible for that material in the exams You are therefore encouraged to attend all lectures In case of inclement weather check the main UMBC Webpage http www umbc edu to see whether UMBC is closed and classes are cancelled In the event of such cancellation on an exam day the exam will be rescheduled and announced to the students by Dr Sampath If there is a deliverable due on that day there will be no extension for the deliverable You should still submit the softcopy in PDF of your deliverable on time If the assignment has a hard copy deliverable the due date for the hardcopy of your deliverable will be automatically be before start of class on the day of the next class Grading The University s Graduate Catalog states that grades of A B and C are passing and grades of D and F indicate failure There is specifically no mention of any numerical scores associated with these letter grades Consequently there are no pre defined numerical boundaries that determine final letter grades These boundaries can only be defined at the end of the semester after all scores have been earned At that point boundaries for final letter grades can be defined such that they conform to the University s and Information System Department s official guidelines This means that it is not appropriate to assume that a given numerical score corresponds to a particular letter grade It is also important to understand that final letter grades reflect academic achievement and not effort While I am more than happy to correct mistakes in the computation of grades and grade recording errors in all other situations final letter grades are not negotiable A student s grade in this class will comprise of the following components 30 Presentation and Discussion Students will work in pairs to develop and present 40 minute presentations of research papers to the class and lead discussions on the paper presented The number of presentations each student is required to give will depend on the class size and will be decided in the first week of class 10 Paper critique 1 per paper After reading a paper each student will write up a critique of the paper and turn it in to the instructor This should take no more than 20 30 minutes to complete after reading the paper Details on how a student should go about critiquing a research paper will be given in class 28 Short Research Proposal This