Syllabus

Course description

Building on previous exposure to the fundamentals of the software process, this course focuses on techniques for ensuring software quality. Here, quality assurance is viewed as a holistic activity that runs through the entire development process: understanding the needs of clients and users; analyzing and documenting requirements; verifying and validating solutions through testing.

There are four major topics:

• Requirements elicitation and user-centered development. Communicating with customers, users, and other stakeholders about requirements. User-centered design. Evaluating usability of a software product.
• Requirements analysis. Software development as problem solving. Identifying, structuring, and classifying problems through Problem Frames. Building specifications from requirements.
• Verification and validation. Defining the testing mission. Test strategies. Techniques of conformance testing. Validating preliminary designs through prototyping.
• Quality management. Measuring software quality. Software quality standards.

Textbooks

P. Ammann and J. Offutt. Introduction to Software Testing. Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-88038-1

D. Galin. Software Quality Assurance. Addison Wesley, 2004. ISBN 978-0-201-70945-2

Other sources

R.E. Fairley and M.J. Wilshire. Why the Vasa sank: 10 Problems and some antidotes for software projects. IEEE Software 20(2), 2003, 18-25.

J.A. Hughes, D. Randall, and D. Shapiro. Faltering from Ethnography to Design. Proc. CSCW, 1992, 115-122.

M. Jackson and P. Zave. Deriving Specifications from Requirements: An Example. Proc. ICSE, 1995, 15-24.

Nielsen Norman Group. Paper prototyping: A how-to-video. 2003.

Case studies in software communication. Available at http://www.speaksoft.mtu.edu

PFEdit: A graphical editor for Problem Frame diagrams. Available at http://www.speaksoft.mtu.edu

Course requirements and grading

Since this is an upper-level undergraduate course, a high degree of student participation in lectures is expected. It is essential that you read the assigned material before lecture and be prepared to participate in the class discussion. By now you should have a certain amount of experience designing software, through coursework or extracurricular activities like co-ops. You should bring this experience to bear in reading and evaluating the material: how do the techniques we discuss apply (if at all) to your efforts in the "real world"?

The coursework consists of the following:

• Homework assignments (counting for 10% of the final grade): These written assignments are due on Thursdays, and the Thursday class discussion will center around the problems raised in that week's homework. The homeworks will be graded on a "good faith effort" basis: If you demonstrate a reasonable amount of effort and care in your answers, you will receive full credit, even if you don't get the "right answer" to everything. You may discuss homework problems among yourselves, but you should do your write-ups individually.
• In-class assignments (10%): In class, we will perform several individual and team exercises. The written portions of these exercises will be turned in at the end of the class period.
• Team projects (36%): Two projects in which you will apply the ideas discussed in the course to a particular software problem. You will work in teams of 3-4 on these projects; the teams will be chosen by me.
• Oral report (8%): Short in-class presentation of the work done in your team projects.
• Exams (36%): Two in-class, closed-book examinations evaluating your grasp of the material.

All written assignments done outside of class must be typed.

No late assignments will be accepted, and no extra credit will be awarded. So it is important to concentrate on getting the regularly assigned work done, on time.