Software testing ecosystems insights and research opportunities

Abstract

[Context] Software testing research is a robust field of study with a lot of research that aims to improve testing activities. There are several related elements in the testing activity that can be further investigated through the concepts defined in the software ecosystem (SECO) research. The study of testing and joint SECO addresses challenges and opportunities that go forward application development in a project, through an entire development network from suppliers to stakeholders. [Objective] In this paper, we propose a definition of software testing ecosystem (STECO) and report research opportunities, to bring close these two different research fields fostering the conduction of new research at the intersection of these two topics to investigate the elements of testing activity that constitute an ecosystem and how it can be tested to improve software quality. [Method] The concept of STECO is defined and we perform a literature search. Hence, to illustrate the idea of a STECO, we designed a model to describe the elements involved around the JUnit SECO and describe some research opportunities considering the knowledge of the testing and SECO fields. [Results and Conclusions] The following research opportunities are highlighted to foster new research works: (i) the conduction of functional and nonfunctional requirements testing, as well as the challenges imposed from this activity; (ii) the need for testing products developed separated from the central SECO platform; (iii) conduction of studies on testing automation on SECO platforms; (iv) testing between the different technologies that composed a SECO; and (v) testing the mobile software ecosystem (MSECO) environment, that has been presenting a fast growth in the number of applications.