Software Quality Assurance Practices Research Articles

Bug Tracker User Guide

ABSTRACT___ The Bug Tracking Tool project addresses the pressing need for efficient bug tracking and management in contemporary software development. By leveraging modern web technologies and agile methodologies, the project aims to develop a comprehensive solution that streamlines bug identification, tracking, and resolution processes. Through a literature survey, key observations and shortcomings in existing bug tracking tools were identified, guiding the proposed work. The project’s methodology encompasses requirements gathering, design, implementation, testing, and deployment, focusing on user-centric design and functionality. Preliminary results demonstrate progress towards achieving project objectives, highlighting the tool’s potential to enhance software quality assurance practices and user satisfaction. Despite encountering challenges such as technical complexity and resource constraints, the project lays a solid foundation for future enhancements and optimizations. Overall, the Bug Tracking Tool project represents a significant step towards improving bug tracking practices and delivering higher-quality software products to end-users INDEX TEARMS – HTML, CSS , JavaScript, Python, Django Framework, SQLlite.

Development of a Maturity Model for Software Quality Assurance Practices

The advancements in the technology landscape and software development in recent years mandate paying attention to Software Quality Assurance (SQA) because it is becoming significantly important and complex. SQA is a set of activities within the software development lifecycle that aims at reducing development and testing costs, improving the quality of the software systems, and increasing customer satisfaction. Thus, the objective of this paper is to build a SQA maturity model, particularly in the telecommunication industry. To achieve this, this research identified perspectives and factors based on a comprehensive literature review and experts’ inputs using Hierarchical Decision Modeling (HDM) as the methodology. The proposed model consists of five perspectives, which are requirements validation, testing, software change management control, technology, and organization and culture with every perspective containing relevant factors. The factors and perspectives are validated and quantified using SQA inputs from subject matter experts. The findings of this study suggest that requirements validation is the most important perspective. Two case studies were conducted to identify the maturity score for each case, demonstrate the practicality of the research model, identify areas of deficiencies, and propose corrective actions. This paper provides an in-depth look at software quality factors and their relative importance, targeting to help SQA practitioners understand and assess their SQA practices.

CHARACTERIZING SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE PRACTICES IN KENYA

Given the increased reliance on technology, Software Quality Assurance(SQA) has become a vital area in Software Engineering (SE). SQA practices require training, cost and often take more time than actual code writing. Owing to these requirements, software developers often ignore or partly implement SQA practices, leading to potentially poor quality software development. The goal of the study is to characterise SQA practices of software developers in Kenya. As such, quantitative empirical research was conducted. Seventy-seven (N=77) completed questionnaires were received and analysed to yield the required insights. The analysis of the findings indicates compliance with SQA practices. However, the research unearths concerns such as failure to comply with Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) models as having the potential to lower the quality of software products. The assessment found that Unit testing was the most common type of software test. Based on the findings and literature, recommendations are made. The need to improve software engineering education and invest in software testing is underscored. The results can be generalised to most developing countries and used by software developers and trainers to identify areas in SQA that need strengthening.

Quality Practitioners’ Differing Perspectives on Future Software Quality Assurance Practices

Constant changes in a business context and software development make it important to understand how software quality assurance (SQA) should respond. Examining SQA from supplier and client perspectives, this study explores how different groups of SQA practitioners perceive future needs. A survey (n = 93) conducted in fall 2017 explored the views of SQA organizations on future trends. The results indicate that SQA organizations differ slightly in their attitudes to quality categories, as do different groups of SQA practitioners. It is argued that these differences should be taken into account when developing and implementing future SQA strategy. It is further argued that the found basic enables SQA management, evaluation of new practices, and allocation of resources to ensure that all quality categories remain balanced in the future.

A Methodology for Incorporating Quality Assurance Practices during Software Development Life Cycle

The aim of quality assurance in software development is to ensure that a software product meets its practical business specifications and quality requirements. A comprehensive overview of different software quality requirement and quality assurance practices have been performed to find out the most appropriate software quality assurance practices at different stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC). A methodology along with its implementation during SDLC has been proposed in this research paper. The proposed methodology will help software development teams to achieve quality assurance goals during software development.

AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION ON QUALITY ASSURANCE PRACTICES IN SOFTWARE INDUSTRIES: BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE

Software companies often follow a planned and systematic process to ensure that the end product is error free and performs as per the requirements, often termed as Software Quality Assurance (SQA) process. However, it has been reported that these companies (especially, mid-size and start-up companies) in developing countries often cut corners to the SQA process due to time and budget limit, and to rush into the market, compromising the quality. This research empirically investigated the SQA process followed in the software companies in Bangladesh. A survey with nine established companies is carried out with qualitative and quantitative data analysis. According to the assessment more than half of the companies fall short in adhering SQA practices within their SDLC. The rest, either fully or partially comply to it. This study further proposed an SQA model based on inspection process and provide guidelines for continuous quality improvement. The model and guidelines are derived to best support these software companies to improve SQA practices.

Software Quality Assurance in INDIGO-DataCloud Project: a Converging Evolution of Software Engineering Practices to Support European Research e-Infrastructures

From the advent of Grid technology – as the new paradigm of distributed computing – to the current days of Cloud computing models, the continuous need of new tools and services to match the scientific community requirements has been addressed in Europe through dedicated software development projects for e–Infrastructure creation, operation and management. This work presents the most significant software quality breakthroughs obtained in one of such projects, INDIGO–DataCloud, the main challenges and barriers confronted throughout the lifespan of the project, and how they were partially or totally overcome. The knowledge base established throughout the last 15 years of diverse software development initiatives in Europe for sustaining distributed research e-Infrastructures, supported by the advances in the area of software engineering, definitely contributed to improve the quality and reliability of the software delivered, and consequently, the operational stability of the European e–Infrastructures. INDIGO–DataCloud project is a good evidence of such insights, where, unlike the preceding trend found in past projects, the enforcement of Software Quality Assurance practices has been present since the very early stages of the software lifecycle.

Software Quality Assurance in an Undergraduate Software Engineering Program

Software tests are used by most organizations. However, many other software quality assurance practices are often neglected. Most developers are not aware of the high cost of inferior quality and its impact on the duration and budget of a project. At the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), software quality assurance (SQA) is taught in lecture format in the undergraduate software engineering curriculum. The SQA course covers the concepts of the business modeland the cost of quality, to convince students of the importance of putting in place adequate prevention and evaluation practices, both to reduce the number of defects and to predict the extra effort needed to correct defects introduced as the work progresses.The course includes a 10-week capstone project in which teams of 4 students apply the SQA practices taught inclass in a software development assignment. The students collect measures throughout the 10-week period, and the performance of each team is analyzed. This analysis allows discussion to take place on the positive impact of SQA practices as a way to deliver quality software on time and within budget.

TESTING AND FORMAL VERIFICATION OF SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURES

We examine two open engineering problems in the area of testing and formal verification of internet-enabled service oriented architectures (SOA). The first involves deciding when to formally and exhaustively verify versus when to informally and non-exhaustively test. The second concerns scalability limitations associated with formal verification, to which we propose a semi-formal technique that uses software agents. Finally, we assess how these findings can improve current software quality assurance practices. Addressing the first problem, we present and explain two classes of tradeoffs. External tradeoffs between assurance, performance, and flexibility are determined by the business needs of each application, whether it be in engineering, commerce, or entertainment. Internal tradeoffs between assurance, scale, and level of detail involve the technical challenges of feasibly verifying or testing an SOA. To help decide whether to exhaustively verify or non-exhaustively test, we present and explain these two classes of tradeoffs. Identifying a middle ground between testing and verification, we propose using software agents to simulate services in a composition. Technologically, this approach has the advantage of assuring the quality of compositions that are too large to exhaustively verify. Operationally, it supports testing these compositions in the laboratory without access to source code or use of network resources of third-party services. We identify and exploit the structural similarities between agents and services, examining how doing so can assure the quality of service compositions.

Teaching software quality assurance by encouraging student contributions to an open source web-based system for the assessment of programming assignments

This paper presents a novel and innovative pedagogical approach for teaching software quality assurance in the undergraduate computer science curriculum. The approach is based on students contributing programming problems to an open source web-based system that is used for student practice and instructor assessment of assignments. WeBWorK, and some of the latest web-based systems, use a mechanism based on unit testing to account for variation in the way in which the same problem can be answered in an accurate manner, making such systems highly appealing for education. Tackling open-ended programming problems within WeBWorK therefore requires students to write a code fragment that is then checked for semantic correctness. Given that WeBWorK is open source, the teaching approach that we have evolved revolves around students creating their own problems for other students to practice with. This requires students to construct comprehensive unit tests that can assure both the usability and accuracy of their work prior to deployment. The paper describes this approach, gives examples of student work, presents findings from the experience of using the approach in the classroom, and discusses broader lessons and reasons for integrating software quality assurance practices into the computer science curriculum.