Mar 29, 2024  
2015-2016 Undergraduate Academic Catalog 
    
2015-2016 Undergraduate Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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SE 4831 - Software Quality Assurance

2 lecture hours 2 lab hours 3 credits
Course Description
This course covers the important aspects of software quality. It begins with an overview of what is quality assurance, including definitions for the internal and external views of quality. The development of a software quality assurance plan is also discussed. Students are then exposed to the concepts of formal inspections and walkthroughs as a tool for improving software quality. Metrics are then introduced as a mechanism for assessing the quality of software products. Lastly, the concept of software quality assurance tools, including static analysis, is introduced to the students. (prereq:SE 2832  or SE 2831, SE 3821 )
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  • Generate, evaluate and apply a quality plan to a development project to track quality of a significant deliverable.
  • Execute an effective inspection of a deliverable of a software development project and evaluate the results to make process improvements.
  • Apply and evaluate appropriate processes and tools to a software development project for quality assurance.
  • Understand the role of testing in quality assurance and to apply several appropriate testing techniques to software development projects.
  • Understand the role of metrics in software quality assurance and be able to apply these metrics to document and measure quality of various phases of software development.

Prerequisites by Topic
  • Proficiency in software unit testing
  • Proficiency in a high-level programming language
  • Knowledge of software development life-cycle models

Course Topics
  • Overview of SQA (1 class)
  • Overview of software testing (1 class)
  • Defect reporting and tracking (1 class)
  • Exploratory and plan-driven strategies (4 classes)
  • Risk analysis (1 class)
  • Testing techniques (4 classes)
  • Test automation (2 classes)
  • Test management and reporting (2 classes)
  • Software quality measurement (2 classes)
  • Security testing (1 class)
  • When to stop testing (1 class)

Laboratory Topics
  • Quality Planning (1 session)
  • Inspections (3 sessions)
  • Quality Retrospective (1 session)
  • Static analysis (2 sessions)
  • Orthogonal Defect Classification (1 session)
  • Code Churn Analysis (1 session)
  • Emerging topics (1 session)

Coordinator
Walter Schilling



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