Peter J. Clarke
Tariq M. King
ABSTRACT
Improving the quality of software developed in the 21st century is one of the major challenges in the software industry. Addressing this problem will require that academic institutions play a key role in training developers to produce high quality software. Unfortunately, students and instructors continue to be frustrated by the lack of support provided when selecting appropriate testing tools and program analyzers to verify programs under development.
In this paper we present an approach that integrates the use of software testing tools into programming and software engineering courses. The approach consists of three phases, developing an online repository with learning resources, training instructors in the area of testing techniques and tools, and integrating the use of testing tools into various programming courses. We also present the results of the first instructors' workshop and studies on integrating testing tools into two courses, CS2 and Software Engineering (SE).
- }}M. Clark. JDepend, May 2010. http://www.clarkware.com/software/JDepend.htm.Google Scholar
- }}"CNSS". Software 2015: A national software strategy to ensure u.s. security and competitiveness. Technical report, Center for National Software Studies, 2005.Google Scholar
- }}Cobertura Team. Cobertura, May 2010. http://cobertura.sourceforge.net/.Google Scholar
- }}J. Cohen. The earth is round (p < .05). American Psychologist, 49(12):997--1003, December 1994. http://web.math.umt.edu/wilson/Math444/ Handouts/Cohen94_earth%20is%20round.pdf.Google ScholarCross Ref
- }}C. Desai, D. S. Janzen, and J. Clements. Implications of integrating test-driven development into cs1/cs2 curricula. SIGCSE Bull., 41(1):148--152, 2009. ISSN 0097-8418. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}Drupal Community. Drupal, 2008. http://drupal.org/.Google Scholar
- }}S. H. Edwards. Rethinking computer science education from a test-first perspective. In Companion of the 18th Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA '03), pages 148--155, New York, USA, 2003. ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}S. H. Edwards. Using software testing to move students from trial-and-error to reflection-in-action. In Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE Conference, pages 26--30, New York, NY, USA, 2004. ACM. ISBN 1-58113-798-2. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}S. H. Edwards. Web-CAT: the Web-based Center for Automated Testing, 2009. http://web-cat.cs.vt.edu/.Google Scholar
- }}S. H. Edwards and M. A. Perez-Quinones. Web-cat user group, March 2008. BOF session at the 39th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education.Google Scholar
- }}S. Elbaum, S. Person, J. Dokulil, and M. Jorde. Bug hunt: Making early software testing lessons engaging and affordable. In ICSE '07: Proceedings of the 29th international conference on Software Engineering, pages 688--697, Washington, DC, USA, 2007. IEEE Computer Society. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}D. Faught. TestingFAQs.org - an information resource for software testers, 2010. http://www.testingfaqs.org/.Google Scholar
- }}M. Feathers. CppUnit, May 2010. http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/cppunit/.Google Scholar
- }}S. Frezza. Integrating testing and design methods for undergraduates: teaching software testing in the context of software design. Frontiers in Education, Annual, 2:S1G1--4, 2002.Google Scholar
- }}E. Gamma and K. Beck. JUnit, 2008. http://www.junit.org/.Google Scholar
- }}M. H. Goldwasser. A gimmick to integrate software testing throughout the curriculum. In Proceedings of the 33rd SIGCSE Conference, pages 271--275. ACM, 2002. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}M. R. Hoffmann. EclEmma, 2008. http://www.eclemma.org/.Google Scholar
- }}IBM. Rational Functional Tester, 2008. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/tester/functional/.Google Scholar
- }}U. Jackson, B. Z. Manaris, and R. A. McCauley. Strategies for effective integration of software engineering concepts and techniques into the undergraduate computer science curriculum. In SIGCSE '97: Proceedings of the twenty-eighth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, pages 360--364, New York, NY, USA, 1997. ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}D. S. Janzen and H. Saiedian. Test-driven learning: intrinsic integration of testing into the CS/SE curriculum. SIGCSE Bull., 38(1):254--258, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}E. L. Jones. Integrating testing into the curriculum - arsenic in small doses. SIGCSE Bull., 33(1):337--341, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}C. Kaner, S. Barber, and R. Fiedler. Workshop on teaching software testing:Wtst 7, Jan. 2008. http://www.wtst.org/ wtst7.html.Google Scholar
- }}C. Kaner, S. Barber, and R. Fiedler. Workshop on teaching software testing:Wtst 8, Jan. 2009. http://www.wtst.org/ wtst8.html.Google Scholar
- }}T. C. Lethbridge, J. Diaz-Herrera, R. J. J. LeBlanc, and J. B. Thompson. Improving software practice through education: Challenges and future trends. In FOSE '07: 2007 Future of Software Engineering, pages 12--28, Washington, DC, USA, 2007. IEEE Computer Society. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}M. J. Lutz, W. M. McCracken, and S. Mengel. Swenet - network community for software engineering education, Sept 2009. http://www.swenet.org/.Google Scholar
- }}Microsoft Corporation. Visual Studio Team System 2008, May 2010. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ library/ee338734(v=VS.90).aspx.Google Scholar
- }}G. J. Myers. Art of Software Testing. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, USA, second edition, 2004. ISBN 0471469122. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}P. Natesan and B. Thompson. Extending improvement-overchance i-index effect size simulation studies to cover some small-sample cases. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 67(1):59--72, 2007.Google ScholarCross Ref
- }}NUnit.org. MbUnit,May 2010. http://www.mbunit.com/.Google Scholar
- }}RTI. The economic impacts of inadequate infrastructure for software testing. Technical Report 7007.011, National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST, May 2002.Google Scholar
- }}S. Schaub. Teaching cs1 with web applications and test-driven development. SIGCSE Bull., 41(2):113--117, 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- }}Ultimate Software. SWAT, 2009. http://sourceforge.net/projects/ulti-swat/.Google Scholar
- }}Wikipedia. xUnit, 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/XUnit.Google Scholar
- }}L.Williams and S. Heckman. OpenSeminar - software testing resources, 2010. http://openseminar.org/se/modules/ 7/index/screen.do.Google Scholar
- }}WReSTT Team. WReSTT: Web-based Repository for Software Testing Tools, 2009. http://wrestt.cis.fiu.edu/.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Using a web-based repository to integrate testing tools into programming courses
Recommendations
Collaborative web-based learning of testing tools in SE courses
SIGCSE '11: Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science educationOne of the main concerns in the software industry continues to be the development of high quality software. This concern will be exacerbated as software systems become more complex. The training of software developers continues to grow in academia since ...
Teaching Testing with Modern Technology Stacks in Undergraduate Software Engineering Courses
ITiCSE '21: Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1Students' experience with software testing in undergraduate computing courses is often relatively shallow, as compared to the importance of the topic. This experience report describes introducing industrial-strength testing into CMPSC 156, an upper ...
Using WReSTT in SE courses: an empirical study
SIGCSE '12: Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science EducationThere continues to be a lack of adequate training for students in software testing techniques and tools at most academic institutions. Several educators and researchers have investigated innovative approaches that integrate testing into programming and ...
Comments