Helsingin yliopisto / University of Helsinki

581361-6 Ohjelmistojen testaus, syksy 2000 (3 ov)
[581361-6 Software Testing, Autumn 2000 (3 cu)]

Teknillinen korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology

Tik-76.613 Ohjelmistojen testaus ja laadunvarmistus, syksy 2000 (3 ov)
[Tik-76.613 Software Testing and Validation, Autumn 2000 (3 cu)]

The course is given jointly for University of Helsinki (UH) and Helsinki University of Technology (HUT).
Start: Wednesday, September 13, 2000, 14:15 o'clock.

The results of the course for the University of Helsinki are on the notice board of the Department (board 14 / laudatur, 4th floor).

The HUT results will be announced as soon as all the exercises have been accepted.

Lectures:

Lecturer: Jukka Paakki (UH: room D411, phone: 040-5583205, e-mail: Jukka.Paakki@cs.helsinki.fi, WWW: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/~paakki).

Course assistants:

The official language of the course is English, so as to make the course accessible for foreign students as well. This means that the lectures, the lecture notes, and the exercise instructions will be in English.

Prerequisites

Before taking this course, the students should have passed the following courses:

University of Helsinki

Helsinki University of Technology

Preliminary schedule of lectures

The course will introduce the main concepts and techniques of software testing. In addition, the related issues of software quality and inspections are addressed. This is supposed to be a basic course rather than an advanced one: the presented techniques are general and not focused on any particular application area. Also, we will not creep into greater depths of theory.

The lectures and the examination will be based on the lecture notes. The notes can be obtained from "monistemyynti" (UH), or from Edita (HUT). There is no single, primary text book. 

  Date        Topic
  ----        -----
  13.9.       General objectives of the course,
              software quality,
              introduction to testing,
              management of testing,
              inspections.
  18.9.       Black-box (functional) testing.
  20.9.       White-box (structural) testing.
  25.9.       Introduction to the testing tools of the course
              (assistants).
  27.9.       Introduction to the testing tools, cont.
              (assistants).
  2.10.       Integration testing,
              regression testing,
              statistical testing,
              testing practice.

  13.10       Examination.
              Friday, 14-18, Auditorium (1st floor),
              University of Helsinki,
              Department of Computer Science,
              Teollisuuskatu 23, Vallila, Helsinki.
The examination on October 13, 2000, is both for the students of UH and for the students of HUT. After that, the examinations will be arranged separately in these two universities.

Exercises

The course includes 4 exercises where different testing and inspection techniques are applied in practice. The exercises will be conducted in groups of 3 students. The exercises have strict deadlines and they are obligatory: in addition to passing the examination, each student has to do all the exercises on schedule (in her/his group). The exercises shall be solved using testing tools that are exercised in the end of September under the guidance of the course assistants. Last but not least, each group shall write a final report on the exercises. The final deadline for the exercises is December 8.

The students are encouraged to build the exercise groups by themselves and register the groups to the relevant (UH / HUT) course assistants, by September 22. After that the free students will be randomly allocated to exercise groups by the assistants.

It is advisable to start planning the testing process within the exercise groups immediately. Practice has shown that the better the testing plan, the better the results.

The exercises will be graded, and they will affect the final grade for the course. However, a failed examination cannot be compensated by high-quality exercises.

In the case of high-quality exercises (at least 80% of maximum points), the following rise in the final grade will be seen:

University of Helsinki:

  Examination  ->  Final grade
  -----------      -----------

      1-               1
      1                2-
      1+               2
      2-               2+
      2                3-
      2+               3-
      3-               3
      3                3

Helsinki University of Technology:

  Examination  ->  Final grade
  -----------      -----------

      1                2
      2                3
      3                4
      4                5
      5                5

Detailed information on the exercises.

Latest modifications on December 21, 2000, by Jukka Paakki.