Helsingin yliopisto / University of Helsinki

581307-2 Ohjelmistojen testaus, syksy 1999 (3 ov)
[581307-2 Software Testing, Autumn 1999 (3 cu)]

Teknillinen korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology

Tik-76.613 Ohjelmistojen testaus ja laadunvarmistus, syksy 1999 (3 ov)
[Tik-76.613 Software Testing and Validation, Autumn 1999 (3 cu)]

The course is given jointly for University of Helsinki and Helsinki University of Technology.

Lectures:

No lectures: Tuesday, September 28 & Thursday, September 30.

First joint lecture: Tuesday, September 21 (UH).

Lecturer: Jukka Paakki (UH: room D411, phone: 0500-852368, e-mail: Jukka.Paakki@cs.helsinki.fi, WWW: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/~paakki).

Course assistants:
UH: Antti Viljamaa (e-mail: antti.viljamaa@cs.helsinki.fi),
UH: Suthasini Sivalingam (e-mail: suthasini.sivalingam@helsinki.fi).
HUT: Tarja Hakala (e-mail: tik76613@cs.hut.fi),
HUT: Yki Kortesniemi (e-mail: tik76613@cs.hut.fi).

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 documents 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 at Otatieto (HUT). There is no single, primary text book. 

  Date        Topic
  ----        -----
  21.9.       General objectives of the course,
                      software quality.
  23.9.       Introduction to testing, management of testing,
                      inspections.
  5.10.       Black-box (functional) testing.
  7.10.       White-box (structural) testing.
  12.10.      Integration testing, regression testing,
                      statistical testing, testing mistakes.
  14.10.      Testing tools demonstration.

  26.10       Examination.
Examination: Tuesday, October 26, 13:00-17:00, Porthania, hall I (Yliopistonkatu 3), Helsinki.
Note!! The examination is for all the students, both from University of Helsinki and from Helsinki University of Technology.

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 demonstrated on October 14 at lecture time in UH by course assistants. Last but not least, each group shall write a final report on the exercises. The final deadline for the exercises is December 10.

The students are encouraged to build the exercise groups by themselves and register the groups to the relevant (UH / HUT) course assistants, by September 24. 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 January 10, 2000, by Jukka Paakki.