SWE 637 Course Syllabus

Software Testing and Quality Evaluation
SWE 637 Course Syllabus
Fall 2001 (FAB B106, Tuesday @ 7:20)

 TA:                   Quansheng Xiao
 Office:                S&T II 348, (703)993-1632
 Email:               xiaoqs@ise.gmu.edu
 Office Hours:     anytime electronically or by appointmen

 READINGS:

•  Boris Beizer, Software Testing Techniques (second edition) .
•  A collection of papers available from the GMU copy shop in University Center, room 117.

 OBJECTIVE:

Catalog description: Software testing at the module, subsystem, and system levels; quality assurance techniques, including inspections, version control, and configuration management. The role of standards, policies, and procedures. Organizational concerns. Professor's note: The course will attempt to prepare students to test software in structured, organized ways. This course should provide practical knowledge of a variety of ways to test software, an understanding of some of the tradeoffs between testing techniques, and a feel for the practice of software testing and the research in software testing.

 

 CONTENT:

Concepts and techniques used for testing software; techniques for generating and validating test data, both automatically and manually.

 

 PREREQS:

SWE 619 and SWE Foundation material.

 

Knowledge of programming and data structures and a general knowledge of software engineering. You will need a basic familiarity with some of the subjects and terms of software engineering. You will need an in-depth understanding of the syntax and semantics of multiple programming languages.

 

  EXAMS:

There will be a final and a midterm exam. Both will be in class.

 READING:

I expect you to read the relevant material before lecture. The lectures may not cover everything in the readings and will often include material not found in the readings.

 PROJECT:

There will be a semester long project. The project will be to design and carry out a complete test of a small-sized software system. I will provide the software and short test reports will be required. More details about the project will be provided shortly.

 HOMEWORK:

There will be small computer and/or homework assignments for several of our topics. I do not accept late homework unless arrangements are worked out in advance.

 HONOR CODE STATEMENT:

In this course, all assignments, exams, and project submissions carry with them an implicit statement that it is the sole work of the author, unless joint work is explicitly authorized. Help may be obtained from the instructor or other students to understand the description of the problem and any technology, but the solution, particularly the design portion, must be the student's own work. Any deviation from this is considered an Honor Code violation, and as a minimum, will result in failure of the submission and as a maximum, failure of the class.

 GRADING:

Grades will be (approximately): 30% midterm, 35% final, 25% project, 10% homeworks.

 CALENDAR:

Date	Notes
Wed 9/5	Last day to drop with no tuition liability
Tue 9/11	Last day to add classes
Fri 9/28	Last day to drop
Tue 12/11	Final Exam 7:20 - 10:00