INFT 821 Course Syllabus

Professors:	Jeff Offutt	Paul Ammann
Office:	S&T II 355, 993-1654, fax: 993-1638	S&T II 349, 993-1660, fax: 993-1638
Email:	offutt@gmu.edu	pammann@gmu.edu
URL:	http://www.ise.gmu.edu/~offutt/	http://www.ise.gmu.edu/faculty/pammann/
Office Hours:	Tue 2:00 -- 5:00, Thur 2:00 -- 4:00, or by appointment	Tue 5:00 -- 6:00, or by appointment
Class Hours:	Thur 4:30 -- 7:10, S&T 2, 112
Prerequisite:	Knowledge of software testing

Learning:
What you discover on your own is always more exciting than what someone else discovers for you -- it's like the diference between romantic love and an arranged marriage.
- Terrence Rafferty

NOTE: INFT 821 can be taken several times, providing the content is different each time.

OVERVIEW:
OO and Architecture-based Testing. Integration and System Testing based on Object-oriented Relationships, Architectures, and Specifications. We will discuss current research and practice in these novel exciting areas.

PREREQS:
Students will need to have a general knowledge of testing, such as can be gained in SWE 637. The concepts of architecture, specifications, and object-orientation needed for the course will be presented in lectures.

MATERIALS:
A collection of papers. Some will available as PS or PDF on the web, and others will be distributed as the course progresses.

OBJECTIVES:
Most software testing research has been at the unit and module level. We have many well developed techniques that are well validated and that are supported by commercial tools. But those who carry test at the integration and system level are mostly left in the dark without formal techniques or tools.

Current work in testing is focusing on these "higher levels" of testing. In particular, instead of using source, tests are being derived from three new sources: architectural designs, formal specifications, and object-oriented relationships. This course will look at the problems in developing system tests from these sources, and cover the techniques being developed and the current research in the area.

For one-half of the research papers, turn in a short (about one page) summary of the paper. The summaries should: (1) describe the problem in general terms, (2) summarize the method of testing, (3) discuss applications of the technique (if appropriate), (4) summarize and critique the major results, (5) and critique the presentation of the paper. You can choose which papers you want to turn in summaries for.

GOALS:
After the course, the students should be able to understand the issues in system testing, be able to apply the techniques by hand and understand them well enough to develop tools to support them, and to carry out research in the area.

GRADING:
This course will be run and graded as a seminar. The major grade determinant will be projects selected by the students. The project can be primarily implementation with a short writeup, or primarily research with a full paper. All students will present the results of their projects to the class. We may have a few assignments. There are no exams.

Tentative Schedule
Spring 2000

1. Testing overview
2. Integration and system testing problems
3. Object-oriented test generation
4. Specification-based test generation
5. Architecture-based test generation
6. Automation
7. Using the techniques