A few new articles

I finally found some time to update my website, posting links to some more of my papers and presentations.

There are a few themes:

  • Investment modeling as a new exemplar. Software testing helps us understand the quality of the product or service under test. There are generically useful approaches to test design, like quicktests and tours and other basic techniques, but I think we add our greatest value when we apply a deeper understanding of the application. Testing instructors don’t teach this well because it takes so long to build a classroom-wide understanding of an application that is complex enough to be interesting. For the last 14 months, I’ve been exploring investment modeling as a potential exemplar of deep and interesting testing within a field that many people can grasp quickly.
  • Exploratory test automation. I don’t understand why people say that exploratory testing is always manual testing. Doug Hoffman and I have been teaching “high-volume” test techniques for twelve years (I wrote about some of these back in Testing Computer Software) that don’t involve regression testing or test-by-test scripting. We run these to explore new risks; we change our parameters to shift the focus of our search (to try something new or to go further in depth if we’re onto something interesting). This is clearly exploratory, but it is intensely automated. I’m now using investment modeling to illustrate this, and starting to work with Scott Barber to use performance modeling to illustrate it as well. Doug is working through a lot of historical approaches; perhaps the three of us can integrate our work, a lot of interesting work published by other folks, into something that more clearly conveys the general idea.
  • Instructional design: Teaching software testing. Rebecca Fiedler, Scott Barber and I have worked through a model for online education in software testing that fosters deeper learning than many other approaches. The Association for Software Testing has been a major testbed for this approach. We’ve also been doing a lot in academic institutions, comparing notes in detail with faculty at other schools.
  • The evolving law of software quality. Federal and state legislatures have failed to adopt laws governing software contracting and software quality. Because of this, American judges have had to figure out for themselves what legal rules should be applied–until Congress or the state legislatures finally get around to giving clear and constitutional guidance to the courts. This spring, the American Law Institute unanimously adopted the Principles of the Law of Software Contracts, which includes some positions that I’ve been advocating for 15 years. The set of papers below includes some discussion of the Principles. In addition, I’m kicking off a wiki-based project to update my book, Bad Software, to give customers good advice about their rights and their best negotiating tactics under the current legal regime. I’ll blog more about this later, looking for volunteers to help update the book.

Here’s the list of new stuff:

  1. Cem Kaner, “Exploratory test automation: Investment modeling as an example.” [SLIDES]. ImmuneIT, Amsterdam, October 2009.
  2. Cem Kaner, “Investment modeling: A software engineer’s approach.” [SLIDES]. Colloquium, Florida Institute of Technology, October 2009.
  3. Cem Kaner, “Challenges in the Evolution of Software Testing Practices in Mission-Critical Environments.” [SLIDES]. Software Test & Evaluation Summit/Workshop (National Defense Industrial Association), Reston VA, September 2009.
  4. Cem Kaner, “Approaches to test automation.” [SLIDES]. Research in Motion, Kitchener/Waterloo, September 2009.
  5. Cem Kaner, “Software Testing as a Quality-Improvement Activity” [SLIDES]. Lockheed Martin / IEEE Computer Society Webinar Series, September 2009.
  6. Rebecca L. Fiedler & Cem Kaner, “Putting the context in context-driven testing (an application of Cultural Historical Activity Theory)” [SLIDES]. Conference of the Association for Software Testing. Colorado Springs, CO., July 2009.
  7. Cem Kaner, “Metrics, qualitative measurement, and stakeholder value” [SLIDES]. Tutorial, Conference of the Association for Software Testing. Colorado Springs, CO., July 2009.
  8. Cem Kaner, “The value of checklists and the danger of scripts: What legal training suggests for testers.” [SLIDES]. Conference of the Association for Software Testing. Colorado Springs, CO., July 2009.
  9. Cem Kaner, “New rules adopted for software contracts.” [SLIDES]. Conference of the Association for Software Testing. Colorado Springs, CO., July 2009.
  10. Cem Kaner, “Activities in software testing education: a structure for mapping learning objectives to activity designs“. Software Testing Education Workshop (International Conference on Software Testing), Denver, CO, April 2009.
  11. Cem Kaner, “Plagiarism-detection software Clashing intellectual property rights and aggressive vendors yield dismaying results.” [SLIDES] [VIDEO]. Colloquium, Florida Institute of Technology, October 2009.
  12. Cem Kaner, “Thinking about the Software Testing Curriculum.” [SLIDES]. Workshop on Integrating Software Testing into Programming Courses, Florida International University, March 2009.
  13. Cem Kaner (initial draft), “Dimensions of Excellence in Research“. Department of Computer Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Spring 2009.
  14. Cem Kaner, “Patterns of activities, exercises and assignments.” [SLIDES]. Workshop on Teaching Software Testing, Melbourne FL, January 2009.
  15. Cem Kaner & Rebecca L. Fiedler, “Developing instructor-coached activities for hybrid and online courses.” [SLIDES]. Workshop at Inventions & Impact 2: Building Excellence in Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) Education, National Science Foundation / American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington DC, August 2008.
  16. Cem Kaner, Rebecca L. Fiedler, & Scott Barber, “Building a free courseware community around an online software testing curriculum.” [SLIDES]. Poster Session at Inventions & Impact 2: Building Excellence in Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) Education, National Science Foundation / American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington DC, August 2008.
  17. Cem Kaner, Rebecca L. Fiedler, & Scott Barber, “Building a free courseware community around an online software testing curriculum.” [SLIDES]. MERLOT conference, Minneapolis, August 2008.
  18. Cem Kaner, “Authentic assignments that foster student communication skills” [SLIDES], Teaching Communication Skills in the Software Engineering Curriculum: A Forum for Professionals and Educators (NSF Award #0722231), Miami University, Ohio, June 2008.
  19. Cem Kaner, “Comments on the August 31, 2007 Draft of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.” Submitted to the United States Election Assistance Commission, May 2008.
  20. Cem Kaner and Rebecca L. Fiedler, “A cautionary note on checking software engineering papers for plagiarism.”IEEE Transactions on Education, vol. 51, issue 2, 2008, pp. 184-188.
  21. Cem Kaner, “Software testing as a social science,” [SLIDES] STEP 2000 Workshop on Software Testing, Memphis, May 2008.
  22. Cem Kaner & Stephen J. Swenson, “Good enough V&V for simulations: Some possibly helpful thoughts from the law & ethics of commercial software.” [SLIDES] Simulation Interoperability Workshop, Providence, RI, April 2008.
  23. Cem Kaner, “Improve the power of your tests with risk-based test design.” [SLIDES] QAI QUEST Conference, Chicago, April 2008
  24. Cem Kaner, “Risk-based testing: Some basic concepts.” [SLIDES] QAI Managers Workshop, QUEST Conference, Chicago, April 2008
  25. Cem Kaner, “A tutorial in exploratory testing.” [SLIDES] QAI QUEST Conference, Chicago, April 2008
  26. Cem Kaner, “Adapting Academic Course Materials in Software Testing for Industrial Professional Development.” [SLIDES] Colloquium, Florida Institute of Technology, March 2008
  27. Cem Kaner, “BBST at AST: Adaptation of a course in black box software testing.” [SLIDES]. Workshop on Teaching Software Testing, Melbourne FL, January 2008.
  28. Cem Kaner, “BBST: Evolving a course in black box software testing.” [SLIDES] BBST Project Advisory Board Meeting, January 2008

2 Responses to “A few new articles”

  1. Ruby says:

    Great !!! very informative

  2. Brian Osman says:

    Thank you Professor – it was a wonderful Christmas gift 🙂