Software Quality Assurance in an Undergraduate Software Engineering Program

Abstract

Software tests are used by most organizations. However, many other software quality assurance practices are often neglected. Most developers are not aware of the high cost of inferior quality and its impact on the duration and budget of a project. At the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), software quality assurance (SQA) is taught in lecture format in the undergraduate software engineering curriculum. The SQA course covers the concepts of the business modeland the cost of quality, to convince students of the importance of putting in place adequate prevention and evaluation practices, both to reduce the number of defects and to predict the extra effort needed to correct defects introduced as the work progresses.The course includes a 10-week capstone project in which teams of 4 students apply the SQA practices taught inclass in a software development assignment. The students collect measures throughout the 10-week period, and the performance of each team is analyzed. This analysis allows discussion to take place on the positive impact of SQA practices as a way to deliver quality software on time and within budget.

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