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Analysis of Software Test Item Generation—— Comparison Between High Skilled and Low Skilled Engineers

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Abstract

Recent software system contain many functions to provide various services. According to this tendency, it is difficult to ensure software quality and to eliminate crucial faults by conventional software testing methods. So taking the effect of test engineer’s skill on test item generation into consideration, we propose a new test item generation method, which supports the generation of test items for illegal behavior of the system. The proposed method can generate test items based on use-case analysis, deviation analysis for legal behavior, and faults tree analysis for system fault situations. From the results of the experimental applications of our method, we confirmed that test items for illegal behavior of a system were effectively generated, and also the proposed method could effectively assist test item generation by an engineer with low-level skill.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering Center, TOSHIBA Corp., 212-8582 1, Komukai-Toshiba-cho, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki, Japan

    Masayuki Hirayama

  2. Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, 565-0871 1-5 Yamada-oka, Suita,Osaka, Japan

    Osamu Mizuno & Tohru Kikuno

Authors
  1. Masayuki Hirayama
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  2. Osamu Mizuno
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  3. Tohru Kikuno
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Masayuki Hirayama.

Additional information

Masayuki Hirayama received B.E. and M.E. degrees from Waseda University in 1984 and 1986, respectively. He also received the Ph.D. degree from Osaka University in 2003. He has been working at R&D center, Toshiba corporation since 1986. He is currently a senior research scientist in the Software Engineering Center at Toshiba Corporation. His research interests include the software validation and verification technique.

Osamu Mizuno received the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Osaka University in 1998 and 2001, respectively. He is currently an assistant professor in Graduate School of Information Science and Technology at Osaka University. His research interests include methodologies of software process improvement and risk evaluation and prediction in software development. He is also a member of IEEE.

Tohru Kikuno received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Osaka University in 1972 and 1975, respectively. He was with the Hiroshima University from 1975 to 1987. Since 1990, he has been a professor of the Department of Information and Computer Sciences at Osaka University. Since 2002, he has been a professor of Graduate School of Information Science and Technology at Osaka University. He also holds a director of Osaka University Nakanoshima Center from 2004. His research interests include the analysis and design of fault-tolerant systems, the quantitative evaluation of software development processes, and the design of procedures for testing communication protocols. He is a senior member of IEEE, a member of ACM, and a fellow of IPSJ. He received a Paper Award from IEICE in 1993.

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Hirayama, M., Mizuno, O. & Kikuno, T. Analysis of Software Test Item Generation—— Comparison Between High Skilled and Low Skilled Engineers. J Comput Sci Technol 20, 250–257 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-005-0250-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-005-0250-7

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