Comparison Of ISO 829 And AS/NZS ISO/IEC 25062 Standards For Software Testing In An Essay.

Select and research one Australian and one international standard relating to software testing to ascertain the answers to the following questions. Be sure to check appendices in these documents as they can be very helpful. Your answers should illustrate a good understanding of the standard documents you select.

• What is the standard name?
• Who holds the copyright for the standard?
• Amongst the acknowledged contributors to the document, which universities were involved (if any)?
• What is the scope or intent of the standard?
• What are the key terms and understandings needed for the standard to be understood and applied?
• In your own words, what does the application of the standard result in? Or in other words, what does the standard do?

Overview of ISO 829 Software Documentation Standards

Almost every industry in the present time has been using software system for the accomplishment of the operational activities in much better and easy way. Evaluation of the developed software system is necessary in manner to identify how feasible could be the proposed system in regards with the organizational growth and development. Standard can be described as the methodology that can be established for the identification, implementation, analysis, process validation, and the quality metrics’ software (Henderson-Sellers et al., 2014). The following report will be discussing the two standards including “ISO 829 Software documentation standards,” and “AS/NZS ISO/IEC 25062:2006 Software engineering.” A comparison of these standards is also proposed in this report. There are also availability of the test management tools those could be utilized for evaluating the developed software system and it has been also discussed in this paper.

1. Standard name

“ISO 829 Software documentation standards”

2. Copyright for the standard

© 2008 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

3. Involved Universities

Middle East Technical University, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

4. Scope or intent of the standard

This standard will be covering software and systems being reused, maintained, operated, acquired, and/or developed (Gonzalez-Perez et al., 2016). The consideration of the systems are identified by this standard including the activities and the processes addressed while software correctness and system determination along with other attributes.

5. Key terms and understandings

Integrity level: The standard defines four integrity levels that can be helpful in describing the software-based system and software importance for the users.

Minimum testings tasks for every integrity level: It defines testing activities for the four integrity levels. It also prefers table of optional testing tasks.

System viewpoint: the minimum recommended testing tasks are included that alternatively contributes in responding to the systems.

Test Document Selection: the content topics and test documentation within all the documentation type and these should be chosen based on the integrity level tasks.

6. Application of the standard

It is helpful in determining whether the given activity’s development products conform the activity requirements and whether the software and/or system satisfies the application and use of the users. It includes verification, demonstration, analysis, inspection, and validation of the software-based and software system products (Ardis et al., 2015).

7. Specific relevance to software testing

It allows integrity levels ranging between high and low integrity that can be useful in determining the software-based system and software system’s importance. Minimum testing tasks have been recommended in every integrity level in association with the rigor and intensity to the testing tasks. Selection of test documentation is another better approach as a modification through introducing optional tasks.  

Overview of AS/NZS ISO/IEC 25062:2006 Software Engineering

1. Standard name

AS/NZS ISO/IEC 25062:2006 ISO/IEC 25062:2006 Software engineering—Software product Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE)—Common Industry Format (CIF) for usability test reports.

2. Copyright for the standard

© Standards Australia/Standards New Zealand

3. Involved Universities

Griffith University, the University of Queensland, University of Auckland; NZ, University of South Australia University of Technology; Sydney, Charles Sturt University, and La Trobe University.

4. Scope or intent of the standard

The scope of this standard can be described as to provide the supplier organizations, customer organization, and their usability professionals with the standard that can evaluate the software usability testing (Raulamo-Jurvanen, Kakkonen & Mäntylä, 2016). This standard can be described as the key factor for the prediction of the successful deployment of the software.

5. Key terms and understandings

Informative: the term is used within the proposed standard in manner to explain the definition of the annex to which the standard is being applied (O'Connor & Laporte, 2017). This annex has been for the purpose of guidance and information.

CIF (Common Industry Format): this format has been intended to be applicable by the usability professionals in manner to propose the results of the summative usability testing.

6. Application of the standard

This standard can be used for reducing the training time for the usability staff as only one individual is capable enough to understand the entire process (Matalonga, Rodrigues & Travassos, 2017). The communication between the purchasing organizations and the vendors can potentially be enhanced as the individual reading CIF-compliant report would be able to share the common expectations and language.

7. Specific relevance to software testing

The usability professional can use this standard for reporting the summative usability testing of the software in manner to analyse its feasibility. This standard can be helpful in facilitating usability’s incorporation as the division of the procurement decision-making process for the interactive software products.

Test Collab: it can be very easy to understand and much quick to set-up despite of being modern test management tool. Many of the organizations have believed in the test collab and in last seven years it has become very popular because of their QA process. It is offering the users with state-of-the-art integration in association with the test automation tools and bug trackers (Abrahamsson et al., 2017). Other than these specifications, it is also capable of offering agile methodology, time tracking, test planning, requirement management, and scheduling. The latest model launched in April 2018, introduced new intelligence reports that is helpful in mining all the execution and cases of the project in manner to produce trends for the manager and interesting sights (Ahmed et al., 2016). Along with the other reports, it is also capable of offering test suite heat map, burn down charts, and the test failure rate distribution.

Comparison of the Two Standards

XQual: It is capable of delivering the most complete or advanced test management solutions within a marginable price that can be helpful in allowing the users to manage not less than the bugs, campaigns, tests, specifications, risks, requirements, and releases. It is capable of driving any kind of test and it can be integrated with all the continuous integration platforms (Petersen, vakkalanka & Kuzniarz, 2015). In the present market, there are five different interfaces for the manual testing and approximately seventy connectors in manner to establish much effective and efficient automation frameworks including “Selenium, JMeter, QTP/UFT, Ranorex, JUnit, TestOptimal, TestComplete, TestPartner, NUnit, QF-Test,  Sahi, NeoLoad, Sikuli, RobotFramework, TestNg, SoapUi, Squish, and much more (Rojas et al., 2018).” It is also comprised of bug-tracking and internal requirement management module that can also be integrated with the third party bug – tracking and requirement tracking systems such as Mantis, ClearQuest, JIRA and others.

Following is the difference those can be helpful in allowing the user to select on eof the best approach and the differences have been gained after logging in both the test case management tools:

The Slant community ranked Test Collab at sixth position however, XQual has been listed in third rank that makes XQual to be more favourable for the users. XQual also offers free community edition for four users who can perform 400 tests. On the other hand, Test Collab has free plan for the users. Talking about the benefits of these tools, XQual can be helpful in providing fifty or more than fifty drivers to the interface including every automated tools those are available in the market (Fenton & Bieman, 2014). It also provides an SDK that can allow the user to develop one’s own for the instances, if the usability professional have the proprietary framework for the same instance. On the other side, Test Collab has the Bug tracker integration that provides the users with the facility of bi-directional integration that can be applicable for tracking the bugs. It also holds the test automation support that makes the evaluation faster and easy. Bi-directional integration is not available for other software evaluation system that makes it much favourable for the individuals who need bug free results and output. The XQual has innovative GUI (Graphical User Interface) that allows the users to use for the complete product in much easier and effective way (Amalfitano et al., 2015). Incorporating so much processes can be beneficial for the individuals however, it can also make the system messy and despite of these facts, the XQual’s GUI allows users to access it much efficient and easy way. The Test Collab can be either self-hosted or it can be hosted through SaaS that makes it flexible for the users allowing them to choose platform for hosting method. The users can opt for either the cloud server service or self-hosted plan in manner to evaluate the software being evaluated or tested (Piet et al., 2017). Test Collab supports the agile methodologies however, XQual does not support the agile methodologies in high precise manner. Test Collab also allows the reusability and versioning of the test cases. Talking about the disadvantages, it can be stated that XQual offers the integrations with the external systems in only way that led to the conclusion that the users can submit the bugs those could be tracked by the external system (Navarro, Yvard & Van Dillen, 2018). However, the changes in the external system itself will not fed back into the XQual. Test Collab on the other hand has also a disadvantage as it does not allows the user to develop custom reports.

Test Management Tools

The common approach between both the test case management tools is that they allow the users to effectively and easily evaluate the software and get to the precise and accurate results those could be further utilized in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the software being installed within the existing system of the organization.

Conclusion

The above report explained the two standards those must be considered while performing the software testing in the software engineering in manner to make sure that the testing being performed proposes feasible results. The two standards properties have been explained through answering few questions. A comparison between these two standards have been also proposed that describes the difference and the similarities between both the standards. The above analysis on the standards can be adhered while performing software testing in manner to make sure that the purpose of testing is covering all the required sector and the testing is being performed in an efficient and effective way. The second part was about the analysis on the test case management tools those are available in the present market allowing users to easily and effectively testing the software and proposing sophisticated outputs. The XQual can be recommended as the best test management tool in manner to evaluate the software.

References

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Amalfitano, D., Fasolino, A. R., Tramontana, P., Ta, B. D., & Memon, A. M. (2015). MobiGUITAR: Automated model-based testing of mobile apps. IEEE software, 32(5), 53-59.

Ardis, M. A., Budgen, D., Hislop, G. W., Offutt, J., Sebern, M. J., & Visser, W. (2015). SE 2014: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering. IEEE Computer, 48(11), 106-109.

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Fenton, N., & Bieman, J. (2014). Software metrics: a rigorous and practical approach. CRC press.

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O'Connor, R. V., & Laporte, C. Y. (2017). The evolution of the ISO/IEC 29110 set of standards and guides. International Journal of Information Technologies and Systems Approach (IJITSA), 10(1), 1-21.

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