National And International Standards For Software Testing

Response to Questions

Discuss about the National and International Standards for Software Testing.

The national and international standards of any product and service are considered important to assess their holistic safety, quality and reliability that is highly important for every buyer. Moreover, there are also some standards that are based on safety of people and these standards are related to road safety, toy safety and secure medical packaging etc. At government and regulators basis various new better regulations are being developed. Not only in other fields but also in IT field these standards are practiced by developers, testers and others who are related to this field. The purpose of making this report is to discuss about a national and international standard document for software testing. Here selected national standard document for software testing is about ANSI and international standard document is IEEE. I will discuss in detail about these standards for software testing in upcoming paragraphs.

In past years, there was no comprehensive set available for software testing standards. But now there are some useful standards for software testing. Among those national and international standards ANSI and IEEE for software testing are important to discuss here in this report. A software is a product for a buyer and before selling that product its overall testing is mandatory to do at testers and as well as at developers’ end. This testing must be done according to ANSI and IEEE standards. Before using these standards fundamental knowledge about them is necessary.

The national standards ANSI for software testing stands for American National Standards Institute. It is a primary industrial standards body in United States of America. ANSI circulates some software related standards in combination with the IEEE and ASQ (Standards.ieee.org, 2017).

On other side, international standards IEEE for software testing develops standards like Software Test Documentation, Software Unit Testing and Assurance for Software Quality. The full form of IEEE is Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Indiver, 2016).

The copyrights of ANSI standards hold by American National Standards Institute. But if I talk about ANSI Online standards then no portion of these standards is under ANSI Inc. These online materials have their own original copyright owner. On contrary, the copyrights of IEEE are managed by its Intellectual Property Rights Office i.e. IPR Office. This department is responsible for all IEEE related copyright matters, its policies and procedures. For getting any information regarding IEEE copyrights and policies, authors and publications have to contact to IPR Office (Softwaretestinghelp.com, 2017).

In case of ANSI acknowledge contributors the involved universities are Colorado State University, University of Wisconsin and Cornell University. On flip side, in IEEE acknowledge contributors, Cambridge University and Harvard University are involved (Ansi.org, 2017).

According to analysis about ANSI standards on software has wide scope that includes expansion up to recognition of Singapore Telecommunications Requirements. Moreover, due to ANSI standards duplication of testing of products have eliminated. On flip side, the scope of IEEE has been explored up to many areas such as Aerospace, Bioengineering, Computing & Processing, Robotics and Control Systems and Nuclear Engineering and others (Softwaretestingstandard.org, 2017). 

What is the standard name?

ANSI:

1. ANSI is a private and non-profit organization and it co-ordinates U.S voluntary standards.
2. The administration of development of U.S. standards and their approval is also done by ANSI.
3. It provides means for the U.S to put impact on development of regional and international standards (org, 2017).
4. The promotion of awareness of emerging strategic significance of some standard technologies in U.S global competitiveness is also done by ANSI standards.

IEEE

1. IEEE publishes scientific and technical literature. Moreover, it organizes conferences on appropriate technical and scientific matters (Tata, 2017).
2. The technical standards are also developed by this standards and currently 900 standards are available.
3. IEEE standards are able to identify the leaders of the profession.

If I talk about ANSI standards then the main goal of this standard is to increase global attractiveness of U.S Business and quality of life of U.S Business. It is done by promoting and simplifying voluntary standards and assessment systems. Moreover, safeguard of integrity is also considered in promotion of standards.

IEEE standards are dedicated to advanced technology for well-being of people. Its main purpose is to raise innovation at technological level. Besides this, this standard assess the excellence of products and services that is required by all potential customers.

If I talk about IEEE standards then there is no doubt to say that this standard is relevant for software testing. This standard specifies the form of a set of documents for eight stages of software testing and as well as for system testing. Different level of testing plans have defined by this IEEE standard such as Master Test Plan, Level Test Plan, Level Test Log and Anomaly Report etc. After completion of this whole testing process, software is considered to be error free (Ansi.org, 2017).

On other side, ANSI standard is also relevant for software testing because it sets an appropriate environment for software testing. This environment includes assessment and improvement of software processes, development of meaningful test plans and proper organization of testing efforts. Furthermore, automation of test processes is also supported by ANSI standards.

As I have selected two essential documents for national standards ANSI and international standards IEEE. Both documents consist of reliable information about how an efficient software testing can be implemented. Both documents have different sections that provide important information. After studying these documents I got to know several important aspects about ANSI and IEEE. Both standards are made to maintain the overall quality and efficiency of any product and service that is used by potential customers. As we know various frauds have conducted by hackers with software solutions and due to this heavy loss of information has faced by software users. To resolve this problem these software testing are developed that support all possible steps that should be implemented at testers’ end (Wilber, 2007).

There are some similarities among national standard ANSI document and international standard IEEE document. In both documents, national and international standards regarding software testing are defined appropriately. Following are some common factors among both documents.

Outline:

First of all, in papers introduction about both standards is given with their importance that why ANSI and IEEE are required. The historical data is also given about foundation of ANSI and IEEE standards. From these past records, it becomes easier to know about past efficiency of both standards (Ieee.org, 2017).

Key Functions:

This most important concept that I have seen in both documents is regarding key functions of standards that are important to know by its users. This is an essential information to understand both standards appropriately.

 Scope of Standards

From this segment of documents, I got to know about scope of both standards. IEEE has wider scope than ANSI standards. There is no such field is left where IEEE is standard is not used. Software testing is one of the key areas where ANSI and IEEE, both standards are followed.

Guidelines

Before start using ANSI and IEEE standards for software testing purpose, their guidelines are necessary to consider. In both documents, standards’ guidelines are mentioned properly and these are easy to understand (Pedersen, Karen, 2013).

Besides above discussed similarities among both standard documents, there are also some differences. The first difference is that in ANSI national standard document its principle activities are not mentioned. But in IEEE document, it is clearly defined that what principle activities are implemented by IEEE for handling software testing. In ANSI standard document, membership process of ANSI, accreditation services and international engagement regarding information is given. But in IEEE standard document this information is not mentioned. According IEEE standard document, there is requirement for testers who are able to dedicatedly improve their skills and also find new ways of testing. On other side, ANSI standards gives emphasize on this statement that a standard for software testing should be based on functional specifications and copyrighted source code is also required (Ieee.org, 2017). Furthermore, in IEEE standards document both new and old standards are defined clearly but in ANSI document it is not found. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, both software testing standard documents provide important information. The given essential aspects regarding software testing should be followed by developers and testers. These both standards and other standards like ISO are made for better security and integrity of software solutions. As we know that software testing is important to get a bug free software and by using ANSI and IEEE standards developers and testers can obtain better outcomes. These standards are also helpful for solving problem of software testing techniques. 

References

Tata, J. (2017). New Software Testing Standards - ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119. Evoke Technologies Blog. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://www.evoketechnologies.com/blog/new-software-testing-standards/  

Indiver, S. (2016). New Soft Computing Techniques in the Software Testing. International Journal Of Engineering And Computer Science. https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/ijecs/v5i12.64

Softwaretestinghelp.com. (2017). What is SEI? CMM? ISO? IEEE? ANSI standards? — Software Testing Help. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/what-is-sei-cmm-iso-ieee-ansi-will-it-help/

Softwaretestingstandard.org.(2017). ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 Software Testing Standard. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://www.softwaretestingstandard.org/29119petitionresponse.php

Ieee.org. (2017). IEEE IEEE Copyright Policy. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/copyrightpolicy.html

Ansi.org. (2017). ANSI Code of Ethics. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://www.ansi.org/publicstatements/codeofethics?menuid=1

Wilber, L. (2007). Standards News: Audiologists and ANSI Standards. Acoustics Today, 3(4), 30. https://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.2961160

Pedersen, Karen. (2013). Understanding IEEE. In-Service Workshop.

 Ansi.org. (2017). NIST Expands ANSI’s Scope as Accreditor of Telecommunications Certification Bodies to Include Singapore Requirements. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://www.ansi.org/news_publications/news_story?menuid=7&articleid=8f1dcf9f-d7c6-4908-bc15-5f7ed29b41ab

Ieee.org. (2017). IEEE IEEE Standards. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://www.ieee.org/standards/index.html

Bcs.org. (2017). Standards For Software Testing | The Tester | Specialist Group in Software Testing | Specialist Groups | Member groups | Membership | BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/12416

Standards.ieee.org. (2017). IEEE-SA - The IEEE Standards Association - Home. Retrieved 31 August 2017, from https://standards.ieee.org/