Software Quality Assurance and Software Testing

Panagiotis Kapasakalidis

Professor Dennis Anderson

CS 881

6 September 2011

Software Quality Assurance and Software Testing

This paper will expose the role of Software Quality Assurance (SQA) during the software development life cycle and how it can improve the quality of the end product. The services of SQA will be exposed together with the artifacts created from the software testing process. Some of these artifacts are the Test Plan, the Traceability Matrix, and the Test Case. Moreover, the paper will illustrate some of the different methods and types of software testing and which is the purpose of each one during the development life cycle. The testing methods that will be presented are Unit testing, Integration testing, the System testing, and Acceptance testing. Finally, the paper will conclude with the application of SQA at Partners HealthCare organization and the types of testing used during the software development for clinical applications. The research paper will follow the MLA style.

Introduction

With the rapid evolution of technology, people are increasingly relying on software applications and systems to perform their daily activities, make decisions, and satisfy their need for communication. Organizations all around the world use various software systems to streamline their processes in order to offer their products and services in an efficient and effective manner to their stakeholders. However, there are several times that these software applications and systems have some kind of defect which might lead to a deviation from their normal operation. This deviation can range from a minor loss of information to a more critical system termination. Such a defect in a mobile application might result in user’s dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, a defect in a more critical system at a nuclear station or in an airplane navigation system might cause the loss of people’s life. The reasons these defects exist in software are many, but most of them are...