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Software Engingeering Testing FAQ

Archive-name: software-eng/testing-faq Posting-Frequency: semi-monthly
Last-modified: 1999/3/10
Version: $Revision: 1.68 $
Maintainer: cst-faq@hueco.rsn.hp.com
URL:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/software-eng/testing-faq/
http://www.rstcorp.com/c.s.t.faq.html

This is the Frequently Asked Questions list for comp.software.testing. This FAQ is posted twice a month, and is cross-posted to comp.software-eng. If your site is set up properly, you should always be able to find the latest version in news.answers or comp.answers. A context diff showing recent changes will usually be posted to comp.software.testing.

The latest version of this FAQ may be retrieved using Usenet, the World Wide Web, ftp, email, gopher, or even telnet. See the FAQ "Introduction to the *.answers newsgroups" in news.announce.newusers or ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/news-answers/introduction for details. Please check the date above - if this file is more than a month old, it is obsolete. The main ftp site for the FAQ is ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/software-eng/testing-faq. The folks at RST sponsor a web site for the FAQ, at http://www.rstcorp.com/c.s.t.faq.html. The FAQ is still under construction (and like most FAQs, it always will be). I'm maintaining this FAQ to collect a consensus from the comp.software.testing community, so it depends on your feedback for it to take shape. Please don't hesitate to send corrections, additions, and other comments to cst-faq@hueco.rsn.hp.com.

Herein, unless otherwise stated, "I" refers to Danny Faught. This file is Copyright 1997-1999 by Danny Faught. Permission is granted to distribute this file unedited and in its entirety, provided the "Date" header is no more than one month earlier than the date of distribution. This information is provided without any express or implied warranty.

Subject: 1. Table of Contents
  1. Table of Contents
  2. Change Log
  3. What is this newsgroup about?
  4. What other FAQs are relevant?
  5. What other resources are available?
  6. World Wide Web resources
  7. Netiquette
  8. What's the difference between QA and testing?
  9. I'm looking for a test tool...
  10. Beta testing
  11. How do I find information about testing object-oriented programs?
  12. How do I test web-related applications?
  13. What is black box/white box testing?
  14. Should we discuss bug tracking tools in this newsgroup?
  15. What kind of salary should a tester make?
  16. Where can I find sample test plans?
  17. What is the best tester to developer ratio?
  18. Conferences
  19. Periodicals
  20. Books
  21. Bibliographic resources
  22. Organizations
  23. Contributors
Subject: 2. Change Log

This section will highlight notable additions, deletions, and changes to the FAQ.

Changed in version 1.69:

Changed in version 1.68:

Changed in version 1.67:

Subject: 3. What is this newsgroup about?

If you're new to Usenet, please read through the FAQs in news.announce.newusers and hang out in news.newusers.questions for a while before you consider posting.

If you do not know how to subscribe to comp.software.testing, you first need to get Usenet access from an Internet service provider or your company, and you need newsreader software. Different service providers support different newsreaders, so there is no general answer. Ask your service provider or local system administrator to help. If all else fails, use a web browser to access Usenet at http://www.dejanews.com.

The original charter for comp.software.testing can be found at http://tsunami.jpl.nasa.gov/TEL/docs/cst-charter.html. Here's an excerpt (with corrections):

CONTENTS:

For the purpose of this discussion, we will assume that a system is composed of hardware, software, people, and procedures. The proposed group should be chartered to include discussions characterized by the following list of subjects, compiled from preliminary discussions:

All levels of testing for both hardware and software should be considered appropriate subject matter. While it is likely that the group will take on a software flavor early on, we should try to generate interest and input from people with hardware and system testing experience and perspective. It is especially important that we foster discussion of *system* level testing issues, since this is the weakest area of our collective knowledge.

An effort is underway to experiment with some improvements to comp.software.testing, based on recommendations from the cst-improvemailing list. The experiment will conclude on May 10, 1999. Subject tags have been added to the Netiquette section of the FAQ and the FAQ pointer, and volunteers will help spread the word about using them. We'd also like to send a FAQ pointer to new newsgroup participants, but we need someone to volunteer to help set it up.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 4. What other FAQs are relevant? Brian Marick maintains the following FAQs:

These FAQs are also available at http://www.rstcorp.com/marick/. Please consult the appropriate FAQ before asking questions about the information already contained therein. The Testing Tool Suppliers List also contains a nice list of the available software test tools. If you see anything that needs to be changed or added to these FAQs, please contact Brian Marick at marick@rstcorp.com so that they may continue to be useful to everyone.

Since software testing is a subdiscipline of software engineering, you will probably find the FAQs posted to comp.software-eng useful. They can be found at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.software-eng/ or http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/Software-Engineering/

The Problem Management Tools (bug tracking) FAQ is posted to comp.software.config-mgmt, and is also available on news.answers and the rtfm archives. The URL is http://www.iac.honeywell.com/Pub/Tech/CM/index.html

Rick Hower maintains the "Software QA/Test Resource Center" at http://www.charm.net/~dmg/qatest. It covers a broad range of questions about software testing.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 5. What other resources are available?

The public comp.software.testing archives and mailing list gateway are no longer available. Contact the FAQ maintainer for information on the historical archives.

As an alternative, go to the Deja News "Browse Groups" section at http://www.dejanews.com/home_bg.shtml. Comp.software.testing articles are archived back to March, 1995. The cst-improve mailing list has been set up to faciliate process improvement for the comp.software.testing newsgroup. Send "info cst-improve" in the body of a message to cst-improve-request@hueco.rsn.hp.com for information. You can also view the complete archive at http://www.six.net/~rrivest/cst-improve/index.html.

Danny Faught and Mark Wiley maintain the swtest-discuss mailing list, originally for OS testing discussions but now covering the gamut of test implementation. Mail swtest-discuss-digest-request@rsn.hp.com with "subscribe" in the body of the message to subscribe. Send "unsubscribe" to unsubscribe.

There is an ISO 9000 mailing list. Mail to Listserv@VM1.nodak.edu with "subscribe iso9000 (your name)" in the body of the message, or "Signoff iso9000" to unsubscribe. Human contact: listoper@listserv.nodak.edu

There is also a list devoted specifically to ISO 9000-3. To join, send mail to majordomo@quality.org with "subscribe iso9000-3" in the body of the message. Send "unsubscribe iso9000-3" to leave the list. There's also an iso9000-3-digest list to get the same information in digest format. Human contact: majordomo-owner@quality.org

There is a mailing list for Microsoft Visual Test. To join, mail to mt_info-request@eskimo.com or mt_info-digest- request@eskimo.com with "subscribe" in the subject line. Human contact: mt_info-request@eskimo.com (start the subject with "Re:"). See also <http://www.stlabs.com/testnet/docs/mst.htm#List_serv>. You can also read the microsoft.public.visualtest newsgroup from the msnews.microsoft.com news server.

Segue Software sponsors the QAPUSER mailing list for QA Partner. To join, send "subscribe QAPUSER " in the body of a mail message to listproc@segue.com. Send "unsubscribe QAPUSER" to unsubscribe. The list uses a digest format.

To join the ADL (Assertion Definition Language) mailing list - xopubadl - send your name, affiliation, and e-mail address to postmaster@opengroup.org. Use the same address to unsubscribe.

There is a mailing list for users of SQA, Inc.'s SQA Suite. See http://www3.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=sqa-suite-users for subscription instructions. For help, contact postmaster@sugaree.dundee.net.

The sw-rel mailing list is dedicated promoting the development and application of the technology of Software Reliability Engineering. To subscribe, send "subscribe" in the body of a message to sw-rel@computer.org. Send "unsubscribe" to unsubscribe.

The TET Workshop mailing list (tetworks) discusses announcements and issues with the Test Environment Toolkit. To subscribe, send "subscribe" in the subject of a message to tetworks-request@opengroup.org. Send "unsubscribe" in the subject to unsubscribe. To reach a human, use the same address and start the subject with "Re:".

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 6. World Wide Web resources

Here are a few web sites that each try to connect you to much of the software testing and quality information that is available on the web.

The RST Software Assurance Hotlist

STORM (Software Testing Online Resources/MTSU)

SR/Institute's Software Quality Hotlist

Kerry Zallar's software testing page

Quality World (formerly QA Dude)

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 7. Netiquette

Did I mention that you should read the FAQs in news.announce.newusers if you haven't done so lately? Also, you can reduce the chances of embarrassing yourself by reading comp.software.testing for a while before posting. At the very least, scan all the articles in the group currently on your server to make sure your question hasn't already been asked and answered.

Please help the newsgroup's participants find articles in the categories they're interested in. If your posting falls into the categories below, please put the three-letter tag at the beginning of your subject line. This will also increase the likelihood that those wanting to read your post will find it. For example, your subject line might read - "Subject: ADV: Widget Tester 6.0 released".

Job postings must have a subject line that starts with "JOB:", exactly as shown, for example:
"Subject: JOB: need an experienced foo tester"

Job postings that are cross-posted to the various job-related newsgroups should not be posted to comp.software.testing, since the subject conventions for those groups do not allow them to be easily identified as job postings, and the misc.jobs FAQ specifies that job postings should not be cross-posted between the job-related newsgroups and non job-related newsgroups.

Some recruiters refuse to follow the job posting policy. If you don't want to read job postings, I recommend using a kill file to systematically kill articles from these recruiters.

Many questions about a particular test tool only interest those readers who use that tool. Please make sure to put the name of the test tool in the subject line so readers can select the articles they read by looking at the subject. In general, please use a descriptive subject line.

If you post an article and later decide you shouldn't have posted it, please cancel it. It is much better to correct the problem than to send *another* post to apologize for the first one. Situations where this would be appropriate include posting empty articles, multiple copies of the same article, and any goof where you'd like to correct something you posted shortly after it was sent. Look in your newsreader documentation for help with cancelling an article; some also have a "supercede" feature which makes it easy to correct a posting.

While the cancel feature has been common for quite some time, some newer newsreaders unfortunately do not offer it. If this is the case, complain to the author, and consider using a more reasonable newsreader. Here's a manual method to cancel an article - start to follow up to the errant posting. Change the subject to "cmsg cancel <message-id%gt;", where message-id is taken from the References: header or the attribution. The body of the message is not important. Post it, and the news system should interpret it as a cancel request rather than a real posting. You can only do this for an article you posted yourself.

People have also expressed concern about postings that are totally off-topic. These postings are typically "spam" postings that go to most of the thousands of newsgroups that exist. There is very little that an unmoderated group can do proactively to prevent them. See news.admin.net-abuse.usenet and http://www.tezcat.com/~gbyshenk/ive.been.spammed.html for more information.

Please don't post test messages to comp.software.testing. This group is for discussing software testing, not for testing your news software. If you want several automatic confirmations that your post worked, post a test message to misc.test. There are other test groups at various levels of the news hierarchy that all end in ".test". It's best to try a local one first.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 8. What's the difference between QA and testing?

Sharon Codrington asks:

And Bret Pettichord answers:

Don Mills writes:

Rick Hower addresses this question at: http://www.charm.net/~dmg/qatest/qatfaq1.html

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 9. I'm looking for a test tool...

Did you read the Testing Tool Suppliers FAQ at http://www.rstcorp.com/marick/? It has a list of many of the available tools, plus a list of the commercial tools listings. While every question about test tools isn't answered there, it's a good start, and it'll at least allow you to ask a more directed question if you do post a question about test tools.

When you do post a tools question, you should expect a few "check out my company's tool" responses from a few vendors. This rarely gives you any more information than is available in the tools FAQ, and which vendors respond at any given time varies widely. Often you'll find a vendor trying to drum up interest by posting the same thing in response to every current article that mentions tools. Keep in mind that your choices are much broader than those that happen to get posted.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 10. Beta testing

Discussions about managing a beta test program are within the scope of this newsgroup. However, companies looking for beta testers, and aspiring beta testers looking for something to test, should go to comp.sources.testers instead. A possible exception is test tool vendors looking for beta testers.

If you are looking for a career in software testing, comp.software.testing will welcome you. Just don't call it "beta testing". Beta testing is typically conducted by end users of a software product who are not paid a salary for their efforts.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 11. How do I find information about testing object-oriented programs?

Information provided by Brian Marick:

Books that include some discussion of testing OO programs:

There are a vast number of articles about testing OO programs. I suggest starting with the September 1994 Communications of the ACM, which is devoted to this topic. Chase references. The February 1996 issue of Object has a piece on system testing with use cases.

Conferences like STAR and Quality Week and Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference seem to always have papers on this topic. I suggest going to a conference and buttonholing people.

Web sites with discussion:

Three courses on testing object-oriented code (one by Robert Binder, one by Ed Berard, and one by Reliable Software Technologies) are described in the Testing Courses FAQ. Also, a new addition is an offering from Software Quality Engineering.

Bob Binder says:

My approach to oo testing is called FREE (Flattened Regular Expressions) -- see http://www.rbsc.com/pages/FREE.html

You might also find the oo testing biblography of interest.
http://www.rbsc.com/pages/ootbib.html

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 12. How do I test web-related applications?

Rick Hower maintains a web page which includes a nice list of web testing tools, and some guidelines for testing web sites. http://www.charm.net/~dmg/qatest/qatweb1.html. Please contact him at rhower@netcom.com if you can offer additions or corrections to the list.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 13. What is black box/white box testing?

Black-box and white-box are test design methods. Black-box test design treats the system as a "black-box", so it doesn't explicitly use knowledge of the internal structure. Black-box test design is usually described as focusing on testing functional requirements. Synonyms for black-box include: behavioral, functional, opaque-box, and closed-box. White-box test design allows one to peek inside the "box", and it focuses specifically on using internal knowledge of the software to guide the selection of test data. Synonyms for white-box include: structural, glass-box and clear-box.

While black-box and white-box are terms that are still in popular use, many people prefer the terms "behavioral" and "structural". Behavioral test design is slightly different from black-box test design because the use of internal knowledge isn't strictly forbidden, but it's still discouraged. In practice, it hasn't proven useful to use a single test design method. One has to use a mixture of different methods so that they aren't hindered by the limitations of a particular one. Some call this "gray-box" or "translucent-box" test design, but others wish we'd stop talking about boxes altogether.

It is important to understand that these methods are used during the test design phase, and their influence is hard to see in the tests once they're implemented. Note that any level of testing (unit testing, system testing, etc.) can use any test design methods. Unit testing is usually associated with structural test design, but this is because testers usually don't have well-defined requirements at the unit level to validate.

Definitions of these terms can be found in these references:
Beizer, Black Box Testing, p. 8.
Beizer, Software Testing Techniques, pp. 10-11.
Daich, et al., STSC Software Test Technologies Report, pp. 198, 206.
Kaner, et al.,Testing Computer Software, Second Edition, pp. 41-43.
Mosley, The Handbook of MIS Application Software Testing, pp. 68-76.
Myers, The Art of Software Testing, pp. 8-11.
Wilson, Unix Test Tools and Benchmarks, pp. 298, 306

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 14. Should we discuss bugtracking tools in this newsgroup?

Discussing bug tracking tools is not within the original charter of comp.software.testing. The comp.software.config-mgmt newsgroup seems to have taken this topic under its wing. That group has a FAQ for problem management tools. See the "What other FAQs are relevant?" section for details.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 15. What kind of salary should a tester make?

Salary information is available at http://www.pencom.com/industry.html and http://www.computerjobs.com/salary_survey_search.cf. A nice summary of the various surveys that are available is at http://www.ondaweb.com/sti/salary.htm

John Tyson writes:

John also encourages testing consultants to report their rates at Janet Ruhl's Computer Consultant's Resource Page - http://www.realrates.com

Jennifer Larsen writes:

Danny Faught writes:

Mark McWhinney writes:

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 16. Where can I find sample test plans? (under construction)

See the following IEEE standards:

You can contact the IEEE in the US at 800-678-4333. Also, Requisite (800-732-4047) sells a Standards Pack with Microsoft Word Templates for 829, 830, and 1012 (part number 3100-05879). The Software Productivity Center (http://www.spc.ca, 604-662-8181) sells Word templates, including a test plan standard and a test plan template.

Several people recommend Kaner's book, _Testing Computer Software_, for test plan samples. Also look for the MIL-STD-498 Data Item Descriptions under http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil; the standard in PDF format is at http://diamond.spawar.navy.mil/498/mil-498.html. You'll find the ETET test plan in ftp://ftp.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pub/etet/etet1.10.3.tar.Z under the path "doc/testplan". See http://www.acomtech.com/act/testplan.html for an adaptation of IEEE 829. And visit http://members.tripod.com/~bazman/frame.html for a sample system test plan.

Information in this section was gleaned from posts by: Burt Gearhart, Wayne Woodruff, Brent Parsons, Castor Fu, Michele Mercer, Barry Dorgan, and others.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 17. What is the best tester to developer ratio?

Reported tester:developer ratios range from 10:1 to 1:10.

Jeremy L. Mordkoff writes:

There's no simple answer. It depends on so many things, I can't even list them all. Amount of reused code, number and type of interfaces, platform, quality goals, etc.

It also can depend on the development model. The more specs, the less testers. The roles can play a big part also. Does QA own beta? Do you include process auditors or planning activities?

Boris Beizer adds:

These figures can all vary very widely depending on how you define "tester" and "developer". In some organizations, a "tester" is anyone who happens to be testing software at the time -- such as their own. In other organizations, a "tester" is only a member of an independent test group.

It is far, far, better to ask about the test labor content than it is to ask about the tester/developer ratio. The test labor content, across most applications is generally accepted as 50%, when people do honest accounting. For life-critical software, this can go up to 80%.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 18. Conferences

Opinions in this section are by Boris Beizer.

All of these conferences have published proceedings. Generally, materials presented at these conferences and in their proceedings lead the publication in regular journals (above) by about 2-3 years.

There are about a dozen other annual conferences with a substantial testing content: Korea, Japan, Germany, to name a few. In addition, there are about two-dozen "conferences", privately sponsored by various individuals and organizations. These are not real conferences in that there is no formal review process. Speakers are invited by the conference organizer. Often, a heavy tutorial content. These are usually small ( under 100 participants, very few vendors). They range, depending on the organizer, from superb to fair-value, to outright rip-off. Sorry. I won't play 20 questions on this one.

(end of Beizer's comments)

Also of note:

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 19. Periodicals

Comments in this section are by Boris Beizer

(end of Beizer's comments)

The American Society for Quality has begun publication of Software Quality Professional. This journal will span the body of knowledge for the Certified Software Quality Engineer. <http://www.asq.org/products/journals/sqptoc.html>

Commercial newsletters - the newsletters below are available for free to potential customers and some provide very good technical content.

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Subject: 20. Books

The book list has grown quite large, to the point that it's hard to decide which ones to start with. Based on votes from comp.software.testing readers in answer to the question "What books should every software tester read?", the following books were suggested most often, with the number of votes in parentheses:

If you haven't added your votes to the list, please send email to faught@rsn.hp.com. You may vote for more than one. The votes will be maintained and the list will be periodically adjusted as necessary. Please note that this ranking is not based on a statistically significant sample

Below is a book list originally based on one posted by Scott Killops quite a while ago. See http://sqe.com/single/single.htm for Software Quality Engineering's SingleSource guide, which has a list of recommended books and useful summaries. See the misc.technical.books FAQ ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/books/technical for contact information for technical book publishers. comp.software.testing readers have recommended Reiter's Scientific and Professional Books and the Computer Literacy Book Shop.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 21. Bibliographic resources

Comments by Boris Beizer.

Return to the Table of Contents.

Subject: 22. Organizations The organizations below are devoted to software testing or quality, or have special interest groups with such a focus. National and International organziations are listed first, followed by local organizations.

National/International

American Society for Quality
611 E. Wisconsin Ave.
P.O. Box 3005
Milwaukee, WI 53201-3005
800-248-1946, 414-272-8575
http://www.asq.org

The ASQ (formerly ASQC) administers the CQE (Certified Quality Engineer) designation. Also, the software division of the ASQ is developing the CSQE designation which is specific to software quality.

The ASQ press has many titles that may be of interest to software testers. Stolen from a conference announcement:

Founded in 1946, the American Society for Quality (ASQ) provides a variety of professional, educational, and informational programs reflecting the changing needs of business and industry. Headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, ASQ has been the leading quality improvement organization in the United States for almost 50 years. The Society is composed of more than 135,000 individual members and 1,000 sustaining members worldwide. ASQ's vision is to be the world's recognized champion and leading authority on all issues related to quality. The mission of ASQ is to facilitate continuous improvement and increased customer satisfaction by identifying, communicating, and promoting the use of quality principles, concepts, and technologies.

ASQ's Software Division

ASQ's Software Division is comprised of [sic] more than 5,000 members including software quality professionals and software engineers interested in applying quality principles to the field of software development. The Division develops a software engineer certification program, publishes a quarterly newsletter, works with the Software Quality System Registration Committee on establishing an ISO 9000 Software Registration Program in the United States, interacts with other professional software organizations such as the IEEE and the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), and is involved in many other activities.

<http://www.asq.org/about/divtech/softdiv/swqweb.html>

October is National Quality Month (in the U.S.), as decreed by Ronald Reagan in 1984. The ASQ sponsors the National Quality Forum during this month. Many local sections set up local events that receive a live broadcast from the Forum.

Quality Assurance Institute
7575 Dr. Phillips Blvd., Suite 350
Orlando Florida 32819
Phone: 407-363-1111
Fax: 407-363-1112
http://www.qaiusa.com/

The QAI publishes The Journal of the Quality Assurance Institute monthly.

They provide CQA certification. Steve Driscoll wrote:

The CQA is someone who has demonstrated a mastery of the Common Body of Knowledge(CBOK) for ensuring the quality of systems (which often include software). While ISO-9000 is considered part of the CBOK, it's actually independent of the CQA designation (there is a certification program for ISO auditors). ... while my life is still pretty much the same as it was prior to obtaining the CQA designation, I found that the reading and studying to prepare for the exam extremely beneficial in my duties as a Quality Analyst. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in producing quality software (which includes developers as well as quality analysts).

Society for Software Quality
Vision - To be recognized as the Society for those interested in promoting "quality" as a universal goal for software.

Mission - Promote "quality" as a desirable attribute of software.

PO Box 86958
San Diego, CA 92138-6958
619-297-1544
http://www.ssq.org

Software Process Improvement Network
The Software Process Improvement Network is comprised of individuals who want to improve software engineering practice. The individuals are organized into regional groups called "SPINS" that meet and share their experiences initiating and sustaining software process improvement programs. They meet annually at the SEPG (Software Engineering Process Group) Conference, which is co-sponsored by the SEI and a regional SPIN. (from the web page) http://www.sei.cmu.edu/collaborating/spins/spins.html

Association for Software Testing Australia.
ASTA means Association for Software Testing Australia and is a Special Interest Group within the Australian Computer Society. It is a non-profit organisation, and you don't HAVE to be a member in ACS to be able to join ASTA. (from Sigrid Eldh)

http://www.acs.org.au>, phone (02) 9299 3666, Membership Services Manager is Mr. Bob Hobart, arthurd@acslink.net.au.

British Computer Society, Software Testing BCS Specialist Group
The Group has a number of full-day meetings per annum and is host to the international conference on software testing - EuroSTAR. It is producing a standard on component testing and has a sub-group on Statistical Testing Methods. A full library of testing-related material is available at meetings.
It promotes awareness of testing, competence in the field, and encourages research.(from the web page). http://ww.bcs.org.uk/siggroup/sw55.htm.

Chinese Association for Software Quality (CASQ)
This association is formed to share information and experiences amongst its members and people on software quality engineering.

http://www.casq.org

casq@newcastle.ac.uk

Swedish Association for Software Testing (SAST) SAST is a non-profit organisation with members from all different companies that are interested in Software Testing within Sweden.

The purpose of SAST to improve status of Software Testers and Software Testing, through informal education and exchange of information. Since this is a Swedish organization most activities are in Swedish. If you are interested you are welcome to contact Lise-Lotte Karlsson Boman (lise-lotte.karlsson-boman@posten.se) or Jan Warg (jan@warg.se).

http://public-www.pi.se/~sast

Local organizations

Most of the organizations above sponsor local organizations. Contact them to find local organizations near you. In this section I'll list local organizations that don't appear to have a national affiliation.

The Software Quality Institute At UT

(stolen from a conference announcement) The Software Quality Institute (SQI) at The University of Texas at Austin is a multidisciplinary partnership between UT-Austin and the software and information systems industries in Texas. It is recognized as a leading authority on and champion for software quality. SQI was founded in 1993 for the purpose of strengthening organizations to compete more successfully in global markets through sponsorship of seminars and conferences. An advisory group of 24 industry and academic representatives guides the Institute. Its popular programs include: a 13 week long Software Project Management Certificate Program, one- and two-day seminars offered to the public and as in-company contract courses, our "Software Quality Matters" quarterly newsletter that addresses issues of concern relative to quality issues, sponsorship of monthly forums for discussion of software issues (including the Software Process Improvement Network (A-SPIN), the Austin Software Executives' Group (ASEG), and the Austin Forum for Object-Oriented Technology (AFOOT), and on-line services which include a Worldwide Web Home Page and topical newsgroups.

The web page is http://www.utexas.edu/coe/sqi/. The newsgroups seem to be reachable only at UT. For information on newsletter subscriptions, contact info@sqi.utexas.edu.

Central Ohio Quality Assurance Association

Mission Statement: To provide and promote continuous quality improvement information to software organizations in our communities. COQAA is organized to share state-of-the-art quality assurance methods, tools, and techniques among its members.

P.O. Box 14191, Columbus, Ohio 43214-0191 contact: Jerry Fehribach, 614-447-3600, jfehribach@cas.org, http://www.coqaa.org

Australian Software Quality Research Institute
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
http://www-sqi.cit.gu.edu.au/

Triangle Information Systems Quality Association (North Carolina)
contacts - Dennis Brandel 72652.1146@compuserve.com
David Wood DAVDWOOD@VNET.IBM.COM

Triangle Quality Council (North Carolina)
"A membership organization that fosters the understanding and implementation of quality management principles. It is a non-profit organization affiliated with N.C. Quality Leadership Foundation and Triangle Area Chambers of Commerce" (paraphrased from Laura Rose)

Mission: To promote quality management principles and practices through networking, experience sharing and education - providing a complete and diversified quality management resource for the Greater Triangle Area.

contact - Margaret O'Brien obrien@ies.ncsu.edu

North Carolina Quality Leadership Foundation
800-207-5685

New England Software Quality Assurance Forum (NESQAF)
Monthly meetings in Cambridge, MA. contact - Jill Hanson (jhanson@sqp.com, 617-272-7393)

New England Software Quality Assurance Forum (NESQAF) Contact: Alan Titelbaum, alan.titelbaum@tfn.com, 617-856-2467. NESQAF is a regional non-profit society created by software quality professionals for software quality professionals. Each month, professionals from software companies and MIS organizations, along with other industry experts, exchange ideas, principles, and experiences on the latest quality assurance techniques and technologies. An email distribution list is available.

Software Testing Institute
Offers industry research, surveys, publications, online services and seminars to software development and testing professionals. A list of software testing product vendors, including web site and e-mail links, is available from our web site:

http://www.ondaweb.com/sti

contact - Susan Archer, Director (sarcher@metronet.com) 726 Loganwood Ave., Richardson, TX 75080, 972-680-8507, FAX 972-680-8905

Center for Software Reliability
The Center for Software Reliability (CSR) is a research center within the Department of Computing Science at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne; it conducts research on how to achieve improved levels of dependability from computing systems.
csr@newcastle.ac.uk
http://www.csr.ncl.ac.uk

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Subject: 23. Contributors

My thanks to the people who have contributed to the FAQ in various ways, including the new team of assistant FAQ maintainers - Raymond Rivest, Chris Petrov, and Richard de Graaf. Email addresses for some of those mentioned herein are listed below.

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