Project for Software Quality Management

Quality
The definition of quality can differ from situation to situation. It cannot be
considered to an absolute. It is not always possible to measure quality like any
other physical property. Some constraints of the quality need to compromised
over others.

Software Quality
Keeping in mind the above definition for quality, Software Quality can also be
defined in the same line. However, some may not be suitable as software is
abstract and not a physical entity. Software quality can be recognized as meeting
of expectations by conforming to it’s specification.

Software quality is considered as a standard criterion to define the features and

characteristics in it’s totality. Software systems which are sensitive in nature
cannot afford to have poor quality, as they may lead to loss of human life,
permanent injury, mission failure, or financial loss. So a benchmark should be
maintained for the quality of any product. A product which has high quality
elements in it is considered as a high quality product. These factors can be
mentioned while providing the SRS. It is recognized that models such as McCall's
Quality Model, Boehm's Quality Model, Dromey's Quality Model, FURPS
Quality Model, ISO 9126 Quality Model are still relevant in most of the cases
related to Software Quality Analysis.

After analysing the above mentioned software quality models containing a huge
number of features in details, it is a task in itself to pick the right quality model
for application.

The quality is measured subjectively judging on how a person answers the “yes”
and “no” questions in McCall’s quality model. The ISO 9126-1 quality model
consists of three of the features as a sub-category.

FURPS is a special-purpose quality model built to be extended and used in the

IBM Rational Software Company.
The connection between the metrics of lower levels of McCall’s, Boehm’s,
Doromey’s and FURPS quality models with the upper levels is neither defined
clearly nor completely.

The ISO 9126-1 has been the most successful model because it has been accepted
internationally based on the agreement from all member nations of the ISO
organization.

Predict the faults in open source software by deriving

thresholds of software metrics

The purpose of the object-oriented metrics is to highlight the quality of

source code and provides an understanding quantitatively. These metrics
individually evaluate from various different perspectives. There can be seen
a link between quality level and risk level of source code. The main objective
is to find out if the source code metrics have effective threshold. A
generalized threshold is to be derived which can be used for generalized
software systems. Around ten open source software systems were used to
study the link between metric thresholds and fault-proneness. Software
modules were defined by three types of fault proneness: non fault prone,
more than one fault prone and more than three fault prone. Two different
threshold values were derived after studying two independent cases. Ten
datasets were merged to form a single set which was by the model for
training. Bender method and logistic regression were used to create learner
model. This revealed that some metrics have threshold effects. First case
study where seven metrics were used produced satisfactory results. Second
case study produced eleven satisfactory results. This study is made to be used
primarily by software developers and testers. It contributes in improving the
quality and decreasing the risk level by informing the software developers
which classes and modules need revision. Modules that need to be tested
more times can be identified by the testers can they cab then prioritize the
modules based on their levels of risk.

Software Quality in the Age of Big Data, IoT and Smart

Cities

With tremendous development in the infrastructure to support technologies, the

complexity in building softwares has also increased. The degree at which the
requirements are conformed by a software can be seen as it’s quality too. The
global modernization with respect to smart cities, Big Data and Internet of
Things(IoT) have further influenced to bring radical changes in the software
systems scene to intensify the challenges in maintaining the quality. The data that
has been provided by IoT and many other sources are used to build the software
infrastructure of tomorrow. The data accuracy of big data is still a challenge,
which could cause faulty and inaccurate systems.

Software quality practices in Continuous Integration (CI)

Continuous Integration (CI) is a process that makes Software Development
Life Cycle (SDLC) more effective and efficient. The CI infrastructure helps in
improving the quality of the software through automation of the process. The
data which was collected through automation is then quantified by the
improvement team. The advantages of using the autonomous systems like
SDLC via CI process made us realize the benefits of CI based automation
systems for quality assurance purposes. This study was done in order to
improve the software quality by collecting data pertaining to Defect
Detection Effectiveness (DDE) and Defect Density(DD) metrics, which in
turn would help to gauge the advantages of automating the process until the
en d of (Computer Software Configuration Item) CSCI. The advantages are
stressed out quantitatively to highlight the work to be done in the future.

Relationship between source code quality and mobile

platform dependence

The dramatic rate at which the smartphones industry has grown has shed
new light over a new wave of technological evolution. This has led to the
creation of mobile software applications. Mobile applications highly depend
on APIs provided by the mobile platforms, which has been the reason for its
massive success(e.g. Android, iOS). Also it is noticed that high dependency
on the platform-specific APIs may cause defects and instability due to the
rapid evolution. Hence, software quality could be indicated by the extent of
it’s dependency on mobile platforms.

The development in the infrastructure for supporting the mobile market and
Internet has revolutionized the mobile software industry. As mobile
softwares evolve and become more complex, it allows developers to
implement the well-established quality checks from the desktop and web
development models. Mobile platforms do have their own specific
characteristics, and hence the models need to be accustomed to the mobile
environment.
It is important to realize that the user will not always know what he will need
as a whole, leaving a whole lot of features for the developers to suggest to
them. Some of those are considered as a set of non-functional requirements.
Success of an application depends a lot on a lengthy list of non-functional
features as well. Similar to the points mentioned earlier in this review report,
performance(best use of resources, improved responsiveness and scalable),
reliability(connectivity, stability and robustness), quality(usability,
installibility), and security are very relevant to most applications also. As
most of these topics are covered for web development, these are used as the
base for for understanding the requirements of mobile applications. The
mobile technologies have opened new doors for new kinds of network
dependencies like WiFi/WiMax, 3G/4G/5G. The way mobile technologies
deal with security, their responsiveness, fallback mechanisms, client-server
computation are different from the traditional methods used.

As the software development technologies evolve, with new coding languages

and new platforms coming into the mainstream at such a rapid rate, it is
inevitable that new quality standard also have to evolve with them. It opens
up new angles to test the quality of any softwares as we look into the future of
technology.

References:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957417416302366

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https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13042-018-0873-y

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-13705-2_21

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https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11219-014-9238-2

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-36632-1_4

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6526767
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6319241