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  • Review
    Citation - WoS: 59
    Citation - Scopus: 78
    Web Application Testing: a Systematic Literature Review
    (Elsevier Science inc, 2014) Dogan, Serdar; Betin-Can, Aysu; Garousi, Vahid
    Context: The web has had a significant impact on all aspects of our society. As our society relies more and more on the web, the dependability of web applications has become increasingly important. To make these applications more dependable, for the past decade researchers have proposed various techniques for testing web-based software applications. Our literature search for related studies retrieved 193 papers in the area of web application testing, which have appeared between 2000 and 2013. Objective: As this research area matures and the number of related papers increases, it is important to systematically identify, analyze, and classify the publications and provide an overview of the trends and empirical evidence in this specialized field. Methods: We systematically review the body of knowledge related to functional testing of web application through a systematic literature review (SLR) study. This SLR is a follow-up and complimentary study to a recent systematic mapping (SM) study that we conducted in this area. As part of this study, we pose three sets of research questions, define selection and exclusion criteria, and synthesize the empirical evidence in this area. Results: Our pool of studies includes a set of 95 papers (from the 193 retrieved papers) published in the area of web application testing between 2000 and 2013. The data extracted during our SLR study is available through a publicly-accessible online repository. Among our results are the followings: (1) the list of test tools in this area and their capabilities, (2) the types of test models and fault models proposed in this domain, (3) the way the empirical studies in this area have been designed and reported, and (4) the state of empirical evidence and industrial relevance. Conclusion: We discuss the emerging trends in web application testing, and discuss the implications for researchers and practitioners in this area. The results of our SLR can help researchers to obtain an overview of existing web application testing approaches, fault models, tools, metrics and empirical evidence, and subsequently identify areas in the field that require more attention from the research community. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 114
    Citation - Scopus: 143
    Smells in Software Test Code: a Survey of Knowledge in Industry and Academia
    (Elsevier Science inc, 2018) Garousi, Vahid; Kucuk, Baris
    As a type of anti-pattern, test smells are defined as poorly designed tests and their presence may negatively affect the quality of test suites and production code. Test smells are the subject of active discussions among practitioners and researchers, and various guidelines to handle smells are constantly offered for smell prevention, smell detection, and smell correction. Since there is a vast grey literature as well as a large body of research studies in this domain, it is not practical for practitioners and researchers to locate and synthesize such a large literature. Motivated by the above need and to find out what we, as the community, know about smells in test code, we conducted a 'multivocal' literature mapping (classification) on both the scientific literature and also practitioners' grey literature. By surveying all the sources on test smells in both industry (120 sources) and academia (46 sources), 166 sources in total, our review presents the largest catalogue of test smells, along with the summary of guidelines/techniques and the tools to deal with those smells. This article aims to benefit the readers (both practitioners and researchers) by serving as an "index" to the vast body of knowledge in this important area, and by helping them develop high-quality test scripts, and minimize occurrences of test smells and their negative consequences in large test automation projects. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 8
    Citation - Scopus: 15
    Cross-Factor Analysis of Software Engineering Practices Versus Practitioner Demographics: an Exploratory Study in Turkey
    (Elsevier Science inc, 2016) Garousi, Vahid; Coskuncay, Ahmet; Demirors, Onur; Yazici, Ali
    Context: Understanding the types of software engineering practices and techniques used in the industry is important. There is a wide spectrum in terms of the types and maturity of software engineering practices conducted in each software team and company. Furthermore, it is important to understand the cross-factor relationship of software engineering practices and practitioner demographics including their companies and projects, e.g., is it the case that practitioners developing software for sectors such as military would utilize software size measurement approaches more, or use different software development methodologies, compared to practitioners developing software for other sectors?, and what kinds of practices are conducted by practitioners in small versus large companies? Objective: Our objective is to get an understanding into the cross-factor correlation of various software engineering practices versus practitioner demographics including their companies and projects (e.g., target industry, size and work experience). Such an understanding will enable us to identify patterns and pinpoint special issues which should be studied and addressed in the context of each specific demographic (e.g., small versus large companies). Thus, we decided to conduct an exploratory study in this area and collected real industrial data in the context of Turkey which has a vibrant software industry. Method: To achieve the above objective, we use the data from a recent Turkish-wide survey of software engineering practices which was systematically designed with 46 questions based on our past experience in the Canadian context and using the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK). 202 practicing software engineers participated in the survey. We raise a set of 12 research questions about the cross-factor correlation of software engineering practices and practitioner demographics, and address them using statistical analysis. Results: The exploratory study results reveal important and interesting findings about cross-factor relationship of software engineering practices and practitioner demographics. Among some of the most interesting findings are the followings: (1) By analyzing the trends, we were first surprised to see that as a practitioner gets more years of work experience, against what one would expect, s/he experiences more challenges in Software Development Life-Cycle (SDLC) phases and SE tasks; (2) Almost 55% of participants measure software size; (3) Agile/lean development is used the least (16%) by the participants working in the companies serving the military and defense sector; (4) Usage of waterfall is low among participants employed by small sized companies whereas Agile/lean development is relatively popular among this class of participants; and (5) As company size increases, usage of spiral development slightly increases, whereas usage of extreme programming practices decreases. Conclusion: The results of this exploratory study will be useful to software engineering professionals and researchers both in Turkey and world-wide by revealing the cross-factor relationship of software engineering practices versus practitioner demographics. The study raises several new research directions, e.g., (1) Why are not many practitioners using any size nor project estimation metrics and how these fundamental engineering approaches could be utilized more frequently?, (2) What are the best practices, success stories and challenging experiences in using SE tools?, and (3) Why is Agile lean development is not popular in the military and defense sector and how these approaches could be utilized more frequently. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.