Given the increased reliance on technology, Software Quality Assurance(SQA) has become a vital area in Software Engineering (SE). SQA practices require training, cost and often take more time than actual code writing. Owing to these requirements, software developers often ignore or partly implement SQA practices, leading to potentially poor quality software development. The goal of the study is to characterise SQA practices of software developers in Kenya. As such, quantitative empirical research was conducted. Seventy-seven (N=77) completed questionnaires were received and analysed to yield the required insights. The analysis of the findings indicates compliance with SQA practices. However, the research unearths concerns such as failure to comply with Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) models as having the potential to lower the quality of software products. The assessment found that Unit testing was the most common type of software test. Based on the findings and literature, recommendations are made. The need to improve software engineering education and invest in software testing is underscored. The results can be generalised to most developing countries and used by software developers and trainers to identify areas in SQA that need strengthening.
Regression testing is carried out to ensure that software modifications do not introduce new potential bugs to the existing software. Existing test cases are applied in the testing, such test cases can run into thousands, and there is not much time to execute all of them. Test Case Prioritization (TCP) is a technique to order test cases so that the test cases potentially revealing more faults are performed first. With TCP being deemed an optimization problem, several metaheuristic nature-inspired algorithms such as Bat, Genetic, Ant colony, and Firefly algorithms have been proposed for TCP. These algorithms have been compared theoretically or based on a single metric. This study employed an experimental design to offer an in-depth comparison of bat and genetic algorithms for TCP. Unprioritized test cases and a brute-force approach were used for comparison. Average Percentage Fault Detection (APFD)- a popular metric, execution time and memory usage were used to evaluate the algorithms’ performance. The study underscored the importance of test case prioritization and established the superiority of the Genetic algorithm over the bat algorithm for TCP in APFD. No stark differences were recorded regarding memory usage and execution time for the two algorithms. Both algorithms seemed to scale well with the growth of test cases.
With the high mobile phone penetration and subsequent significant usage of mobile phone applications, mobile users have become prime targets of hackers. Secure Software Development (SSD) advocates incorporating security aspects at the initial stages of software development. This study proposes a novel Mobile Application Development Lifecycle by reviewing SSD concepts and incorporating these concepts into MADLC-a mobile-focused software development lifecycle to create a security-aware Mobile Application Development Lifecycle (sMADLC). The proposed development lifecycle, sMADLC, can potentially help mobile application developers create secure software that can withstand hacker aggression and assure mobile application users of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of their data and systems.
eLearning continues to offer the promise of revolutionizing education. Lower cost of education, learning anywhere, and personalized learning are just a few benefits of eLearning. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the need for technology-mediated learning. eLearning assessments continue to be an open challenge in the context of eLearning. Both novice and experienced teachers grapple with assessing learners in online classes. Issues such as the nature of assessments, exam integrity, use of appropriate assessment tools are now getting increased attention from researchers. Existing research in eLearning tends to focus on the technology, its adoption, and factors affecting its success or lack of it. A paucity of research on e-assessments leads to limited insights for teachers and institutions. Consequently, this chapter focuses on e-assessments, given the critical role of assessment in any form of learning.
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