Information Systems Verification and Validation: Three Perspectives: Technical, Systemic, and Philosophical (Participatory Panel) “Active Learning Tools”

Sushil Acharya

Software quality is a crucial issue in software development. As software has become ubiquitous, software products have become critical. Software quality issues poses a problem in the software industry, as there is generally a lack of knowledge of Software Verification and Validation (V&V) benefits and a shortage of adequately trained V&V practitioners. The fundamental challenge towards a solution to improve software quality lies in the people and processes that develop and produce software. The industry desires new hires to know software development best practices so as to be able to perform from day 1. This means new hires are expected to know software processes, methods, and tools. This is where the academia needs to step in, especially those that focus on applied teaching. The academia has to develop necessary course modules and redesign their curriculum to provide graduating students the applied knowledge they need to so as to be competitive in the job market.

Through a project funded by the National Science Foundation. the author’s team has developed (42) delivery hours of Software V&V course modules. This development activity has embraced academia, industry partnership. These tools have been successfully disseminated to over 24 universities with many CS, IS, SE programs incorporating the tools in their existing courses and others designing new courses based on these tools. The tool is available free of cost to interested academia and industry.

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