Software Quality Model and
Framework with Applications in Industrial Context
Lajos Schrettner, Fülöp
Lajos Jenő, Árpád Beszédes, Ákos
Kiss and Tibor Gyimóthy
Software Quality Assurance involves all stages of the
software life cycle including development, operation and evolution as
well. Low level measurements (product and process metrics) are used to
predict and control higher level quality attributes. There exists a
large body of proposed metrics, but their interpretation and the way of
connecting them to actual quality management goals is still a
challenge. In this work, we present our approach for modelling,
collecting, storing and evaluating such software measurements, which
can deal with all types of metrics collected at any stage of the life
cycle. The approach is based on the Goal Question Metric paradigm, and
its novelty lies in a unified representation of the metrics and the
questions that evaluate them. It allows the definition of various
complex questions involving different types of metrics, while the
supporting framework enables the automatic collection of the metrics
and the calculation of the answers to the questions. We demonstrate the
applicability of the approach in three industrial case studies: two
instances at local software companies with different quality assurance
goals, and an application to a large open source system with a question
related to testing and complexity, which demonstrates the complex use
of different metrics to achieve a higher level quality goal.
Keywords: Software quality
assurance, Metrics, Goal Question Metric, Quality model, Modelling,
Data persistence.
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