Studies from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the number of software developers is expected to grow by 22% between 2012-2022, much faster than the average of all other occupations. A critical aspect of software development is the thorough testing of software, yet there is a serious lack of software testers in industry. Academic institutions contribute to this problem since few software testing courses are offered in the curriculum, and there is little, if any, software testing done in programming courses. As a result, many software companies are seeking cost effective ways to train new and existing employees on how to effectively test software using the appropriate testing techniques and testing tools. Training software testers will become more important as companies are held liable for faulty software.
This team proposes an online cyberlearning environment (WReSTT-Com - Web-based Repository of Software Testing Tutorials Commercial), that provides individuals and companies with the ability to obtain training in conceptual and practical skills in software testing techniques and tools. WReSTT-Com will provide trainees with an adaptive learning environment where the trainees or employers can configure the system to suit their needs, including the selection of learning objects and the generation of evaluation reports on the performance of the trainees. Income will be generated based on the time and facilities used in WReSTT-Com by trainees.
Studies from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the number of software developers is expected to grow by 22% between 2012 and 2022, much faster than the average growth of all other occupations. A critical aspect of software development is the thorough testing of software, yet there is a serious lack of trained software testers in industry. Academic institutions contribute to this problem since few software testing courses are offered in the curriculum, and there is little if any software testing done in most programming courses. In this project, a team from Florida International University (FIU) investigated commercializing an online cyberlearning environment (WReSTT - Web-based Repository of Software Testing Tutorials) that is currently being used in academia with some success. The commercialized version of WReSTT (WReSTT-Com) would incorporate some of the most novel pedagogical and technological solutions for cyberlearning, as well as provide a solution for the lack of trained software testers in industry. After completing the 6-month I-Corps program and performing over 130 customer interviews, the team realized that although IT companies find software testing to be very important, they are willing to spend little to no resources on training personnel in software testing. However, the team decided to pivot from the original commercialization of WReSTT-com, towards developing a cyberlearning environment that seamlessly captures the training (including software testing) of employees in a company so that this training can be reused by other employees. The new system will be flexible enough to capture domain-specific training for a given company, as well as being scalable, thereby making the system commercially viable. Based on the results of the I-Corps program the FIU team and several past FIU students will start a company in the near future to pursue this business opportunity based on the WReSTT technology. This new business opportunity will provide companies with access to a cyberlearning environment that seamlessly captures training sessions of employees and provides an interface that allows the evaluation of both trainees and instructors. The training materials will be easily accessible via the cloud and will be accessible on any device.
