This course introduces students to advanced topics on managing the quality of products delivered as part of a software development project and managing the development process itself through static and dynamic software analysis techniques.
Several causal aspects of poor software quality will be introduced and discussed so that students can understand the context for undertaking risk management and avoiding bad quality. There will be a focus on practical techniques for identifying and removing defects, as well as implementing procedures to track the success or failure of risk and defect resolutions.
Several automatic software quality analysis techniques, including static program analysis and fuzzing techniques, will also be covered. These techniques are useful for improving the reliability, security, and performance of software and are becoming increasingly impactful in industries today. The course will introduce various well-known static program analysis frameworks such as Soot and dynamic testing techniques like symbolic execution. Practical implementations will also be covered, including live variable analysis, constant propagation, dead code detection, call graph construction, pointer analysis, taint analysis, and symbolic execution.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Explore and understand the notion of software quality measurement techniques, and analyzing product and process quality.
- Analyze and identify software quality attributes for a small to medium-sized software system.
- Analyze and report code quality issues using modern code review practices with tools and measures.
- Evaluate test strategies and plans for real-world software projects, using ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) knowledge to justify decisions on resource allocation, risk management, and selection of testing techniques.
- Explore how to use fuzzing techniques to detect vulnerabilities through automated test case generation.
- Assess and apply practical static and dynamic techniques for fundamental program analyses.
Other Information
Indicative Assessment
- Assignments (40) [LO 1,2,3,4,5]
- Testing Assignment (60) [LO 6]
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Workload
Lectures, workshop sessions, and independent study to add up to 130 hours over the semester.
Inherent Requirements
Not applicable
Requisite and Incompatibility
Prescribed Texts
None.
Preliminary Reading
Fees
Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.
Commonwealth Support (CSP) Students
If you have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). More information about your student contribution amount for each course at Fees.
- Student Contribution Band:
- 2
- Unit value:
- 6 units
If you are a domestic graduate coursework student with a Domestic Tuition Fee (DTF) place or international student you will be required to pay course tuition fees (see below). Course tuition fees are indexed annually. Further information for domestic and international students about tuition and other fees can be found at Fees.
Where there is a unit range displayed for this course, not all unit options below may be available.
| Units | EFTSL |
|---|---|
| 6.00 | 0.12500 |
Course fees
- Domestic fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2025 | $5280 |
- International fee paying students
| Year | Fee |
|---|---|
| 2025 | $6720 |
Offerings, Dates and Class Summary Links
ANU utilises MyTimetable to enable students to view the timetable for their enrolled courses, browse, then self-allocate to small teaching activities / tutorials so they can better plan their time. Find out more on the Timetable webpage.
Class summaries, if available, can be accessed by clicking on the View link for the relevant class number.
First Semester
| Class number | Class start date | Last day to enrol | Census date | Class end date | Mode Of Delivery | Class Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3840 | 17 Feb 2025 | 24 Feb 2025 | 31 Mar 2025 | 23 May 2025 | In Person | View |