Editorial

Published in volume 26, issue 5, July 2016

This issue presents three strong results related to change. The first, A General Modeling and Analysis Framework for Software Fault Detection and Correction Process, by Liu, Li, Wang, and Hu, presents a Markov model-based approach to evaluate software reliability. The approach deals directly with change by emphasizing the influence of data late in development and after deployment. (Recommended by Rob Hierons.) The second paper, Seeding Strategies in Search-Based Unit Test Generation, by Rojas, Fraser, and Arcuri, uses a large collection of open-source programs to demonstrate that changing the initial seed in a search-based test data generation strategy can have a large effect on the quality of the resulting tests. (Recommended by Giuliano Antoniol.) Finally, Prioritizing Test Cases for Early Detection of Refactoring Faults, by Alves, Machado, Massoni, and Kim, presents a strategy for prioritizing regression tests after changing software to support refactoring. (Recommended by Mark Harman.)

 


Changes to STVR’s Editorial Board

Like many things, research thrives best with diversity. Diversity of ideas, diversity of problems, diversity of people, and diversity in the leadership. Leadership in academic fields like software testing must be distributed, and the more widely it is distributed, the better off we all are. Perhaps obviously, research also requires change. After all, that is the purpose of research—to change the way things are done. To change the way we think. To change what we know. To change our beliefs, philosophies, and habits.

When the International Conference on Software Testing, Verification, and Validation was formed a decade ago, the charter included strict rules to continuously change the leadership. The steering committee has term limits: three-year terms, and a maximum of two consecutive terms. The technical program committee also has term limits: a maximum of three years in a row. The intent is to bring new people in and avoid stagnation.

With the same goals, STVR periodically rotates valued editorial board members off and brings new members in. Thus, we are saying au revoir (but not good-bye!) to Sund-Deok Cha, Byoungju Choi, Wolfgang Grieskampf, Robyn Lutz, Jose Maldonado, Atif Memon, and Allen Nikora. They took on the serious responsibility of finding reviewers for papers and culling through their comments to develop thoughtful and informed recommendations on the papers, a job that requires dedication, energy, professionalism, and honor. We are also welcoming Benoit Baudry, Marcio Delamaro, Hyunsook Do, Robert Feldt, Gordon Fraser, Jeff Gray, Natalia Juristo, Moonzoo Kim, Phil McMinn, Mike Papadakis, Mauro Pezze, Lori Pollock, Tao Xie, and Andreas Zeller. Rob Hierons and I, and hopefully all members of the software testing community, are grateful for their commitment.

Jeff Offutt
George Mason University
offutt@gmu.edu
7 June 2016