Archived News

Great Requirements Training (May 2015)

STEP is supporting a half-day training program presented by IBM and Mibio Medical about re-visiting and re-inventing requirements determination and testing. Requirements are the foundation of any successful project. Clear expectations and traceability during the development process is of upmost importance, especially in highly-regulated, safety-critical industries like medical devices. By writing high-quality requirements to begin with, we will know that we are building the correct product that behaves in the desired fashion under increasingly complex scenarios, enabling complete traceability from conceptual prototyping to regulatory submission. The project benefits most when everyone on the development team understands and practices this systems-thinking approach. See flyer attached [ PDF ].

Consortium of Cyber-security Testing (March 2015)

We are forming a consortium of government, industry, and academic T&E professionals to further the goals of building stronger national cyber-security testing capabilities. The TN Cyber-Security & Testing Cluster (TN-STC) is a Tennessee-wide consortium on cyber security testing formed to provide proactive leadership and cohesion to the state's responses to this new challenge. The University of Memphis has national strengths in information assurance and software testing which are at the core of cyber security. The TN-STC is led by the university's Center of Information Assurance, which is designated by NSA and DHS as a National Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education and Research, and the Systems Testing Excellence Program (STEP), which is the largest university research and training center in the field, helping governments and corporations with software testing education and research. The TN-STC is tasked with building up certification, research, and curricular competencies that help position the university as a recognized thought leader in the science of cyber-security testing and industry best practices under the umbrella of the FedEx Institute of Technology. For more information visit: Cluster to Advance cyber Security & Testing (CAST)

2015 Leadership Changes (January 2015)

With the recent appointment of Dr. Jasbir Dhaliwal as the new Executive Director of the FedEx Institute of Technology and the Chief Innovation Officer of the university, Dr. Robin Poston takes over as the new Director of the Systems Testing Excellence Program. Dr. Mark Gillenson also steps up to become the new Associate Director of STEP. Together, these two strategic leaders will lead STEP to greater heights as the premier academic research group advancing both the science of software testing and industry best practices during a time of exciting change in the field.

Another Successful STEP Workshop (November 2013)

The Seventh International Research Workshop on Advances and Innovations in Software Testing was held on October 28-29, 2013 in Memphis, Tennessee. Following welcome comments by U of M Provost David Rudd, Patrick Shelton of IBM Corporation and Ron Moussafi of Intel Corporation shared keynote messages of the importance of testing process efficiency and effectiveness. The workshop is hosted by the Systems Testing Excellence Program - STEP (step.memphis.edu) at the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis and showcases interdisciplinary research from experts in the Departments of Computer Science, Management Information Systems, and Electrical & Computer Engineering.

Throughout the day and a half event, over one hundred industry partners met with academic scholars to discuss state-of-the-art research outcomes on topics such as unit cost of test cases, testability for IT disaster recovery, security testing with SQL injection attacks, testing in agile development, requirements selection for agile iterations, open source load testing, testing methods for the cloud, mobile testing, etc. Panel sessions covered global and remote facilitated UAT and optimized requirements for testing. Day two comprised brand new tutorial sessions on cognitive and communication bias in software testing, test virtualization and lifecycle management, and instrumentation of software systems. We want to thank our corporate partners who helped make the workshop a success: FedEx, IBM, MphasiS, Syntel, and Cisco.

November 3-4, 2014, we are looking forward to the Eighth STEP Workshop as well as once again hosting the International Testing and Evaluation Association - ITEA (itea.org) who are joining us in tandem with the ITEA Technology Review. Together we can move Software Testing to newer heights of excellence!

IBM Joins as an Industry Partner of STEP (August 2013)

The Systems Testing Excellence Program (STEP) is a major interdisciplinary research and training initiative and hosts the annual International Research Workshop on Advances and Innovations in Software Testing. The 2013 October Workshop was hosted with support from its new corporate partner, IBM Corporation. As part of the partnership, Patrick Shelton from the Systems and Software Solutions division provided an opening address along with Ron Moussafi of Intel Corporation. Both speakers shared keynote points about the importance of testing process efficiency and effectiveness. STEP is working with IBM and several other partners to evaluate models for the creation of an international testing innovations hub in Memphis for the Biomedical & Healthcare sector.

Test and Evaluation Leaders from the Department of Defense Visit STEP (November 2012)

DISA-STEP Workshop (November 2010)

Department of Defense, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Joint Interoperability Test Command taps into the Expertise of the Systems Testing Excellence Program (STEP), November 16-18, 2010.

The Systems Testing Excellence Program (STEP) is a major interdisciplinary research and training initiative under the umbrella of the FedEx Institute of Technology with academic program support from the Fogelman College of Business and Economics. The Department of Management Information Systems (MIS) is leading STEP and was tasked with delivering the DISA-STEP Innovation Roundtable on Software Testing Best Practices. Twelve (12) DISA staff members joined Department of MIS faculty and industry representatives to share ideas on agile testing. The DISA staff included the Testing and Evaluation Executive (1-star general), a Commander, many Chiefs, Engineers, and Action Officers from Washington DC and Arizona, all bringing years of software testing experience and inquisitive mindsets.

The following focus areas were included on the agenda: 1) Best practices for the implementation of agile testing in large scale software development environments, and 2) Best practices for knowledge management in software testing. DISA is interested in deploying high quality software programs in rapid succession to support military operations. Agile testing is a software testing practice that emphasizes testing from the perspective of customers who will utilize the system. Agile testing focuses on testing iteratively with the emphasis shifted from testers as quality police to the entire project team working toward quality approach. The idea is to move quickly meaning testers have to adapt to rapid software deployment coding cycles and continually changing testing patterns.

The agenda for the Innovation Roundtable includes: MIS faculty facilitating research-based discussions about DISA-provided case studies and state-of-the-art agile testing processes, guest speakers (Pamela Gold from ALSAC/St. Jude and Jeff Brittain from Merck) who are STEP-certified in software testing talking about agile testing best practices at their respective organizations, and field visits to the FedEx World Technology Center and First Horizon National Corporation Quality Assurance Programs. For more information on STEP and software testing certification, please contact Dr. Jasbir Dhaliwal, Director of STEP, jdhaliwl@memphis.edu, or Dr. Robin Poston, Associate Director of STEP, rposton@memphis.edu.

Cook Systems International Joins STEP (February 2007)

Cook Systems and the University of Memphis have partnered to create CollegeCareerCorps, a program that integrates students into professional technology teams in entry-level positions to work on real information technology projects.

Cook Systems is contributing $100,000 to the university's Systems Testing Excellence Program, an interdisciplinary research initiative at the University's FedEx Institute of Technology. Cook Systems will make annual gifts to the university proportional with an expected 2007 contribution of between $12,000 and $15,000. Future contributions are expected to grow with the program's growth.

The funds will be used for student recruitment efforts in the areas of management information systems, computer engineering and computer science under the STEP collaborative framework, including scholarships, book awards, technology awards, recruitment materials, summer camps, field trips, CollegeCareerCorps recruitment assistance, and other related activities.

Shirley Raines, U of M president, said the partnership will be beneficial for the university and corporate partners.

"Our corporate partners will benefit from work completed at the highest levels of quality while building their work force for the future, and our students will benefit from the opportunity to apply their academic knowledge to practical applications with part-time employment and internships," Raines said.

Located in Memphis, Cook Systems International Inc. provides information technology solutions.

STEP Launch Meeting (November 2006)