Certifications

As I am a certified tester(CSTE), people have a hell lot of queries regarding the certifications...at my work place, my friend circle and so and so ..So i thought of creating an FAQ for all the aspiring CSTE candidates..

CSTE FAQs

Q. What is CSTE?

A. CSTE is Certified Software Tester. This is a globally approved certification administered by Quality Assurance Institute, USA (QAI) and is mainly intended for the Software Quality Professionals.

Q. What is the eligibility Criteria for CSTE Certification?

A. To qualify for candidacy, each applicant must meet one of three prerequisites:

1. A bachelor’s degree from an accredited college-level institution,

2. An associate’s degree and two years of experience in the information services field, or

3. Six years of experience in the information services field.

The application requires the applicant to provide details supporting the option selected.

No formal proof of education or employment is required at the time of application; however, you may later receive a request for verification of education, or verification of employment, or both, depending upon a compliance sample selected according to program criteria. If selected for verification, such verification must be supplied to the program prior to sitting for any necessary examinations.

Q. What is the Syllabus for this certification?

A. Syllabus for CSTE changes as per the industry demand and is not consistent. This syllabus is updated in CSTE CBOK (Common Body Of Knowledge).

Q. What is the exam format?

A. The four and a half-hour exam is made up of four parts; two parts multiple-choice and two parts essay and short answer. You will have forty-five minutes to complete each of the multiple-choice sections and one hour and fifteen minutes to complete each of the essay and short answer sections. There is a ten-minute break between each part.

Q. What is the passing Criteria for CSTE?

A. Scoring 75% individually in all the four papers.

Q. Is CSTE study material available easily?

A. All applicants will receive a CD of the Guide to the Common Body of Knowledge. Bibliographic references are included in the applicable Body of Knowledge description for information purposes. Candidates are expected to know and pursue other and more recent resources.

Q. Does one have to attend any preliminary courses before giving this certification exam?

A. The examination presumes that you have had a broad exposure to quality practices and have reviewed and read the current literature available on quality management in their particular area. The Quality Assurance Institute, as administrator of Software Certifications, does not infer that attending specific courses or programs will significantly enhance the your chances of passing the examination.

If you have extensive experience in the quality practices described in the knowledge domains of the Body of Knowledge (CBOK), the examination should not be difficult.

Q. Would CSTE be valuable if I am a manager?

A. Yes, CSTE CBOK contains domains, which are building blocks that contribute towards good project management since they address fundamental issues of sound quality assurance and testing practices, and other significant skills needed for Project Managers.

Q. I am proficient enough in my work, then why is the need of Certification?

A. Acquiring the designation of Certified Software Tester (CSTE) indicates a professional level of competence in the principles and practices of quality control in the IT profession. There is a set of code of ethics, which QAI expects the CSTE professional to follow.

Q. What are the benefits of becoming a CSTE?

A. Following are the benefits of being certified.

1. For the Individual

• CSTE certification is proof that you've mastered a basic skill set recognized worldwide in the Testing arena.
• CSTE certification helps to achieve more rapid career advancement.
• Results in greater acceptance in the role of an advisor to upper management.
• Assists individuals in improving and enhancing their organization's software testing programs.
• Motivates personnel having software-testing responsibilities to maintain their professional competency.

2. For the Organization

• CSTE is expected to be a 'change agent', someone who can change the culture and work habits of individuals to make quality in software testing happen.
• Aids organizations in selecting and promoting qualified individuals
• Demonstrates an individual's willingness to improve professionally.
• Defines the tasks (skill domains) associated with software testing duties in order to evaluate skill mastery.
• Acknowledges attainment of an acceptable standard of professional competency

Q. What is the fee for Certification?

A. The initial fee for the CSTE and CSQA is $350.00 (USD); this includes the application processing fee, administration fee, your initial sitting fee and a CD of the Guide to the Common Body of Knowledge. If you sit for the exam the first time and do not receive passing marks, there is an additional fee of $100.00 (USD) for each retake (limit two).

The above-mentioned fees can differ. It is requested to check the following link for any updates in fee structure. http://www.softwarecertifications.org/qai_apply.htm - 003

Q. What is the validity period of CSTE Certification?

A. Validity of the Certification is 3 years.

Q. What I have to do for extending the validity of CSTE Certification?

A. You can extend your CSTE status through Recertification, either by gaining Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits of 120 points in 3 years or by taking a Recertification Examination.

Q. I want to know more about CSTE Certification?

A. You can visit http://www.softwarecertifications.org/ .

Automation Testing.

Automation Testing is the use of software to control the execution of tests, the comparison of actual outcomes to predicted outcomes, the setting up of test preconditions, and other test control and test reporting functions. Commonly, test automation involves automating a manual process already in place that uses a formalized testing process.

Over the past few years, tools that help programmers quickly create applications with graphical user interfaces have dramatically improved programmer productivity. This has increased the pressure on testers, who are often perceived as bottlenecks to the delivery of software products. Testers are being asked to test more and more code in less and less time. Test automation is one way to do this, as manual testing is time consuming. As and when different versions of software are released, the new features will have to be tested manually time and again. But, now there are tools available that help the testers in the automation of the GUI which reduce the test time as well as the cost, other test automation tools support execution of performance tests.

Many test automation tools provide record and playback features that allow users to record interactively user actions and replay it back any number of times, comparing actual results to those expected. However, reliance on these features poses major reliability and maintainability problems. Most successful automators use a software engineering approach, and as such most serious test automation is undertaken by people with development experience.

A growing trend in software development is to use testing frameworks such as the xUnit frameworks (for example, JUnit and NUnit) which allow the code to conduct unit tests to determine whether various sections of the code are acting as expected in various circumstances. Test cases describe tests that need to be run on the program to verify that the program runs as expected. All three aspects of testing can be automated.

Another important aspect of test automation is the idea of partial test automation, or automating parts but not all of the software testing process. If, for example, an oracle cannot reasonably be created, or if fully automated tests would be too difficult to maintain, then a software tools engineer can instead create testing tools to help human testers perform their jobs more efficiently. Testing tools can help automate tasks such as product installation, test data creation, GUI interaction, problem detection (consider parsing or polling agents equipped with oracles), defect logging, etc., without necessarily automating tests in an end-to-end fashion.

Disadvantages of Automation:

Test automation is expensive and it is an addition, not a replacement, to manual testing. It can be made cost-effective in the longer term though, especially in regression testing. One way to generate test cases automatically is model-based testing where a model of the system is used for test case generation, but research continues into a variety of methodologies for doing so.