A Hybrid Software Test Automation for Educational Portals

TL;DR

This paper presents a hybrid test automation framework for educational portals, designed to improve quality and reduce costs, evaluated through performance metrics showing high efficiency and productivity.

Contribution

A novel test automation framework for educational portals using UML and Java, with evaluation metrics demonstrating its effectiveness in reducing testing time and costs.

Findings

Automation scripting productivity of 360 operations/hour

Performance test efficiency of 80%

Test time performance of 4%

Abstract

Educational portal (EP) is a multi-function website that allows access to activities such as public and private sections, data retrieval and submission, personalized content and so on for the educational system. This study investigated the specific requirement for the enhancement of quality and behavior of EP with regards to time and cost using Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria as a case study. A test automation framework was designed using unified modelling language and implemented in Java programming language. MySQL and Excel database were used to store test data. The framework developed was evaluated using Test Time Performance (TTP), Performance Test Efficiency (PTE) and Automation Scripting Productivity (ASP) metrics. The results from the evaluation of the sample data provided showed that ASP produced a tested outcome of 360 operations per hour, PTE yielded 80% and TTP was just 4%. Based on the recorded performance, it is evident that the research can provide quick and firsthand information to quality assurance analyst and software testers, thereby reducing maintenance cost during software development.