Developing a teaching framework to support software inspection

The objective of inspection process is to reduce the cost by finding and removing defects earlier. In recent years, there have been a number of attempts to further increase inspection efficiency by the introduction of tool support and resulting in a number of prototype systems. However, many software engineers suffer from lack of background knowledge and experience on software inspections and its techniques. The purpose of the study is to investigate the possible ways to teach software inspection processes in both sides of concepts and practice to Software engineering students. So, we offered a teaching framework to make software engineering students have a deep understanding on software inspection and to improve their practical abilities. The framework consists of three parts: general guidelines, specific guidelines and learning activity. In addition, there are two parts of general guidelines: Software inspection concept and Software inspection technique. Specific guidelines include Software inspection process and applying technique on Software inspection process. The third part includes conceptual samples, collaboration in practice, work sample and assessment for improving practical skills and abilities. Based on the teaching framework, a software support tool is designed and developed using interactive feature such as combining text, sound, graphic, images and animation. It is evaluated by software engineering students in University of Malaya to show positive impact of framework on teaching software inspections.