Training

Black Box Software Testing (BBST)

Online Education for Testing Practitioners

The Association for Software Testing offers a series of 4 week online courses in software testing to our members and the testing community. Too many testing courses emphasize a superficial knowledge of basic ideas. This makes things easy for novices and reassures some practitioners that they understand the field. However, it’s not deep enough to help students apply what they learn to their day-to-day work. The BBST series attempts to foster a deeper level of learning by giving students more opportunities to practice, discuss, and evaluate what they are learning. Each BBST course includes video lectures, quizzes, homework, and a final exam. Every participant in the course reviews work submitted by other participants and provides feedback and suggests grades.

AST is currently offering four courses: More information about courses

Why we have the BBST Courses

The Association for Software Testing is dedicated to improving the practice of software testing by furthering the education (knowledge, skills, and testing-relevant self-awareness) of software testers. We expect to achieve this mission through advocacy for better testing education in universities and by providing high-quality materials, instructor training, live and online training designed for those currently testing software, and direct course-ware for professional development and self-study.

The History of BBST

The AST courses are based on videos from The Center for Software Testing Education & Research (CSTER) with additional study aids and support from live instructors. The videos are available online at www.testingeducation.org/BBST. Review this site for more information about the month-long coached courses.

Up till recently, we’ve offered all courses for free.  Administrative costs, hosting, and expenses associated with instructor training forced us to charge for the courses.

Format of Courses

• focuses on one primary topic;
• lasts for four weeks;
• includes video lectures, review questions, one or two labs or assignments, and a final exam;
• requires students to submit their work for peer review and to peer review the work of their fellow students;
• is designed to take 10-12 hours of your time per week

Some courses are prerequisites for others, but to the extent that we can arrange it, courses stand alone and complete their topic.

The initial set of courses enhance materials developed for software engineering students at Florida Institute of Technology. We split the university course into several week segments to make it more convenient for practitioners’ schedules and to add depth to most sections. New courses under production feature work of additional instructors.

Pricing

The Foundations Course is $125 beginning January 2012. (Members who registered prior to January had their course fee waived)

Advanced Courses (Bug Advocacy and Test Design) are $200

Sign up for upcoming courses here.

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