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Journal of Systems and Software
Volume 73, Issue 2, October 2004, Pages 257-269
Applications of statistics in software engineering
 
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doi:10.1016/S0164-1212(03)00249-8    How to Cite or Link Using DOI (Opens New Window)
Copyright © 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Applying sampling to improve software inspections

Thomas ThelinCorresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author, a, Håkan PeterssonE-mail The Corresponding Author, a, Per RunesonE-mail The Corresponding Author, a and Claes WohlinE-mail The Corresponding Author, b

a Department of Communication Systems, Lund University, P.O. Box 118, SE-221 00, Lund, Sweden b Department of Software Engineering and Computer Science, Blekinge Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 520, SE-372 25, Ronneby, Sweden

Available online 25 December 2003.

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Abstract

The main objective of software inspections is to find faults in software documents. The benefits of inspections are reported from researchers as well as software organizations. However, inspections are time consuming and the resources may not be sufficient to inspect all documents. Sampling of documents in inspections provides a systematic solution to select what to be inspected in the case resources are not sufficient to inspect everything. The method presented in this paper uses sampling, inspection and resource scheduling to increase the efficiency of an inspection session. A pre-inspection phase is used in order to determine which documents need most inspection time, i.e. which documents contain most faults. Then, the main inspection is focused on these documents. We describe the sampling method and provide empirical evidence, which indicates that the method is appropriate to use. A Monte Carlo simulation is used to evaluate the proposed method and a case study using industrial data is used to validate the simulation model. Furthermore, we discuss the results and important future research in the area of sampling of software inspections.

Author Keywords: Empirical study; Monte Carlo simulation; Software inspection; Sampling; Efficiency

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. Sample-driven inspections: method description
2.1. Overview and motivation
2.2. Sampling and resource scheduling
2.3. Investigation
2.4. An example scenario
2.5. Document profiles
2.6. Research questions
3. Simulation model of sample-based inspections
3.1. Simulation model of one inspection
3.2. Simulation model of SDI
3.3. Evaluation model of SDI
3.3.1. General model
3.3.2. Fault-prone model
3.3.3. Evaluation measures
3.3.4. Summary of simulation model
3.4. Validation of simulation model
4. Evaluation of sample-based inspections
4.1. Pre-inspection
4.2. Main inspection
4.3. Fault-prone documents
5. Discussion
5.1. Research questions
5.2. Applying SDI
6. Summary
Acknowledgements
References
Vitae












Journal of Systems and Software
Volume 73, Issue 2, October 2004, Pages 257-269
Applications of statistics in software engineering
 
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