FAQ QA

Software Quality Assurance (SQA) involves the practice of planning, analysis and test execution of software components. It comprises high-level software development life cycle (SDLC)organizational planning for process and continuous improvement practices as well as detailed test planning, analysis and test execution. All aspects of SQA are needed to establish, foster and maintain efficient feedback loops for continuous improvement.

The purpose of a regression test is to ensure changes made to a program do not 'regress' other aspects of the program or system. For example, when regression testing Jira fixes it would be unlikely that the reported problem failed in exactly the same way. It is more likely that new errors were introduced in boundary locations. Testing is a creative process where the goal is to prove the object of test does not work. It is deemed qualified when the tester can no longer prove it does not work. This assumes the tester has adequate knowledge of functionality to ensure full test coverage. One must be reasonable in attempts to locate important failures in relatively short durations of time.

Confluence is collaboration site where you will find documents and ongoing discussion. Regarding QA you'll find urls of the test servers and test documents.
Jira is an issue tracking system. Bugs are reported, verified, QA-ed etc. here.

Sign up for an account on Jira. This is how you will be able to report issues you find by creating a new ticket. Signing up for an account on Jira automatically gives you an account on Confluence, the community wiki.

Join the Sakai CLE QA list serve http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-qa

Look in Confluence (http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/QA/Test+instances) for urls of the test servers. One server is for testing fixes made, before they are added to the 2.9 release. The other server is for regression testing of the application. There is a lag time between an issue being fixed and verified on one server and getting added to to the 2.9 release for testing.

If you are verifying issues in Jira against Sakai, please make sure you are using a production version of a browser. Reporting issues that occur in beta versions of browsers can be misleading, particular in the case of rendering issues, as the fault may lie with a bug in the browser rather than Sakai.  The latest version of IE and FF is recommended for testing.

There are a variety of ways to test. If you've volunteered to join the QA effort please get in contact with Neal Caidin (nealcaidin@sakaifoundation.org). Neal will work with workgroup members and post assignments to Confluence once they've all been identified. 

Go to Jira an submit the issue (http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/jira/secure/CreateIssue!default.jspa). In most cases you will open the bug in the Sakai CLE project. There are some exceptions, for example, if you find a bug in the Test & Quizzes tool then you will want to open the bug in the CLE: Samigo project.

Details that are extremely helpful that you can provide are:

• Provide a title that is succinct but clear.
• Which server were you testing on?
• What are the steps someone can use to replicate this problem?
• Provide as much detail as you can. Sceenshots are appreciated.
• Remember that many others may be reviewing your issue, developers, testers and others. Try to make it as clear as possible.

Use this Jira filter for the current bug-fix validation effort: 2.9 QA Awaiting Verification. Please test on the nightly server with the latest fixes.

Note - contact Neal Caidin, nealcaidin@sakaifoundation.org, to change the status of a ticket. You can open a ticket and comment on a ticket without special permissions, but ticket status updates do require special permissions.

It is not obligated but much appreciated.

There is a page about host a QA server.