BBST® Foundations

The Black-Box Software Testing Foundations course is one of the most eye-opening and in-depth online course on the fundamental concepts in software testing and its critical challenges. You will understand which is the scope of testing, test strategies, and software testing metrics so that you can bring the most value to your team. Don’t let the name “Foundations” fool you. The course is not designed exclusively for the beginning tester. It provides deep insight into core concepts and common challenges in testing. Even if you are an experienced tester, you will discover there are valuable things to take away from this course. The course is called “Foundations” because it is a prerequisite for all later Black Box Software Testing courses. After you successfully complete this course, you are eligible to take other courses in the BBST series: Bug Advocacy and Test Design.

Learning objectives

This is your first course in the BBST® series, and perhaps your first online course. This leads us to mixed objectives. In essence, our goal is to prepare you for the later courses in the series. That includes both foundational content and skills for succeeding in courses of this type.

Finishing the first course in the BBST® series is challenging but it will help you:

• learn the fundamental concepts in black-box software testing
  face the critical challenges of software testing and know how to cope with them
• learn what a test strategy is and how to choose the right tests
• apply multiple oracle heuristics to your own work in order to explain what you are doing and why
• determine if a program has passed a test
• evaluate your coverage of how thoroughly you’ve tested a program
• know when to stop testing
  
  

Course Details

The course includes video lectures, quizzes, homework of various kinds, and a final exam. All of the homework, and the exam, are reviewed by instructors, and individual or class-wide feedback is provided. 

For this course, you will use multiple resources to study:

• the video lectures and slides 
• the required and recommended readings

The assignments are based on all these resources. This means that you will need to use them all in your learning in order to successfully accomplish the tasks for the course.

We have strict deadlines in the course to keep you on track and synchronized with your classmates so feedback from peers is available for everyone. Each week has two deadlines: Wednesday night at midnight and Saturday at midnight. Not in our time zone? That’s no problem at all. Your Canvas classroom calendar will convert the time zones for you.

Recommended background

There is no typical background that you need in order to benefit from the course. We have had both university students who were relatively unfamiliar with testing, and working professionals with several years of experience in testing.

Also, this course is not strictly targeted at testers. Managers and programmers who are interested in testing will find the course helpful by getting new insights into the testing process and skills that support it.

For a great learning experience, we encourage you to bring along your curiosity, be open to learning, and generous with sharing your thoughts and experiences.

Course fee

TIVIA member price is for person members and also for the staff of company members.

• Normal Price TIVIA member 796,5€ + VAT 25.5 %
• Normal Price Non-member 885€ + VAT 25.5 %

Give the TIVIA discount code during registration to get the TIVIA member price. You can find the discount code here (TIVIA account login required).

If you are not already a member of TIVIA, JOIN NOW (membership fees from 65 €) and pay TIVIA member price for this course!

The BBST® course series 

The BBST® series was created as a sequence of online courses. With a specific educational approach, each course builds on skills introduced in the former. Foundations has the role of introducing the participants to this learning approach, making it possible to successfully complete the Bug Advocacy or/and the Test Design course. After learning multiple testing techniques in Test Design, participants can complete the fourth module: Domain Testing.

Every course is:

• online and fully flexible so that any working professional can organize their study-time accordingly
• organized in 4 weeks, 6 lessons with 2 assignments per week