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Comparative analysis of the syntactic and semantic consistency of terms in software testing glossaries

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Abstract

This paper addresses terminological consistency issues of three software testing glossaries used in academia and industry. The evaluation focus mainly deals with a sub-characteristic of information quality such as consistency, which includes syntactic and semantic consistency. To systematically conduct this study, we have established a set of activities or steps. These include defining the evaluation goal and scope, selecting the glossaries, conceiving the terminological categories, classifying the glossary terms into categories, calculating syntactic and semantic similarities, analyzing consistency, and making recommendations. For instance, for the testing domain, eight terminological categories were conceived, in which, for each selected glossary, a corresponding term is included in a category, considering the semantics intended by the authors of these standard documents. To count the occurrence frequency of a term in the glossaries, a tool was built that also takes into account the matching of synonyms. Then, a comparative analysis of syntactic and semantic consistency was carried out for all the terms ending in the word “testing,” which enables us to give recommendations. This exploratory study identifies some inconsistencies that might deserve further attention and efforts to promote agreement and harmonization among the authors/editors of these glossaries in order to provide their readers with the most consistent and easiest way to understand and learn software testing concepts.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files linked at https://bit.ly/SQJ_Appendices.

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Funding

This line of research is supported partially by the Engineering School at Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, Argentina, in project 09-F079.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. GIDIS_Web, Facultad de Ingeniería, UNLPam, General Pico, La Pampa, Argentina

    Luis Olsina & Pablo Becker

  2. XBOSoft, Woodbridge, VA, USA

    Philip Lew

Authors
  1. Luis Olsina
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  2. Philip Lew
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  3. Pablo Becker
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Contributions

Luis Olsina contributed to the updated exploratory study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by Pablo Becker and Luis Olsina. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Luis Olsina and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Luis Olsina.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Olsina, L., Lew, P. & Becker, P. Comparative analysis of the syntactic and semantic consistency of terms in software testing glossaries. Software Qual J 32, 27–52 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-023-09638-0

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