Using abstraction and Web applications to teach criteria-based test design

The need for better software continues to rise, as do expectations. This, in turn, puts more emphasis on finding problems before software is released. Industry is responding by testing more, but many test engineers in industry lack a practical, yet theoretically sound, understanding of testing. Software engineering educators must respond by teaching students to test better. An essential testing skill is designing tests, and an efficient way to design high quality tests is to use an engineering approach: test criteria. To achieve the maximum benefit, criteria should be used during unit (developer) testing, as well as integration and system testing. This paper presents an in-depth teaching experience report on how we successfully teach criteria-based test design using abstraction and publicly accessible web applications. Our teaching materials are freely available online or upon request.