On the Need for Teaching Web Application Testing

Testing is one of the five main technical activity areas of software engineering. Most students are introduced to testing as part of an overview course on software engineering fundamentals. A few students are fortunate to learn more about the topic in specialized courses that focus on aspects of traditional software testing, such as black-box and white-box testing. This paper argues that there is a need for an additional course focused exclusively on testing Web applications. Such applications represent a sufficiently unique and increasingly important area that new theories and practical experience would be beneficial in maintaining such an application. A case study based on personal experience in an industrial context is used to illustrate the need for teaching Web application testing in a software engineering degree program.