A Collaborative Software Tool to Improve the Dynamic Testing Process

An innovative software tool is proposed to provide shared access to all pertinent information involved in the dynamic testing process. The dynamic testing process is collaborative and requires the sharing of many forms of data. By leveraging standard Internet technologies and customizing them for the dynamic testing application, all requirements, schedules, procedures, photographs, measurement data, and analysis data can be accessed in a hierarchical fashion using a standard web browser. The Project Site would serve as a ?virtual meeting room? where all test team members could share data and collaborate for the duration of the test program. The proposed research focuses primarily on determining the best architecture for implementing such an application. Application prototypes will be developed based on the candidate architectures. The best architecture will be determined from a comparison and evaluation of the application prototypes in the areas of robustness, performance, scalability, reliability, and security. In addition, open communication standards and open source frameworks will be investigated to ensure that the target application is state-of-the-art. By customizing and extending Internet technologies, a practical software tool can be developed which will shorten test cycles and improve the overall quality of the dynamic testing process.