CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2015 E1582 Create integration tests for the instructor interface using capybara and rspec

Purpose

This project is to create integration tests for the instructor interface of Expertiza. The UI procedures need to be tested are:

• Log in
• Create a course
• View scores for an assignment
• View review scores (“review report”)
• View author-feedback scores
• Create an assignment
  • 2 rounds of review
  • Has no topics / has topics
  • Staggered-deadline assignments

Background

RSpec

Rspec <ref>RSpec Wiki Page</ref> is a Behavior Driven Development (BDD) framework for Ruby. It is composed of 4 main parts <ref>RSpec Official Website</ref>:

rspec-core

The spec runner, providing a rich command line program, flexible and customizable reporting, and an API to organize your code examples.

An example of running rspec file in terminal: rspec spec/model_spec.rb

rspec-expectations

Provides a readable API to express expected outcomes of a code example.

rspec-mocks

Test double framework, providing multiple types of fake objects to allow you to tightly control the environment in which your specs run.

rspec-rails

Supports using RSpec to test Ruby on Rails applications in place of Rails' built-in test framework.

Capybara

Capybara is a web-based automation test tool that simulates a real user to follow the scenarios of user stories.<ref>Capybara on GitHub</ref> It could interact with app to receive pages, parse the HTML and submit forms as a user would.<ref>Introducing cucumber & capybara on YouTube</ref> Used with RSpec and Ruby on Rails (version 1.9 or later), capybara makes it easier to write integration tests. <ref>Using Capybara in Rails 3</ref> It is used on the top of an underlying web-based driver and offers a user-friendly DSL (Domain Specific Language) to describe actions executed by the underlying web driver. Such as rack::test, selenium-webdriver and capybara-webkit.<ref>The Basics of Capybara and Improving Your Tests</ref>

In this project, we use capybara with rspec by adding the following line: require 'capybara/rspec' Then put capybara specs in spec/features.

Integration test

Integration test is a software testing definition that we combine modules then test them as one group. It is an important application testing way. It is always adapted after unit testing, we need to combine different units to test the functionalities and verify that the aggregated group could deliver its output properly. The purpose of integration test is to verify the functionality of interface between interacted parts, also we can know performance of the subsystems. The integration testing has two types, big bang top down and bottom up.

• Big Bang

In this type, since all the application is combined with all major usage modules. So we test them under usage model testing, which means we can simulate the users' acts under testing environment. When doing this, we can test if all the expected components is got when we actually do the same way under production environment. It is an effective way to test the functionalities and got better coverage since we are creating the realistic scenarios. It will make sure the application can have proper output when a user does the same input.

• Top down and Bottom up

Top down and bottom up is another type of integration testing. For top down, we test the top integrated module firstly and test the ranch of it again and again, then we can test all the related modules finally. For Bottom up way, we test the most basic module at first and check the module that containing this basic module. The advantage of it is that we can find the bug easier because we will not miss any branch that we use. However, it is time consuming in this way.<ref>Integration testing on Wikipedia</ref>

Test Plan

Based on the project requirements, the testing can be divided into the following 6 features:

1. Log in: ensure an instructor is able to login to the system
2. Create a course:ensure an instuctor is able to create a course.
3. View scores for an assignment: ensure that the score of a certain assignment can be viewed.
4. View review scores (“review report”): ensure to view the score of a review.
5. View author-feedback scores: ensure to view the score of an author feedback.
6. Create an assignment: ensure to create an assignment which has two rounds of review, has a topic or does not has a topic, and has a staggered-deadline.

Create a course

• Scenario 1: create a public course

1. sign in
2. click "Courses" to browse course list
3. click "New public course" to create a public course
4. fill in the text area, and click "Create" button

After returning to the course list, the new course we created is expected to be shown.

• Scenario 2: create a private course

1. sign in
2. click "Courses" to browse course list
3. click "New private course" to create a private course
4. fill in the text area, and click "Create" button

After returning to the course list, the new course we created is expected to be shown.

View scores for an assignment

1. sign in
2. click "Assignments" to browse assignment list
3. choose a certain assignment, click "View scores" button

In the grades review page, scores are expected to be shown.

View review scores (“review report”)

• Scenario 1: No review scores available

1. Sign in
2. Click link for Assignment
3. Click ‘Your scores’
4. Click ‘Show reviews’
5. Check that nothing exists
6. Check for dashes

• Scenario 2: Review scores available

1. Sign in
2. Click link for Assignment
3. Click ‘Your scores’
4. Click ‘show reviews’
5. Check that review scores exists

View author-feedback scores

• Scenario 1: No author-feedback scores available.

1. Sign in
2. Click link for Assignment
3. Click ‘Your scores’
4. Click ‘show author feedbacks’
5. Check that nothing exists

• Scenario 2: Author-feedback scores available.

1. Sign in
2. Click link for Assignment
3. Click ‘Your scores’
4. Click ‘show author feedbacks’
5. Check that author-feedback scores exists

References

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