REU Program
Bug Wars is an REU site project that exposes students to research on software testing and AI planning through both competition and collaboration. The intellectual merit of this project includes creating new knowledge about user-session-based testing, model-based testing with AI planning, and the combination of these two techniques as applied to web applications. A novel feature of this REU is that it encourages both competition and collaboration. The students initially split into two teams that strive to find the most faults in web application systems under test. One team collects, reduces, and prioritizes user-session-based test suites. A second team uses machine learning to build models of the software and AI planning to generate test suites. Students compete to show the merits of their approach on the same systems by considering the sizes and fault detection effectiveness (FDE) of their test suites. The students then critically discuss their work and propose combining the different approaches to further improve effectiveness. This REU program provides the opportunity for 8 undergraduate students to spend the summer as part of a cohort that works on software testing research for 10 weeks from May 28 to August 3, 2012. Participants will work closely with a Computer Science faculty mentor.
Participant Eligibility Requirements:
- Must be a Junior during the 2011-2012 academic year in an undergraduate program in Computer Science, or a related field.
- Must be an undergraduate in good standing.
- Must be strongly motivated to participate in ongoing research projects.
- Must be a US citizen or US permanent resident.
- Must complete the on-line application including the brief essay questions by March 1.
- Must submit transcripts by March 1.
- Must ensure two references have submitted their letters of recommendation by March 1.
- The opportunity to work on exciting research in the area of web testing.
- $5,000 stipend for 10 weeks.
- Housing ( http://www.housing.usu.edu/ )
- Social activities, including food.
- Some students will receive a travel stipend for moving expenses.
- The opportunity to be part of program that has a strong emphasis on collaboration with other students (you won’t sit at a computer by yourself all day/every day)
Applicants will be notified by March 15, 2012.
Once an applicant has been accepted to the program, a response from the applicant, either accept or decline, must be received within five days of the date of the offer letter. Successful applicants must complete and sign a Participation Agreement form prior to starting the program. Each REU participant must commit to participate in assessment activities at both the USU REU Site and their home institutions after the REU experience.
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