If you have a query on the content, please visit the Gerrard Consulting Test Forum at http://www.gerrardconsulting.com/forum and go to the Foundation or Practitioner topic area. Before you can use the Forum, you must be a registered user:

To register, use the Registration page
Once you are registered, ask to be added to the member list for the Foundation or Practitioner Forum by using the online response system. (The Forum is restricted to users of the self-study and other Gerrard Consulting customers).

When you use the Forum, it is possible that your query has already been asked and answered. There is a search facility that might help you to track down the information you want. If not, please do not hesitate to post queries about the content of the course. We will try to respond within one working day. Other users of the course probably have the same interest, so it is valuable to us that you post your queries. We will base enhancements to the material on our responses.

We'll respond as soon as we can.

Self-Study Training Courses in Software Testing

Welcome to this Self-Study Software Testing Training course from Gerrard Consulting Limited. Firstly, thank you for taking the course or using the training course material as a continuously useful resource. We hope you find this course useful and interesting and that if you take an ISEB examination, that you pass!

Accessing the Course Material from the Course Home Page

The course modules are listed on the Home Page. Click on Part 1 to start the course. We recommend you use MS Internet Explorer 4 or later, Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Netscape 4.5 or later, Opera 5 or later. Other browsers are expected to work, but have not been tested by Gerrard Consulting and we cannot guarantee compatibility.

The material is designed for use on screen resolutions 800 x 600 as a minimum. We recommend you maximise the browser window to fill the screen for best results. You don't need the standard browser buttons to take the course.

If you want to maximise the screen area devoted to the content, we suggest you click on the PLAIN WINDOW link. This will create a new window with the browser buttons and menus removed. This will increase the area available for the course material. Some browsers have a FULLSCREEN mode - pressing function key 11 (F11) will fill the screen entirely, without any window borders at all. Press it again to return the browser window to normal. Check your browser help facility.

The course makes extensive use of POPUP Windows to display narrative text when the main page shows diagrams, tables etc.. Some browsers have a facility to suppress popups because some websites abuse that facility. Firefox has a facility that enables you to allow only certain sites to display popups.

We have tried to make the course as easy to use as possible. There is no 'user guide'. Click on the help button in the course to see descriptions of the functionality of the buttons. We hope you find the structure of the course easy to understand.

Foundation Course in Software Testing

The course is divided into Parts, Modules and Slides. There are five major parts and a very short part with some reference material, a revision plan and the sample ISEB Examination.

Each Part is divided into Modules and there are 35 of these in all.
Each module has a number of slides and the slides have the main content on them.
Every slide has a full-page narrative that can be read on one page, or as a series of pages - one per slide bullet.

Sample Foundation Examination

There is a sample ISEB Foundation Certificate examination included in the course material for you to try out. There is also a mock examination. Both are available on the last page of the course. The mock examination has 30 questions to be completed in 45 minutes. The sample paper is very similar to the real examination and has 40 questions and takes a full hour. Don't read the sample papers before you have completed the course or you will not gain the full benefit. At the time of writing, the pass mark for the real ISEB examination is 25 out of 40. We estimate that you should aim to get at least 20 marks out of 30 for the mock examination to be confident of the real thing.

Practitioner Course in Software Testing

Just like the Foundation, the course is divided into Parts, Modules and Slides:

There are 19 Parts
Each Part is divided into Modules and there are 90 of these in all.
Each module has a number of slides and the slides have the main content on them.
The vast majority of slide have "narratives" that can be read all at once on one page, or as a series of pages - where you get a new narrative slide for bullet.

Some slides present exercises for you to do. Just like a classroom course, we would expect you to take the time to write out a full answer. Where the slide title is prefixed by "Exam Question: ..." the question is usually presented on the slide, but you can also click a link on the page to get a Word/RTF document with the question as it might appear to you in a real Practitioner examination. Just beneath the link to the question, you will see a second link to a model answer. Please don't look at this until you have given the question enough time. We recommend you spend 30 minutes dedicated, quiet time for each sample examination question to do it justice.

Practitioner Course in Software Testing - Pre-Course Homework

The Self-Study material is intended to be used as a preparatory module for the classroom-based courses. It does NOT cover the complete Practitioner syllabus. It covers some of the topics from the Introduction, Management and Reviews course days only. The Self-Study material is divided into Parts, Modules and Slides. There are five parts.

Each Part is divided into Modules and there are 19 of these in all.
Each module has a number of slides and the slides have the main content on them.
Every slide has a full-page narrative that can be read on one page, or as a series of pages - one per slide bullet.

Some slides request that you do exercises. Often the exercise question asks you to email your answer to the course administrator. Get their contact details from here. We will not mark your answer or give feedback. We ask you complete these exercises before you come to the classroom course. You will not be given time to do the exercises in class - rather, we will discuss these exercises, so please be sure you bring a copy of your answers to the class.

Questions, Questions

For general enquiries via email, click on the Gerrard Consulting logo (bottom right) to email us.

For enquiries on content, click on the "Ask Tutor" link to send an email to your course tutor.

If you need to speak to someone at Gerrard Consulting, call us on +44 (0)1628 639173.

To Book a Place on a Public ISEB Examination

Contact ISEB directly. Their contact names and numbers are on their web page at:

http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.5732

Reporting Faults

Nothing ever built was perfect (we are testers just like you). We recognise that we must provide a feedback mechanism for faults found in the course material.

IF YOU FIND A FAULT IN THE COURSE MATERIAL:

Navigate to the slide with the fault.
Click on the "Problem?" button to open a new mail window. It will be specially addressed (with the web page name) to reach us. No need to identify the slide or page title.
Describe the fault and send it to us.

If you find typos, inconsistencies or any other problem, do let us know.

Disclaimer and Terms of Use

This training material has been accredited by the BCS ISEB. Gerrard Consulting and nominated trainers are accredited to present this course using our PowerPoint based classroom material. These HTML Web pages and graphics are generated from a content database as are the PowerPoint-based classroom materials. The PowerPoint materials have been subjected to minor manual changes, mainly to improve continuity of the presenter-led course.

Gerrard Consulting make no claims that testers who take ISEB Examinations will pass or pass easily.

Only the person authorised to take the course should use it.

The contents of the on-line course or CD-ROM should not be copied or distributed without the express permission of Gerrard Consulting.

If the CD-ROM is faulty we will of course replace it at no charge.

Courses supplied on CD-ROM and via the Gerrard Consulting site expire on the "expiration date". The expiration date for the Foundation course is usually two calendar months from the date of CD creation. The expiration date for the Practitioner course is usually three calendar months from the date of CD creation.

If you wish to extend the license period of the course because:

Pressures of work meant you were unable to take the course in the license period or
You failed an exam, wish to retake it, and have to revise

Please let us know and we will extend the licence free of charge.

Anything Else?

If you have any questions on the product, have comments to discuss or you need details of the terms for licensing this material for your intranet we will be pleased to discuss your requirements.

This course can also be accessed on the Gerrard Consulting web site. Please call for further details.

We hope you find the course an enjoyable experience.

Gerrard Consulting Limited
PO Box 347
Maidenhead
Berkshire
SL6 2GU
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1628 639173
Fax: +44 (0)1628 630398

Submit a query to Gerrard Consulting using the online response system.

Web: www.gerrardconsulting.com

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