REU Site: TaMaLe - Testing and Machine Learning for Context-Driven Systems: Research Experience for Undergraduates

University Of North Texas, Denton TX

Investigators

Abstract

TaMaLe (Testing and Machine Learning for Context-Driven Systems), a renewal Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site at University of North Texas, engages 10 undergraduate students for 10 weeks with problems in the context-driven system domain. The students explore research problems to improve the reliability and security of context-driven systems. Context-driven systems, such as mobile apps, face constant streams of input from both users and context changes in their environments. Users interact with apps through touch and speech interfaces. These systems also respond to context events that occur in their environments such as changes to network connection, battery level, screen orientation, and more. The combined explosion of possible user events and context event sequences pose new challenges that require cost effective testing solutions. Students and mentors in this REU program work in small teams to develop and empirically evaluate new software testing techniques for context-driven systems using strategies such as reinforcement learning and combinatorial-based techniques. The project's broader significance and importance are that it trains three diverse cohorts heavily recruited from underrepresented groups. Students gain basic research skills to better prepare them for graduate school, including working with researchers and gaining the ability to formulate research questions, design experiments, critically analyze results, and develop written and oral communication skills. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.