About This Document
This document describes how you can implement your own quality assurance
policies and procedures to support your development work.
The QA Focus Methodology
The QA Focus methodology aims to ensure that IT development work produces
services which are widely accessible and interoperable. It seeks to do this by
developing a quality assurance framework which developers can make use of.
As described in the QA Focus briefing document
"Summary of the QA Focus Methodology" [1]
the QA Focus methodology is based on:
- Documented policies on standards and best practices:
- If the standards and best practices are not documented it will be difficult
to ensure best practices are implemented, especially in light of staff turnover,
changing environments, etc.
- Documentation of the architecture used:
- A description of the architecture is needed to ensure that the architecture
used to implement the system is capable of complying with the standards.
- Documented exceptions:
- There may be occasions when deviations from standards may be allowed.
Such deviations should be documented and responsibility for this agreed.
- Systematic checking:
- It is necessary to document systematic procedures for ensuring compliance with standards.
- Audit trails:
- It can be helpful to provide audit trails which can help spotting trends.
Implementing Your Own QA
The QA Focus briefing document "Summary of the QA Focus Methodology" [1]
provides examples of implementing QA in the areas of Web standards and link checking.
In this document we provide a template which can be used for any relevant aspect
of IT development work.
QA Template
The following template can be used for developing your own QA framework.
- Area:
- The area covered by the QA (e.g. Web, software development, usability, ...)
- Standards:
- The standards which are relevant to the area and which you intend to make use of.
- Best Practises:
- The best practices which are relevant to the area and which you intend to make use of.
- Architecture:
- The architecture you intend to use.
- Exceptions:
- A summary of the exceptions to best practices and recommended standards and
a justification for the exceptions.
- Change Control:
- A description of the responsibility for changing this QA document and the
process for changing the policy.
- Checking:
- A description of the systematic checking procedures which will ensure that
you are complying with the policies you have established.
- Audit trail:
- A description of audit trails (if any) which provide a record your compliance
checking, in order to identify any trends.
As can be seen this QA template is simple and straightforward to use. The
QA Focus methodology recognises the lack of resources which can hinder the
deployment of more comprehensive QA frameworks and so has developed a more light-weight approach.
Examples
Examples of use of this approach can be found on the QA Focus Web site, which
includes details of QA policies and procedures in the areas of
Web standards [2], linking [3],
usage statistics [4] and instant messaging [5].
References
- Summary of the QA Focus Methodology, QA Focus, UKOLN,
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/briefing-30/>
- Policy On Web Standards, QA Focus, UKOLN,
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/qa/policies/web/>
- Policy On Linking, QA Focus, UKOLN,
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/qa/policies/links/>
- Policy On Usage Statistics, QA Focus, UKOLN,
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/qa/policies/statistics/>
- Policy On Instant Messaging, QA Focus, UKOLN,
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/qa/policies/instant-messaging/>
Implementing Your Own QA
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