Exploratory analysis of environmental factors for enhancing the software reliability assessment

Today software development is no longer an isolated work of a single progra mmer. Large systems are usually developed in a multi-language environment a nd run simultaneously on various platforms. Software development is a very complex process involving various factors. In this paper 32 environmental f actors are defined and a survey was launched to investigate the impact of t hese factors on software reliability assessment. We extend our study by com bining the original factors to reduce the dimension of the factor space; ex amine the impact of the environmental factors on the software reliability a ssessment improvement; investigate whether people have different opinions o n ranking the environmental factors depending on their years of experience; and test the association between software reliability assessment improveme nt and participant's background information. Statistical analysis methodolo gies including factor analysis, linear regression, nested design, and chi-s quare test are utilized in this study. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All r ights reserved.