Software reliability models incorporating testing effort

Explicitly relating the effectiveness of fault detection to the effort expended in testing, achieved by incorporating testing effort into software reliability models has been the focus of many research efforts. Although the literature is replete with these ‘testing effort models,’ their development appears to be ad hoc and disconnected. The objective of this survey is to propose a framework to classify testing effort models, aimed at identifying their commonalities and highlighting their differences. We conclude the article with a brief discussion of the limitations of the prevalent works in this domain, which also identify directions for future research.