Metamorphic testing of decision support systems: a case study

Decision support systems provide critical support to decision makers. These systems are increasingly complex and, as a result, they are very difficult to test because of the lack of an ideal test oracle. Lack of testing may result in poor software quality and wrong decisions being made and, hence, bring serious consequences. In the present study, the authors conduct a case study, where the authors apply a metamorphic testing method to alleviate the oracle problem in testing decision support systems. Experimental results show that metamorphic testing is effective in revealing faults in the absence of an ideal oracle.