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On the Use of the Terms Verification and Validation
Author(s) -
Ryan Michael J.,
Wheatcraft Louis S.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2017.00427.x
Subject(s) - ambiguity , context (archaeology) , computer science , meaning (existential) , process (computing) , term (time) , simple (philosophy) , word (group theory) , order (exchange) , epistemology , linguistics , programming language , paleontology , philosophy , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , economics , biology
While the concepts of verification and validation are commonplace, in practice the terms are often used interchangeably and the context of their use is not made clear, resulting in the meaning of the concepts frequently being misunderstood. This paper addresses the use of the terms verification and validation and identifies their various meanings in terms of the context in which they are used, particularly as defined in the relevant standards and literature, as well as everyday usage. In particular, it is identified that both terms are ambiguous unless a modifier is included in front of the word, clearly indicating to which context the term is referring. This paper illustrates that failing to use a modifier—thus assuming the reader understands the context in which the terms are used—is the most common reason for ambiguity and misunderstanding. The paper presents a simple model of the system design process to allow the nature of verification and validation to be understood better within a given context. Definitions are then proposed in order to disambiguate the various uses of the terms.