The courses will be fully online, with students participating and collaborating using the Canvas online learning platform. Students attend and participate in classes by logging in to the course website and participating in the discussions. To succeed online, it is essential that you:
log in to the course several times a week;
read and respond to course-related emails on time;
participate in the course discussions as outlined by your instructor;
complete all assigned work on time; and
ask for help if and when you need it.
Active participation is essential in the BBST® courses because we have set them up to last four weeks each. If you fall significantly behind, you miss the course. Discussions will usually take place in a Forum, a Glossary, or a Wiki.

Here are the main aspects that differentiate our courses from others on software testing:

• they are specially designed for online learning;
• there is an in-depth level of learning – participants practice, discuss and evaluate what they are learning;
• they are practical, based on real-life issues faced by IT professionals;
• participants receive individual feedback on every assignment from the instructors;
• there will be an interactive grading of your final exam, a 1-1 session with one of the instructors;
• there are small groups of students, making it possible to interact with everyone as in a face to face class;
• instructors have over 15 years of experience in the field.

The courses combine useful theoretical concepts with practical exercises and assignments meant to have a real impact on your work. Our goal is to support your growth as a tester and encourage you to develop your strengths.

We are not interested in teaching theory that you will forget but in acquiring knowledge that you will actually use.

The BBST® instructors will be available throughout the course to help you with the course assignments, give you feedback and answer questions. For each lesson, you will receive comments and guidance from your instructors.
We put great emphasis on providing individual feedback, in order to offer a tailored learning experience.

You will receive a digital certificate, signed by all the instructors, for each course you complete.

Students are expected to spend an estimated 15-20 hours / week on course assignments and studying. Many students with good English skills and good focus practices will be able to successfully complete the course with less than that too. The work can be done in smaller chunks every day, even during work hours, which means that you don’t need to be away from your projects for long periods of time to work on the course.

All assignments and all work will be done in English, but we can offer support in Finnish and Romanian whenever you feel you might need help.

Each lesson in the courses will have a specific assignment as well as an online quiz to check your understanding of the materials presented in the lectures.
From the first day of class, you will have access to a pool of exam questions. Practice writing your answers. Review practice answers from other students. Get feedback on your answers and provide feedback to your peers. For the final exam, your instructors will select six questions from the pool of questions. You should be well-prepared to answer any questions they choose.
But, don’t worry too much about the exam. The final decision about whether or not you successfully complete the course also takes into account your overall involvement in the class and the quality of feedback you give to the other students.

We are very excited to be teaming up with Cem Kaner and Becky Fiedler in delivering the BBST courses, and here are some of the reasons for that:
we support Cem financially to update the materials and take the courses further, so that the students can benefit from improved and up-to-date materials.
we involve Cem as instructor in some of our courses, so that more students get access to his vast experience and teaching skills
by teaching the courses along with Cem, our instructors receive direct feedback from him and improve their skills and the value of the feedback they provide to students
our approach is to provide a substantial amount of individual feedback to the students, in addition to the classwide feedback and interactive grading sessions. All these facilitate a personalized learning experience.
we support our instructors financially, to give them the opportunity to develop their skills doing something they love, while being rewarded for their work.

As many of our students are working professionals, we understand that there can be unforeseen events which might prevent you from dedicating enough time to the course in order to be able to complete it. This is one of the reasons we offer the the flexibility of online courses – so you can work on the course when it is convenient for you.
However, in exceptional circumstances, we may be able to offer you a place in a future session of the course, based on availability.

You may pay for the course using one of the following methods:

• Pay online using a Credit Card/Debit Card via our online payment provider plationline.ro. Visa, Maestro and MasterCard are accepted.

Once the payment has been completed, your seat in our online course is booked.
If choosing the option to pay by card, the transaction will show on your account with the reference “altom.training”.

• Pay by Direct Bank Transfer.

Once adding the purchase to the cart, we will send you an order at the email address provided. Please use the order ID to make the payment to the specified bank account. Next, we will send you the invoice by email. After the payment has been cleared by our bank, your registration for the course will be finalized.

You will be given access to the online course platform one day prior to the start of the course.

Registration for an individual course or the course specialization can be canceled up to 5 business days prior to the start of the course. Subject to this condition, the participation fee will be refunded, less a 5% administrative fee.
If cancellation is made past due time, the participation fee will NOT be refunded, but registration will remain active for any of the future reiterations of the course.

If you fail any of the courses, you can pay for that course again at the price on the website and continue with the rest of the courses in the specialization.
If you decide that you don’t want to continue with the course series and there’s nothing we can do to convince you to try again, then we will refund the price of the specialization, minus the courses you have already completed. As a price reference for the completed courses, we will use the price displayed at that moment on the website.
For example, if you don’t successfully complete the BBST Foundations after the first try and you decide to stop:Refund = specialization price – BBST Foundations price on the website.
The same amount will be refunded if you graduate BBST Foundations, but then you don’t want to continue with the remaining courses in the specialization.
Please note that we won’t refund the specialization price if you have registered and paid, but you haven’t attended any of the classes in the 3 year time limit.