A Course Timetabling Problem for Classroom Usage Minimization
Küçük Resim Yok
Tarih
2023
Dergi Başlığı
Dergi ISSN
Cilt Başlığı
Yayıncı
Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Erişim Hakkı
info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
Özet
University course timetabling problem is a problem that tries to optimally assign days, hours, and classrooms for courses in the curriculum, taking into account constraints such as availability of the lecturers, capacities of the lecture halls/classrooms and possible other special rules. In this study, the course timetabling problem of Izmir Bakırçay University Industrial Engineering Department is considered. Although it is a relatively new university in Turkey, it has become increasingly difficult to prepare course timetables due to the increasing number of departments, courses, and students, as well as the very limited current number of classrooms, lecture halls and laboratories within the campus. Currently, the course schedules are prepared with heuristic methods manually. This process is extremely challenging due to the mentioned scarce resources, the most critical being the number of amphitheaters dedicated to the department, as well as the limited number of computer labs. Even coming up with a feasible timetable for a semester can take weeks and several hundred valuable man-hours in the current situation. In order to solve the real-life problem on hand, an integer programming model was developed with an objective of minimizing the used number of classrooms. The model takes into account the unavailable hours of the lecturers. It also considers many constraints such as not overlapping the classes of consecutive years’ lectures, as well as other traditional timetabling constraints. The model was solved using IBM ILOG CPLEX Optimization Studio, an optimization software package. In addition, an interactive and simple user interface was developed in MS Excel VBA programming language, which communicates with the optimization software automatically, thus allowing the decision makers to use the interface without the need for any technical knowledge. Optimal course timetables meeting the university rules and lecturer preferences can be created automatically and efficiently as a result. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Açıklama
22nd International Symposium for Production Research, ISPR 2022 -- 6 October 2022 through 8 October 2022 -- -- 291539
Anahtar Kelimeler
Course timetabling; Integer programming; Operations research applications; Optimization; User interface, Constraint programming; Decision making; Heuristic methods; Operations research; Students; User interfaces; Course timetabling; Engineering department; Integer Program- ming; Minimisation; Operation research; Operation research application; Optimisations; Research applications; Timetabling problem; University course timetabling-problems; Integer programming
