A brief review on the features of university course timetabling problem

Abstract

University course timetabling problem (UCTP) has become a well-known study among universities and researchers for various fields. Generally, UCTP is the allocation of events into timeslots and rooms considering the list of hard and soft constraints presented in one semester, so that no conflict is created in such allocations. Hard constraints should not be violated under any conditions while satisfying as much as possible the soft constraints. In this article, we review and classified all the constraints from the literature. This is an article that aims to prepare the information of variety constraints used in previous study of timetabling problem. Although improvements on the features have been done since the automation approached was first introduced in the 1960’s, we restrict our review only within the last ten years. More features reflecting the timetabling communities were being identified recently. Based on the review and through our thorough analysis, we have managed to compile mostly used features in researchers’ model to introduce a more general mathematical model. Seven new constraints, which cover requirements related to class meeting pattern and preferences from timetabling communities, were added in our general mathematical model developed in previous study.