Application of the genetic algorithm to the task of compiling the curriculum

Abstract

One of the main tasks in organizing the educational process in higher education is the drawing up of a schedule of classes. It reflects the weekly student and faculty load. At the same time, when compiling, there are a number of necessary conditions and a number of desirable. The paper considers seven required and four desirable conditions. In this paper, one of the well-known approaches that can be used in drawing up a curriculum is consid-ered. The proposed scheme of the genetic algorithm, the result of which is to obtain an approximate solution to the problem of scheduling with the need to further improve it by other heuristic methods. To solve the problem, an island model of the genetic algorithm was selected and its advantages were considered. In the paper, the author's own structure of the individual, which includes chromosomes in the form of educational groups and genes as a lesson at a certain time, is presented and justified. The author presents his own implementations of the genetic algorithms. During the work, many variants of operators were tested, but they were rejected due to their inefficiency. The biggest problem was to maintain the consistency of information encoded in chromosomes. Also, two post-steps were added: to try to reduce the number of teacher conflict conflicts and to normalize the schedule - to remove windows from the schedule. The fitness function is calculated according to the following principles: if some desired or desired property is present in the individual, then a certain number is deducted from the individual's assessment, if there is a negative property, then a certain number is added to the assessment. Each criterion has its weight, so the size of the fine or rewards may be different. In this work, fines were charged for non-fulfillment of mandatory conditions, and rewards for fulfilling the desired