University Course Scheduling and Classroom Assignment

Abstract

This paper studies a real-life course timetabling andclassroom assignment problem found at Universidad deLa Sabana, Colombia. The problem is characterized andmodeled using integer linear programming. Because ofits complexity in the number of decision variables andconstraints, a hierarchical two-phase solution approachis proposed: course timetabling firstly, and classroom assignment,secondly. The approach is validated using realdata from the first semester of year 2012. Results showthat the proposed approach obtains a better utilizationof classrooms satisfying both hard and soft constraints ofthe original problem. A sensitivity analysis is finally carriedout, in which it was possible to verify the possibility ofreducing both the number of classrooms to be assignedand the number of course groups. Both analyses allow anincrease in teaching resource availability and a reductionof total cost.