Abstract
One of the decision problems in many organizations and institutions is to decide how to schedule different tasks, in particular, in higher education institutions. One of the main problems is the university course timetabling problem (UCTP): this problem consists of the allocation of events (courses, professors, and students) to a number of fixed time slots and rooms, this at the beginning of each academic period of the universities. The existent formulations include particular requirements from different educational levels and institutions, as in our case. In this paper, we focus on the university course timetabling problem with the assignment of professor-course-time slot for an institution in Mexico. Timetabling is constructed for the disciplinary courses that are offered by one of the academic departments. The main characteristics are as follows: (1) there are full-time and part-time professors; (2) a mandatory fixed number of courses has to be assigned to each full-time professor according to their academic profile; (3) there is a maximum number of courses assigned to part-time professors; (4) a professor-course matrix that specifies the valid assignation is defined; and (5) mandatory time periods for courses in different semesters are established and other traditional constraints. We present the integer linear programming model proposed to solve the case studied. The optimal solution was obtained with low computational effort through the classical branch-and-bound algorithm. We describe the complete timetable to show the model effectiveness.
Highlights
The International Timetabling Competition of 2019 [5] focuses on the creation of rich real-world datasets of university course timetabling problem in which the aim is to find an optimal assignment of times, rooms, and students to events related to the set of courses
We focus on curriculum-based university course timetabling problem (UCTP). e main goal is to present a novel mathematical model that solves the UCTP for a specific academic department, assigning the course and section to a professor in a time slot
Assumptions are as follows: (i) e number of courses to be scheduled is known a priori (ii) e number of time slots as well as their duration is known (iii) e number of maximum courses that a part-time professor can teach is known (iv) Full-time professors have a mandatory number of courses to be assigned (v) e number of full-time and part-time professors is known (vi) e courses that a professor can teach according to their expertise area are known a priori (vii) For disposition of the academic department, we assume that all professors have full-time availability
Summary
Nancy Maribel Arratia-Martinez ,1 Cristina Maya-Padron ,2 and Paulina A. We focus on the university course timetabling problem with the assignment of professor-course-time slot for an institution in Mexico. E main goal is to present a novel mathematical model that solves the UCTP for a specific academic department, assigning the course and section to a professor in a time slot. In this problem, each academic department determines the timetable for courses and can be in charge of one or more undergraduate programs. E proposed mathematical model will help in the current process of the department previously described, in which a timetable is designed to assign course-professortime slot, helping in this complex task and taking the information about the professor’s availability a priori. (iii) Semester courses from 1st to 4th are assigned in the morning, and semester courses from 5th to 8th are Characteristics
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