An Evolutionary Algorithm for Solving Academic Courses Timetable Scheduling Problem

Abstract

Scheduling Timetables for courses in the big departments in the universities is a very hard problem and is often be solved by many previous works although results are partially optimal. This work implements the principle of an evolutionary algorithm by using genetic theories to solve the timetabling problem to get a random and full optimal timetable with the ability to generate a multi-solution timetable for each stage in the collage. The major idea is to generate course timetables automatically while discovering the area of constraints to get an optimal and flexible schedule with no redundancy through the change of a viable course timetable. The main contribution in this work is indicated by increasing the flexibility of generating optimal timetable schedules with different copies by increasing the probability of giving the best schedule for each stage in the campus with the ability to replace the timetable when needed. The Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) utilized in this paper is the Genetic Algorithm (GA) which is a common multi-solution metaheuristic search based on the evolutionary population that can be applied to solve complex combinatorial problems like timetabling problems. In this work, all inputs: courses, teachers, and time acted by one array to achieve local search and combined this acting of the timetable by using the heuristic crossover to ensure that the essential conditions are not broken. The result of this work is a flexible scheduling system, which shows the diversity of all possible timetables that can be created depending on user conditions and needs.

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