Enric Crespo

Design and implementation of a course scheduling system using Tabu Search

Abstract Building a course timetable is a difficult and lengthy task which universities devote a large amount of human and material resources to every year. We have developed a computer package to solve this problem. The program runs on a PC and the user may set the objectives and parameters from among a wide range of possibilities. It has a user-friendly interface for the user to input the relevant data and obtain the corresponding results. The optimization process is based on a set of heuristic algorithms. The core is a Tabu Search procedure for which several strategies have been developed and tested in order to get a fast and powerful algorithm. The first tests of the package have produced satisfactory results.

GRASP and path relinking for project scheduling under partially renewable resources

Recently, in the field of project scheduling problems the concept of partially renewable resources has been introduced. Theoretically, it is a generalization of both renewable and non-renewable resources. From an applied point of view, partially renewable resources allow us to model a large variety of situations that do not fit into classical models, but can be found in real problems in timetabling and labor scheduling. In this paper, we develop some preprocessing techniques and several heuristic algorithms for the problem. Preprocessing significantly reduces the dimension of the problems, therefore improving the efficiency of solution procedures. Heuristic algorithms based on GRASP and Path relinking are then developed and tested on existing test instances, obtaining excellent results.

A scatter search algorithm for project scheduling under partially renewable resources

In this paper we develop a heuristic algorithm, based on Scatter Search, for project scheduling problems under partially renewable resources. This new type of resource can be viewed as a generalization of renewable and non-renewable resources, and is very helpful in modelling conditions that do no fit into classical models, but which appear in real timetabling and labor scheduling problems. The Scatter Search algorithm is tested on existing test instances and obtains the best results known so far.

Assigning students to course sections using tabu search

In this paper we describe a new student registration system which has been developed at the University of Valencia, Spain. The system has two steps. First, the students make a computer-aided course selection from the courses available at the University. Thereafter, an assignment procedure allocates students to sections in order to respect two criteria: to provide the students with satisfactory schedules and to get balanced section enrollments.The assignment process has two phases. In Phase I, we obtain a set of the best solutions for each student. The algorithm is based on the construction of maximum cardinality independent sets. In Phase II, these solution sets are put together and a tabu search algorithm looks for a satisfactory balance between course sections without causing the solution obtained for each student to worsen significantly.The system was used at the beginning of the academic year 1996/97 in the Faculty of Mathematics and could be extended in the near future to the rest of the University.