Abstract:
This paper studies educational timetabling problem and a unique hybrid structure of course and school timetabling. In order to diminish the likelihood of curriculum-related conflicts, the problem considers a multi-level assignment problem that can be formulated by employing one of the operational research (OR) methods like linear programming. Prior to proceeding in discussing the proposed strategy, it will be shown why most methods fail in delivering viable results. A strategy will be implemented to simplify the solution and to ensure its quality. The first level of this problem is to assign courses to pairs of timeslots and rooms. The second stage, then, assigns the courses to lecturers. Computational results are backed with real data provided by an educational institution. It is shown that the strategy proposed is effective to withstand the intricacy of data and complexity of variables.