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Preferential Course Scheduling

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan D. Bloomfield

    (School of Business, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331)

  • Michael M. McSharry

    (School of Business, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331)

Abstract

An academic department of a college or university typically constructs its yearly schedule of classes in two stages. First, each faculty member is assigned a set of classes or course sections to teach during the year. Following that days, times, and room numbers are assigned to each course section. These two procedures are almost universally performed manually, demanding various degrees of combinatorial skill and political astuteness on the part of the course scheduler. Depending on the size of the department and the diversity of course offerings, the time required to construct such a schedule of classes can range from a perfunctory afternoon's work to an intensive month-long ordeal.Recent work by Dyer and Mulvey [Dyer, James, John Mulvey. 1976. An integrated optimization/information systems for academic departmental planning. Management Science 22 (12, August) 1332--1341; Dyer, James, John Mulvey. 1977. Computerized scheduling and planning. New Directions for Institutional Research 13 (Spring) 67--86.] has addressed the problem of assigning faculty members to specific classes or course sections. They developed a network flow model that was successfully used to assign faculty members to course sections at the Graduate School of Management at UCLA.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan D. Bloomfield & Michael M. McSharry, 1979. "Preferential Course Scheduling," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 9(4), pages 24-31, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:9:y:1979:i:4:p:24-31
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.9.4.24
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ramón Alvarez-Valdés & Francisco Parreño & José Tamarit, 2002. "A tabu search algorithm for assigning teachers to courses," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 10(2), pages 239-259, December.
    2. Jaime Miranda, 2010. "eClasSkeduler: A Course Scheduling System for the Executive Education Unit at the Universidad de Chile," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 40(3), pages 196-207, June.
    3. K A Willoughby & C J Zappe, 2006. "A methodology to optimize foundation seminar assignments," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(8), pages 950-956, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    education systems: operations;

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