IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jorsoc/v60y2009i1d10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602525.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A genetic algorithm approach to school timetabling

Author

Listed:
  • G N Beligiannis

    (University of Ioannina)

  • C Moschopoulos

    (University of Patras)

  • S D Likothanassis

    (University of Patras)

Abstract

An adaptive algorithm based on computational intelligence techniques is designed, developed and applied to the timetabling problem of educational organizations. The proposed genetic algorithm is used in order to create feasible and efficient timetables for high schools in Greece. In order to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed genetic algorithm, exhaustive experiments with real-world input data coming from many different high schools in the city of Patras have been conducted. As well as that, in order to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm, we compare its experimental results with the results obtained by another effective algorithm applied to the same problem. Simulation results showed that the proposed algorithm outperforms other existing attempts. However, the most significant contribution of the paper is that the proposed algorithm allows for criteria adaptation, thus producing different timetables for different constraints priorities. So, the proposed approach, due to its inherent adaptive capabilities, can be used, each time satisfying different specific constraints, in order to lead to different timetables, thus meeting the different needs that each school may have.

Suggested Citation

  • G N Beligiannis & C Moschopoulos & S D Likothanassis, 2009. "A genetic algorithm approach to school timetabling," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(1), pages 23-42, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:60:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602525
    DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602525
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602525?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. de Werra, D., 1985. "An introduction to timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 151-162, February.
    2. Burke, Edmund Kieran & Petrovic, Sanja, 2002. "Recent research directions in automated timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 266-280, July.
    3. Dimopoulou, M. & Miliotis, P., 2001. "Implementation of a university course and examination timetabling system," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 202-213, April.
    4. K Papoutsis & C Valouxis & E Housos, 2003. "A column generation approach for the timetabling problem of Greek high schools," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 54(3), pages 230-238, March.
    5. Burke, Edmund K. & McCollum, Barry & Meisels, Amnon & Petrovic, Sanja & Qu, Rong, 2007. "A graph-based hyper-heuristic for educational timetabling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 176(1), pages 177-192, January.
    6. E.K. Burke & J.P. Newall, 2004. "Solving Examination Timetabling Problems through Adaption of Heuristic Orderings," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 129(1), pages 107-134, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johnes, Jill, 2015. "Operational Research in education," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(3), pages 683-696.
    2. Nelishia Pillay, 2014. "A survey of school timetabling research," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 218(1), pages 261-293, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johnes, Jill, 2015. "Operational Research in education," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(3), pages 683-696.
    2. R Qu & E K Burke, 2009. "Hybridizations within a graph-based hyper-heuristic framework for university timetabling problems," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(9), pages 1273-1285, September.
    3. Oliver Czibula & Hanyu Gu & Aaron Russell & Yakov Zinder, 2017. "A multi-stage IP-based heuristic for class timetabling and trainer rostering," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 252(2), pages 305-333, May.
    4. Zhang, Defu & Liu, Yongkai & M'Hallah, Rym & Leung, Stephen C.H., 2010. "A simulated annealing with a new neighborhood structure based algorithm for high school timetabling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 203(3), pages 550-558, June.
    5. Qu, Rong & Burke, Edmund K. & McCollum, Barry, 2009. "Adaptive automated construction of hybrid heuristics for exam timetabling and graph colouring problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(2), pages 392-404, October.
    6. Edmund K. Burke & Yuri Bykov, 2016. "An Adaptive Flex-Deluge Approach to University Exam Timetabling," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 781-794, November.
    7. Massimiliano Caramia & Stefano Giordani, 2020. "Curriculum-Based Course Timetabling with Student Flow, Soft Constraints, and Smoothing Objectives: an Application to a Real Case Study," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 1-21, June.
    8. De Causmaecker, Patrick & Demeester, Peter & Vanden Berghe, Greet, 2009. "A decomposed metaheuristic approach for a real-world university timetabling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 195(1), pages 307-318, May.
    9. Christine Mumford, 2010. "A multiobjective framework for heavily constrained examination timetabling problems," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 3-31, November.
    10. Kahar, M.N.M. & Kendall, G., 2010. "The examination timetabling problem at Universiti Malaysia Pahang: Comparison of a constructive heuristic with an existing software solution," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(2), pages 557-565, December.
    11. Thepphakorn, Thatchai & Pongcharoen, Pupong & Hicks, Chris, 2014. "An ant colony based timetabling tool," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 131-144.
    12. 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.
    13. Burke, E.K. & Eckersley, A.J. & McCollum, B. & Petrovic, S. & Qu, R., 2010. "Hybrid variable neighbourhood approaches to university exam timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 206(1), pages 46-53, October.
    14. De Boeck, Liesje & Beliën, Jeroen & Creemers, Stefan, 2016. "A column generation approach for solving the examination-timetabling problemAuthor-Name: Woumans, Gert," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 253(1), pages 178-194.
    15. T. Godwin, 2022. "Obtaining quality business school examination timetable under heterogeneous elective selections through surrogacy," OPSEARCH, Springer;Operational Research Society of India, vol. 59(3), pages 1055-1093, September.
    16. Pillay, N. & Banzhaf, W., 2009. "A study of heuristic combinations for hyper-heuristic systems for the uncapacitated examination timetabling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(2), pages 482-491, September.
    17. Edmund Burke & Graham Kendall & Mustafa Mısır & Ender Özcan, 2012. "Monte Carlo hyper-heuristics for examination timetabling," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 196(1), pages 73-90, July.
    18. Biniyam Asmare Kassa, 2015. "Implementing a Class-Scheduling System at the College of Business and Economics of Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 45(3), pages 203-215, June.
    19. van den Broek, John & Hurkens, Cor & Woeginger, Gerhard, 2009. "Timetabling problems at the TU Eindhoven," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 196(3), pages 877-885, August.
    20. Song, Kwonsik & Kim, Sooyoung & Park, Moonseo & Lee, Hyun-Soo, 2017. "Energy efficiency-based course timetabling for university buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 394-405.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:60:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2602525. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.