Scheduling examinations in a large university is an increasingly complex problem, due to its size, the growing flexibility of students' curricula and the interest in including a wide set of objectives and constraints. In this paper we present a new algorithm for this problem and its application to a university in Spain.
A combination of heuristics, based on Tabu Search, first finds a solution in which no student has two exams simultaneously and then improves it by evenly spacing the exams in the examination period. The algorithm has been imbedded into a package to be used by Faculty administrators and proposes solutions to be considered by the parties involved: administration, departments and students. Computational results, comparing our results with the timetables actually used, are presented.
@article{urn:eudml:doc:40188,
title = {A tabu search algorithm to schedule university examinations.},
journal = {Q\"uestii\'o},
volume = {21},
year = {1997},
pages = {201-215},
language = {en},
url = {http://dml.mathdoc.fr/item/urn:eudml:doc:40188}
}
Alvarez-Valdés, Ramón; Crespo, Enric; Tamarit, José M. A tabu search algorithm to schedule university examinations.. Qüestiió, Tome 21 (1997) pp. 201-215. http://gdmltest.u-ga.fr/item/urn:eudml:doc:40188/