Case Study: A Comprehensive Integer Programming Model for Improving an Educational Timetable

Abstract

This paper summarizes our work towards developing a solution to the Curriculum Based Timetabling Problem (CB-TTP) at a Mexican university and providing significant insights into timetable processing. We first, identified a data structure using a Mediation Software (MS). This software can read, analyze, and organize data from different institutional log files. Additionally, the MS makes groups of courses without interference in the curricula in order to eliminate this constraint of the Integer Programming (IP) model. Then, we present a comprehensive IP model, which use a set of complex constraints, e.g., professor’s availability, consider the course modality in order to assign an appropriate room, consecutive and isolated period of the courses, among others. Also, consider the constraint that ensures do not cancel courses of interest due to parallel assignments of the mandatory courses. With this methodology was possible to assign 2101 lectures and improve the efficiency of the current scheduling process.