An Optimal Timetabling Algorithm of University Course Based on Dynamic Resource Margin

Optimal timetabling of the university curriculum system is essential for the security and reliability of the teaching system. By the optimal timetabling of university courses, the non-adjustable requirements such as the number of classrooms and student courses can be ensured, and the adjustable requirements such as teachers' willingness to arrange courses also could be satisfied as much as possible. Then, the teaching resources can be utilized reasonably and efficiently. Operations research based methods and meta-heuristic algorithms are two major directions for solving the problem. However, in recent studies, the complex relationship between teachers, students, and classrooms is not described accurately operations research based method, and the problems of constructing feasible solutions and guaranteeing convergence are not fully handled in the meta-heuristic algorithm. Therefore, in this paper, a new optimal timetabling algorithm is proposed for university courses, in which the dynamic resource margin is refined properly to improve the utilization of teaching resources. Numerical tests are implemented in a real university course timetabling system, which shows the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed optimal timetabling method.