Solving the class timetabling problem by 0–1 integer programming

Abstract

This paper presents a two-stage approach to solving the timetabling problem for an academic department. The first stage seeks to find the best faculty assignment to courses and sections where these courses are offered. The assignment is based on faculty specializations. The second stage finds an appropriate weekly schedule for the faculty-course-section assignment obtained in the first stage. The problems in both stages are modeled as 0-1 integer linear programming problems. The models are solved using LINGO 14, courtesy of Lindo Systems, Inc., with run times practically negligible.