DESIGN OF EXAMINATION TIMETABLING SOFTWARE USING GENERIC ALGORITHMS AND SIMULATED ANNEALING


DESIGN OF EXAMINATION TIMETABLING SOFTWARE USING GENERIC ALGORITHMS AND SIMULATED ANNEALING  

ABSTRACT:          

Previously, Exam officers at Osun State Polytechnic, Ireeareexam time-table decision makers who applied assignment procedure based on their experience with a little guidance from computer software to generate the exam timetable. They would take into account spreading exams evenly, and fairly, throughout the timetable but the size and complexity of the problem makes this unrealistic to be solved manually. Therefore, this research have proposed an Examination Timetabling Software Using Generic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing developed to solve examination timetabling problem. The proposed work aims to produce an intelligent commercial scheduler that is capable of producing a high quality examination timetable. The objective function considers both timeslots and days in assigning exams to timeslots, where a higher priority is given to minimise students having consecutive exams on the same day. The objective also tries to spread exams throughout the examination period. 

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 General Overview

The difficulties of developing appropriate examination time table for institutions and tertiary is increasing. Institutions are enrolling more students into wider variety of courses in many different fields. For example, at Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, approximately 14,000 students have to be filled into about 150 exams over two and a half week’s period.

The examination timetable problem regards the scheduling for the exams of a set of polytechnic courses, avoiding overlaps of exams of courses having common students, and spreading the exams for the students as much as possible.

Examination scheduling (timetabling) is a very important process in education institutions. The main challenge is to schedule examinations to timeslots and rooms over a specific period while satisfying a set of constraints. The previous attempts were based on the graph coloring concept. In this case the vertices represent causes, and join two vertices only if they cannot be scheduled at the same time. The problem is therefore to find the chromatic number of resulting graph.

One of the major approaches in exam timetabling over the years has been constraint programming approach (Simulated Annealing). This method constraint programming logic language (chip) also to solve exam timetabling problem. Constraint programme phase provide an initial solution and a simulated annealing phase to improve the quality of solutions.

The local search approaches play an important role in the exam timetabling literature. White and Xie and Di Gaspero and Schaef used tabu search method in exam timetabling. White and Xie Kept two table lists, the used short-term table list, and the long-term tabu lists keeps tracks of the most moved exams, Di Gaspero and Scheaf used a single table list, but when exams are added to this list, its for a randomly determined number of iterations.

The polytechnic has two semesters per each academic year. Each semester per each academic year. Each semester is made up of up to fifteen weeks of teaching, by followed by two weeks of examination. There are two examination sessions per day except on Saturday where student are allowed to rest and start of Sabbath for seventh day Adventist. Examinations are mostly three hours long with a few exceptions which deviates for half an hour or two hours.

There are an increasing number of courses which cut across facilities and polytechnics-wide courses which are offered to more than a thousands students at the same time. The problem is also complicated by the freedom of choices by students on optimal courses, where students have wide range of choices which cut across department and faculties.

The Examination Timetable Problem (ETP) is usually modeled as an NP-Hard (non-deterministic polynomial time hard problem) combinatorial optimization problem. The problem demands that a given number of exams are scheduled in a limited number of periods and venues in such a way that no student will have more than one exam at a time and other constraint are satisfied.

Although consideration will be based in particular on exams timetabling, the ideas presented here can be extended to many other application, which include not only other scheduling problems but also multi-criteria problems. In general, the reason to present an application to exams time tabling is justified by the affiliation of the auditors and their awareness of the increased difficulty that some recent strategies have introduced in this academic task. Just as an example monitoring the tendency forwards the flexibility of curricular and the increase of the number of students enrolled in each course.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

In this project work, we present a new solution method for examination timetabling, consisting of two phase: a generic algorithm phase to improve provide an initial solution and a simulated annealing phase to improve the quality of solution. The simulated annealing applies kempe chain neighborhood and includes a mechanism that allow the user to define a certain period of time in which the algorithm should run. We perform preliminary experiments of the algorithm on the real data set from the OSUN STATE POLYTECHNIC, IREE.

However, the main different between the two approach is that our simulated annealing phase is equipped with more refine mechanisms that help to determine crucial cooling schedule parameter.

1.3    Aim and Objective of the Study

The principle aim of this project aim of this project work is develop examination timetabling software that will be useful to our education institutions, using Generic Algorithms and simulated annealing.

The following are the set objective

⦁ Exploratory study of Generic Algorithm and simulated annealing in resolving conflicts associated with exam timetabling.

⦁ Develop a computer software to automatically generate exam timetable using the two appropriate by considering Osun State Polytechnic exam time table data.

⦁ To evaluate and compare the performance of  the two algorithms in term of their computational complexity.

1.4 Limitation of the Project

The project is developed to cover the fixing of examination timetables for all students in this institution of Osun State Polytechnic, Iree but it can be implemented in any other tertiary institution, this can be achieved by merely adjusting the input design of the program.

1.5 Scope of the study

In this project, attention is focused in formulating mathematical models for the examinations timetable at Osun State Polytechnic, Iree. This will act as a benchmark for testing heuristic algorithms (describe an algorithm that modifies itself in response to the user) and help future reformations of the problem models. The Examination Timetabling Problems (ETP) differ considerably from the polytechnic curse scheduling problem.

1.6 Significant of the project

The significant of the research work is to assist to curb the examination timetable problems that may arise in the future, based on the following concussion and recommendation made by the researcher.

The finding of this study will enable us to understand and the importance of good examination timetable system for the tertiary institution easy and effective also with the used of appropriate examination timetable tom stimulate the timetable of various resources combination so as to encourage  better timetable planning and information gathering.

To minimize the length of examination period with the constraint given to used rate determine every student academic performance and also to allocate inugolator to time and venues.

To give a technical knowledge and the competence of each student.

.

DESIGN OF EXAMINATION TIMETABLING SOFTWARE USING GENERIC ALGORITHMS AND SIMULATED ANNEALING



TYPE IN YOUR TOPIC AND CLICK SEARCH.






RESEARCHWAP.NET

Researchwap.net is an online repository for free project topics and research materials, articles and custom writing of research works. We’re an online resource centre that provides a vast database for students to access numerous research project topics and materials. Researchwap.net guides and assist Postgraduate, Undergraduate and Final Year Students with well researched and quality project topics, topic ideas, research guides and project materials. We’re reliable and trustworthy, and we really understand what is called “time factor”, that is why we’ve simplified the process so that students can get their research projects ready on time. Our platform provides more educational services, such as hiring a writer, research analysis, and software for computer science research and we also seriously adhere to a timely delivery.

TESTIMONIES FROM OUR CLIENTS


Please feel free to carefully review some written and captured responses from our satisfied clients.

  • "Exceptionally outstanding. Highly recommend for all who wish to have effective and excellent project defence. Easily Accessable, Affordable, Effective and effective."

    Debby Henry George, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA.
  • "I saw this website on facebook page and I did not even bother since I was in a hurry to complete my project. But I am totally amazed that when I visited the website and saw the topic I was looking for and I decided to give a try and now I have received it within an hour after ordering the material. Am grateful guys!"

    Hilary Yusuf, United States International University Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.
  • "Researchwap.net is a website I recommend to all student and researchers within and outside the country. The web owners are doing great job and I appreciate them for that. Once again, thank you very much "researchwap.net" and God bless you and your business! ."

    Debby Henry George, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA.
  • "Great User Experience, Nice flows and Superb functionalities.The app is indeed a great tech innovation for greasing the wheels of final year, research and other pedagogical related project works. A trial would definitely convince you."

    Lamilare Valentine, Kwame Nkrumah University, Kumasi, Ghana.
  • "I love what you guys are doing, your material guided me well through my research. Thank you for helping me achieve academic success."

    Sampson, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
  • "researchwap.com is God-sent! I got good grades in my seminar and project with the help of your service, thank you soooooo much."

    Cynthia, Akwa Ibom State University .
  • "Sorry, it was in my spam folder all along, I should have looked it up properly first. Please keep up the good work, your team is quite commited. Am grateful...I will certainly refer my friends too."

    Elizabeth, Obafemi Awolowo University
  • "Am happy the defense went well, thanks to your articles. I may not be able to express how grateful I am for all your assistance, but on my honour, I owe you guys a good number of referrals. Thank you once again."

    Ali Olanrewaju, Lagos State University.
  • "My Dear Researchwap, initially I never believed one can actually do honest business transactions with Nigerians online until i stumbled into your website. You have broken a new legacy of record as far as am concerned. Keep up the good work!"

    Willie Ekereobong, University of Port Harcourt.
  • "WOW, SO IT'S TRUE??!! I can't believe I got this quality work for just 3k...I thought it was scam ooo. I wouldn't mind if it goes for over 5k, its worth it. Thank you!"

    Theressa, Igbinedion University.
  • "I did not see my project topic on your website so I decided to call your customer care number, the attention I got was epic! I got help from the beginning to the end of my project in just 3 days, they even taught me how to defend my project and I got a 'B' at the end. Thank you so much researchwap.com, infact, I owe my graduating well today to you guys...."

    Joseph, Abia state Polytechnic.
  • "My friend told me about ResearchWap website, I doubted her until I saw her receive her full project in less than 15 miniutes, I tried mine too and got it same, right now, am telling everyone in my school about researchwap.com, no one has to suffer any more writing their project. Thank you for making life easy for me and my fellow students... Keep up the good work"

    Christiana, Landmark University .
  • "I wish I knew you guys when I wrote my first degree project, it took so much time and effort then. Now, with just a click of a button, I got my complete project in less than 15 minutes. You guys are too amazing!."

    Musa, Federal University of Technology Minna
  • "I was scared at first when I saw your website but I decided to risk my last 3k and surprisingly I got my complete project in my email box instantly. This is so nice!!!."

    Ali Obafemi, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Niger State.
  • To contribute to our success story, send us a feedback or please kindly call 2348037664978.
    Then your comment and contact will be published here also with your consent.

    Thank you for choosing researchwap.com.