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Ann Oper Res (2010) 181: 249269 DOI 10.1007/s10479-010-0735-9
Tom Mller Keith Murray
Published online: 31 March 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract Student sectioning is the problem of assigning students to particular sections of courses they request while respecting constraints such as course structures, section limits, and reserved spaces. Students may also provide preferences on class times and course alternatives. In this paper, three approaches to this problem are examined and combined in order to tackle it on a practical level: student sectioning during course timetabling, batch sectioning after a complete timetable is developed, and online sectioning for making additional changes to student schedules. An application and some practical results of the proposed solutions based on actual data are also included.
Keywords Student sectioning Student scheduling University timetabling
1 Introduction
Student sectioning is the problem of assigning students to classes (i.e., individual sections of a course) while respecting individual student course requests along with additional constraints (e.g., a student cannot attend two classes that overlap in time). The traditional reason for optimizing student sectioning, rather than students choosing individual classes, is to maximize the number of satised student course requests. In the on-line version of the problem this means maintaining a distribution of available space in classes across times needed to accommodate requests by students who come later in the process. To meet modern expectations, optimizing student sectioning must also consider other preferences and priorities of students while creating their class schedules. This is an important problem for institutions offering many courses with multiple sections.
Academic timetabling problems are frequently categorized as either school timetabling, course timetabling, or exam timetabling (Schaerf 1999). Student sectioning usually resides
T. Mller ( ) K. Murray
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA e-mail: mailto:[email protected]
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K. Murraye-mail: mailto:[email protected]
Web End [email protected]
Comprehensive approach to student sectioning
250 Ann Oper Res (2010) 181: 249269
outside of this categorization since the task is not to allocate a set of events (e.g., classes or exams across time and space); however, some form of student sectioning may be involved in a demand-driven course timetabling process in order to minimize the number of potential student conicts between classes (Carter 2001; Mller 2005; Rudov et al. 2005). In this case, student...