Tabu Search Heuristic for Course Timetabling Problem
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African Journal of Science and Technology
Abstract
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In this study we have addressed the NP-Hard problem of academic course timetabling.
This is the problem of assigning resources such as lecturers, rooms and courses to a fixed time
period normally a week, while satisfying a number of problem-specific constraints. This paper
describes a Tabu Search algorithm that creates timetables by heuristically minimizing penalties
over infeasibilities. The algorithm is developed with special focus on the University of Dar-assalaam
and compares the results with a previous manually generated timetable. It has been found
that, the Tabu Search technique gives better results given a careful selection of parameters.
Keywords
Tabu Search, heuristics, Timetabling Problem