scholarly journals The application of Coarse-Grained Parallel Genetic Algorithm with Hadoop in University Intelligent Course-Timetabling System

Author(s):  
Liping Wu

The university course-timetabling problem is a NP-C problem. The traditional method of arranging course is inefficient, causes a high conflict rate of teacher resource or classroom resource, and is poor satisfaction in students. So it does not meet the requirements of modern university educational administration management. However, parallel genetic algorithm (PGA) not only have the advantages of the traditional genetic algorithm(GA), but also take full advantage of the computing power of parallel computing. It can improve the quality and speed of solving effectively, and have a broad application prospect in solving the problem of university course-timetabling problem. In this paper, based on the cloud computing platform of Hadoop, an improved method of fusing coarse-grained parallel genetic algorithm (CGPGA) and Map/Reduce programming model is deeply researched, and which is used to solve the problem of university intelligent courses arrangement. The simulation experiment results show that, compared with the traditional genetic algorithm, the coarse-grained parallel genetic algorithm not only improves the efficiency of the course arrangement and the success rate of the course, but also reduces the conflict rate of the course. At the same time, this research makes full use of the high parallelism of Map/Reduce to improve the efficiency of the algorithm, and also solves the problem of university scheduling problem more effectively.

2020 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Alfian Akbar Gozali ◽  
Shigeru Fujimura

The University Course Timetabling Problem (UCTP) is a scheduling problem of assigning teaching event in certain time and room by considering the constraints of university stakeholders such as students, lecturers, and departments. The constraints could be hard (encouraged to be satisfied) or soft (better to be fulfilled). This problem becomes complicated for universities which have an immense number of students and lecturers. Moreover, several universities are implementing student sectioning which is a problem of assigning students to classes of a subject while respecting individual student requests along with additional constraints. Such implementation enables students to choose a set of preference classes first then the system will create a timetable depend on their preferences. Subsequently, student sectioning significantly increases the problem complexity. As a result, the number of search spaces grows hugely multiplied by the expansion of students, other variables, and involvement of their constraints. However, current and generic solvers failed to meet scalability requirement for student sectioning UCTP. In this paper, we introduce the Multi-Depth Genetic Algorithm (MDGA) to solve student sectioning UCTP. MDGA uses the multiple stages of GA computation including multi-level mutation and multi-depth constraint consideration. Our research shows that MDGA could produce a feasible timetable for student sectioning problem and get better results than previous works and current UCTP solver. Furthermore, our experiment also shows that MDGA could compete with other UCTP solvers albeit not the best one for the ITC-2007 benchmark dataset.


DYNA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 87 (215) ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
Javier Arias-Osorio ◽  
Andrés Mora-Esquivel

In this study, we address the current issues that usually manifest during the programming of university courses, classified as University Course Timetabling Problem, which is considered as a NP-hard problem due to the high computational demand that it requires.To solve the problem, a Mixed Integer Linear Programming model is proposed, which serves as a reference when dimensioning the problem and the restrictions that must be considered. Next, a hybrid metaheuristic method is designed based on the HGATS algorithm, Hybrid Genetic Algorithm Tabu Search Approach, developed by [16], which combines the diversification capacity of the Genetic Algorithm with the strategy of intensification of the Tabu Search Algorithm. Finally, the validation of the proposed algorithm is performed using the data from the programming of the classes from the academic periods 2018-1 and 2018-2 for the academic program of Industrial Engineering at the Industrial University of Santander, obtaining interesting solutions in a reasonable computational time, being that the process of organizing the schedule by the coordinator can last from hours to days, depending on your ability.  


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