Wbsga: A Web-Based Tool For Course Timetabling And Scheduling

This article describes a new integrated and web-based course-scheduling system. The system's core scheduling engine uses genetic algorithms to automatically produce standard course, room, and lecturer timetables that satisfy all the imposed constraints and preferences collected from lecturers and the administration through a web interface. Throughout this article the tool is referred to as WBSGA (Web-Based Scheduling using Genetic Algorithm). The model for WBSGA is presented and discussed in detail. Several test cases are discussed as well. The system takes into consideration lecturers' preferences in terms of courses and locations, room availabilities, and the list of offered courses and their sections. Presently, the system satisfies the scheduling needs of the College of Information Technology (CIT) of the UAE University and the faculty of IT at the Multimedia University of Malaysia. WBSGA has completed the scheduling of about 50 sections in about 12 seconds, 250 sections in about 230 seconds (4.16 minutes), and 500 sections in about 2100 seconds (35 minutes).