Classroom Scheduling Problems: A Discrete Optimization Approach (UMAP)

Every year, colleges and universities face the problem of assigning classrooms to satisfy the needs of courses, faculty, and students. Classrooms and space are limited, and certain conflicts must be avoided; more often than not, a solution cannot be found to satisfy everyone's requirements. Our main objective was to find an optimal solution to satisfy the majority of people involved at our campus, the University of Minnesota-Morris (UMM). In the long run, our mathematical model can benefit many secondary schools, vocational schools, colleges and universities; and it could be extended to other types of scheduling problems such as airline flights and manufacturing systems (see Kolen et al. [1987], Dondeti and Emmons [1986], and Mangoubi and Mathaisal [1985]).

Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION

INTEGER LINEAR PROGRAMMING MODEL
Time Periods, Mathematics Courses, and Classrooms
The Room-Time-Course ILP
The Professor Assignment ILP

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Results
Analysis of the Results

CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

ABOUT THE AUTHORS