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A case study for generating a non-routine timetable for a Singapore secondary school
Author
Wong, Sandy
Supervisor
Teo, Beng-chong
Abstract
Timetabling is a problem encountered by many educational institutions from the primary school right up to the universities. It is a particular form of scheduling problem.
The work presented in this thesis concerns the problem of timetabling in secondary schools in Singapore, in particular Yusof Ishak Secondary School (YISS). The main focus of this thesis is to look at the timetabling problem based on actual data and actual requirements of a situation. We examine the various techniques that have been applied to solve timetabling problems. We also devise and examine plausible strategies that might be used to solve the YISS timetabling problem.
From the analysis, we discover that the theoretical techniques and plausible strategies could not be applied directly to the YISS timetabling problem in particular, as the problem in study was very complex. We can also conclude that a fully automated timetabling solution that works in real world timetabling problems is unlikely to exist. Hence a practical computational approach was proposed to address and solve the problem. A detailed study was done to investigate the process of solving a unique real life problem using a practical approach. Techniques to enhance and fine-tune the initial feasible solution were adopted in order to obtain the highly desired feasible solution.
Finally, suggestions are made as to how the study should be extended to other secondary school timetabling problems so that the solution technique can work for any secondary school with minor modifications and not just for one school in particular.
The work presented in this thesis concerns the problem of timetabling in secondary schools in Singapore, in particular Yusof Ishak Secondary School (YISS). The main focus of this thesis is to look at the timetabling problem based on actual data and actual requirements of a situation. We examine the various techniques that have been applied to solve timetabling problems. We also devise and examine plausible strategies that might be used to solve the YISS timetabling problem.
From the analysis, we discover that the theoretical techniques and plausible strategies could not be applied directly to the YISS timetabling problem in particular, as the problem in study was very complex. We can also conclude that a fully automated timetabling solution that works in real world timetabling problems is unlikely to exist. Hence a practical computational approach was proposed to address and solve the problem. A detailed study was done to investigate the process of solving a unique real life problem using a practical approach. Techniques to enhance and fine-tune the initial feasible solution were adopted in order to obtain the highly desired feasible solution.
Finally, suggestions are made as to how the study should be extended to other secondary school timetabling problems so that the solution technique can work for any secondary school with minor modifications and not just for one school in particular.
Date Issued
2012
Call Number
LB3032 Won
Date Submitted
2012