An expert system solution to a constraint satisfaction problem in academic administration

The authors present the design of a system to assist academic department chairs in the preparation of semester course schedules. A prototype has been implemented and has been successfully used in the authors´ department. Input includes the credit hour load and the number of preparations for each faculty member, a list of courses to be offered, and the number of sections of each course. Data on room availability, faculty time and course preferences and faculty qualifications enable the system to build a schedule that satisfies a large number of constraints