Constraint-based timetabling-a case study

Author

Abbas, A.M. ; Tsang, E.P.K.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Balamand Univ., Tripoli, Lebanon

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

67

Lastpage

72

Abstract

This paper reports a case study in applying constraint satisfaction techniques to university and school timetabling. It involves the construction of a substantial, carefully specified, fully tested and fully operational system. The software engineering aspect of constraint satisfaction is emphasized. Constraint satisfaction problems are expressed in a language more familiar to the formal software engineering community. This brings constraint satisfaction one step closer to formal specification, program verification and transformation; issues extensively studied in software engineering. In problem formulation, explicit domain constraints and heuristic information are made explicit. Moreover, the user´s needs are considered more closely; for instance, when the program fails to find a solution, useful indications are produced to help in relaxation or reformulation of the problem

Keywords

constraint theory; educational administrative data processing; formal specification; operations research; program verification; constraint satisfaction techniques; constraint-based timetabling; explicit domain constraints; formal specification; heuristic information; program transformation; program verification; reformulation; relaxation; school timetabling; software engineering; university timetabling; Computer aided software engineering; Computer science; Educational institutions; Formal languages; Formal specifications; Hospitals; Problem-solving; Software engineering; System testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Computer Systems and Applications, ACS/IEEE International Conference on. 2001

Conference_Location

Beirut

Print_ISBN

0-7695-1165-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/AICCSA.2001.933953

Filename

933953