Automated Course Timetabling Optimization Using Tabu-Simulated Annealing Hyper-Heuristics Algorithm

Abstract

The topic of solving Timetabling Problems is an interesting area of study. These problems are commonly encountered in many institutions, particularly in the educational sector, including universities. One of the challenges faced by universities is the Course Timetabling Problem, which needs to be addressed regularly in every semester, taking into consideration the available resources. Solving this problem requires a significant amount of time and resources to create the optimal schedule that adheres to the predefined constraints, including both hard and soft constraints. As a problem of computational complexity, University Course Timetabling is NP-hard, meaning that there are no exact conventional algorithms that can solve it in polynomial time. Several methods and algorithms have been proposed to optimize course timetabling in order to achieve the optimal results. In this study, a new hybrid algorithm based on Hyper-Heuristics is developed to solve the course timetabling problem using the Socha Dataset. This algorithm combines the strengths of Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search to balance the exploitation and exploration phases and streamline the search process. The results show that the developed algorithm is competitive, ranking second out of ten previous algorithms, and finding the best solution in six datasets.