Evolutionary algorithms in lecture timetabling

Abstract

Several approaches have been used to solve the timetabling problem. Recently, evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have been applied with very good results to various types of timetabling problems. This paper presents the results of our work on a real course timetabling problem using EAs. We compare two versions of the EA with different representation schemes. We also compare the performance of three configurations, with or without mutation and different recombination and mutation operators. The results show that EAs can always produce a feasible solution without violation of any hard constraint.