A New Optimization on Harmony Search Algorithm for Exam Timetabling System

Khaled Alomari (), Osama Almarashdi (), Ala Marashdh () and Belal Zaqaibeh ()
Additional contact information
Khaled Alomari: Department of Business Administration, Jadara University, Jordan
Osama Almarashdi: #x2020;Department of Accounting, Jadara University, Jordan
Ala Marashdh: Department of Business Administration, Jadara University, Jordan
Belal Zaqaibeh: #x2021;Department of Software Engineering, Jadara University, Jordan

Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), 2020, vol. 19, issue 01, 1-13

Abstract: Preparing an optimal exam timetable in universities is challenging for head of departments, especially for colleges with multiple number of departments, courses, and students. Harmony search algorithm is used by many researchers to solve this problem but none of them could get an optimal solution. In this paper, a new algorithm which is called optimised harmony search algorithm with distributed selections is proposed by optimising the harmony search algorithm and the genetic algorithm. The new algorithm could satisfy hard, soft, and general constraints and generate an optimal exam timetable for a huge number of courses and students. The proposed algorithm is implemented and applied on Jadara University, the algorithm uses an upper triangular matrix to reduce relationships and memory usage, a three-dimensional matrix to ease the exams timetable management a deterministic number generators to eliminate timeslots conflicts, and backtracking algorithm to enhance the population selections. Lecturers and students’ feedback showed a good satisfaction as well the system results.

Keywords: Exam timetabling; harmony search algorithm; genetic algorithm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219649220400092
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:jikmxx:v:19:y:2020:i:01:n:s0219649220400092

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S0219649220400092

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM) is currently edited by Professor Suliman Hawamdeh

More articles in Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().