Course planning optimization with conditional constraints using integer linear programming

Abstract

With the limited resources such as the number of classrooms and instructors in educational institutions, course planning can be challenged in terms of determining which courses to offer to students in each term. The course planner needs to offer a minimum number of appropriate courses by examining the course sequences and the enrolled courses of every students in each term. The proposed problem formulation for an optimization with conditional constraints based on Integer Linear programming establishes an approach for efficient course planning. A course advising process assisted by this optimization allows students to enroll in appropriate courses in every terms. In this paper, students are enrolled in each term a set of 3 courses following the course sequence defined by the study plan such that every individual student can complete the program within 4 terms. The simulation carries out for 4 consecutive terms on students from 3 study programs with varied number of students in each term to quantitatively demonstrate that the high advising quality can achieved in spite of several resource constraints. A proposed evaluation index %Q is developed to confirm the advising quality . © 2018 Association for Computing Machinery.