Visualization Methods for Educational Timetabling Problems: A Systematic Review of Literature

This paper investigates, through a Systematic Review of the Literature (SRL), the application of advanced Information Visualization (IV) methods to the Educational Timetabling Problem (Ed-TTP). The aim is to show how IV can facilitate the human perception of the several elements embedded in a school or university timetable scheduling. We also investigates how interactive IVs have been proposed to help creating/improving timetabling solutions, particularly when time conflict is a major challenging to be solved. In this SRL we considered publications from the last twenty years (1998–2018) indexed by seven solid scientific databases. The review clearly identified that there is a small amount of studies devoted to the intersection between IV and Ed-TTP in that period. Ideas for future research in this intersection field are discussed.

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