An XML format for benchmarks in High School Timetabling

The High School Timetabling Problem is amongst the most widely used timetabling problems. This problem has varying structures in different high schools even within the same country or educational system. Due to lack of standard benchmarks and data formats this problem has been studied less than other timetabling problems in the literature. In this paper we describe the High School Timetabling Problem in several countries in order to find a common set of constraints and objectives. Our main goal is to provide exchangeable benchmarks for this problem. To achieve this we propose a standard data format suitable for different countries and educational systems, defined by an XML schema. The schema and datasets are available online.

[1]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling V, 5th International Conference, PATAT 2004, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, August 18-20, 2004, Revised Selected Papers , 2005, PATAT.

[2]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  A Standard Data Format for Timetabling Instances , 1997, PATAT.

[3]  Onno B. de Gans,et al.  A computer timetabling system for secondary schools in the Netherlands , 1981 .

[4]  Kimmo Nurmi,et al.  A Framework for School Timetabling Problem , 2007 .

[5]  Toby Walsh,et al.  Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming — CP 2001: 7th International Conference, CP 2001 Paphos, Cyprus, November 26 – December 1, 2001 Proceedings , 2001, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[6]  Gilbert Laporte,et al.  Examination Timetabling: Algorithmic Strategies and Applications , 1994 .

[7]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling III , 2001, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[8]  Michela Milano Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming , 2012, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[9]  Mike Wright,et al.  School Timetabling Using Heuristic Search , 1996 .

[10]  Samad Ahmadi,et al.  An Extensible Modelling Framework for the Examination Timetabling Problem , 2006 .

[11]  Dominique de Werra On a Multiconstrained Model for Chromatic Scheduling , 1999, Discret. Appl. Math..

[12]  D. de Werra,et al.  An introduction to timetabling , 1985 .

[13]  Stefan Büttcher,et al.  A Standard Framework for Timetabling Problems , 2002, PATAT.

[14]  Efthymios Housos,et al.  Timetabling for Greek high schools , 1997 .

[15]  David Abramson,et al.  Constructing school timetables using simulated annealing: sequential and parallel algorithms , 1991 .

[16]  Samad Ahmadi,et al.  An Extensible Modelling Framework for Timetabling Problems , 2006, PATAT.

[17]  Andrea Schaerf,et al.  A Survey of Automated Timetabling , 1999, Artificial Intelligence Review.

[18]  Fumio Kitagawa,et al.  An existential problem of a weight- controlled subset and its application to school timetable construction , 1988, Discret. Math..

[19]  Efthymios Housos,et al.  Constraint programming approach for school timetabling , 2003, Comput. Oper. Res..

[20]  Patrick De Causmaecker,et al.  Semantic Components for Timetabling , 2004, PATAT.

[21]  Jeffrey H. Kingston Modelling Timetabling Problems with STTL , 2000, PATAT.

[22]  Gilbert Laporte,et al.  Recent Developments in Practical Course Timetabling , 1997, PATAT.

[23]  Mauro Birattari,et al.  International timetabling competition: A hybrid approach , 2003 .

[24]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  The practice and theory of automated timetabling , 2014, Ann. Oper. Res..

[25]  Ender Özcan,et al.  Towards an XML-Based Standard for Timetabling Problems: TTML , 2005 .

[26]  Luís Paulo Reis,et al.  A Language for Specifying Complete Timetabling Problems , 2000, PATAT.

[27]  Jeffrey H. Kingston,et al.  The Solution of Real Instances of the Timetabling Problem , 1993, Comput. J..

[28]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  The practice and theory of automated timetabling , 2014, Annals of Operations Research.

[29]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling VI, 6th International Conference, PATAT 2006, Brno, Czech Republic, August 30 - September 1, 2006, Revised Selected Papers , 2007, PATAT.

[30]  George L. Nemhauser,et al.  The Traveling Tournament Problem Description and Benchmarks , 2001, CP.

[31]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling II , 1997, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[32]  RJ Roy Willemen,et al.  School timetable construction : algorithms and complexity , 2002 .

[33]  Sanja Petrovic,et al.  Recent research directions in automated timetabling , 2002, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[34]  Patrick De Causmaecker,et al.  Using Web Standards for Timetabling , 2002 .

[35]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling IV , 2002, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[36]  Edmund K. Burke,et al.  Examination Timetabling: A New Formulation , 2006 .

[37]  Gerhard F. Post,et al.  A Case Study for Timetabling in a Dutch Secondary School , 2006, PATAT.

[38]  Jeffrey H. Kingston A Tiling Algorithm for High School Timetabling , 2004, PATAT.