Multi-criteria Curriculum-Based Course Timetabling-A Comparison of a Weighted Sum and a Reference Point Based Approach

The article presents a solution approach for a curriculum-based timetabling problem, a complex planning problem found in many universities. With regard to the true nature of the problem, we treat it as multi-objective optimization problem, trying to balance several aspects that simultaneous have to be taken into consideration. A solution framework based on local search heuristics is presented, allowing the planner to identify compromise solutions. Two different aggregation techniques are used and studied. First, a weighted sum aggregation, and second, a reference point based approach. Experimental investigations are carried out for benchmark instances taken from track 3 of the International Timetabling Competition ITC 2007 . After having been invited to the finals of the competition, held in August 2008 in Montreal, and thus ranking among the best five approaches world-wide, we here extend our work towards the use of reference points.

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