TIMETABLE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM USING GENETIC ALGHORITHM

Abstract

For every University, setting up the timetable has been a perpetual burden to the lecturer and a distraction to his core responsibility of teaching. A Timetable Management system will alleviate the lecturer from this burden. The purpose of this research is to provide a review of the current FCSIT manual timetable system and to develop a web based timetable system using genetic algorithm. Data gathering on the current system was done through the interview method and literature review. The data gathered was analyzed to create a requirement definition for the improved FCSIT system. The literature review was carried out to search the best approach that can help to solve the problem in the timetable system including the heuristic approach, integer programming approach, graph coloring approach, network streaming approach, logical constraints arithmetic approach, knowledge base approach, tabu searching, annealing simulation and Al-Khawarizmi Genetic. Genetic algorithm has been implemented in the Timetable Management System because it is able to produce a feasible timetable system. The improved FCSIT timetable system was implemented using PHP programming. The researcher proposes the improved FCSIT system to be called Timetable Management System using Genetic Algorithm. Three modules have been developed; they are Administrator Module, Lecturer Module and Student Module. The Lecturer Module will set individual lecturers timetable and the master timetable for all the lectures in the university. Similarly through the Student Module, students can set their own timetable for the whole semester. They can also do add and drop subject through this module. In the Administrator Module, the administrator can manage the student registration, class and subject registration by adding or deleting class or subjects. The research results discover that the timetable system using Genetic Algorithm is currently used to develop the timetable system. The Genetic Algorithm is currently used due to the ability to produce a feasible timetable system. There are a few future enhancements suggested in the thesis. Some of these include having connection to the current university database to get the data of the students and lecturers. It is hoped that the timetable system will help lecturers to concentrate in their core activities of teaching and research rather than spending at lot time on administrative work such as doing timetable.