Scheduling

We are now at the point where we have all of the information we need to start scheduling. For some schools,  it may be possible for your software to automatically schedule for you. However, after testing a lot of software with over 200 different Schools I have found that a lot of 'human intelligence' is still needed. I've been encouraged by the work of Dr Sean Gourley regarding augmented intelligence - see his TED talk here. Dr Gourley gives a lot of evidence that Man + computer beats computer.

There has been a lot of research on automatic algorithms -see Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling - PATAT.

I've emphasized the need for a PLAN, particularly for scheduling elective lines. Computer algorithms are good at auto scheduling the home/core based classes. The reason seems to be that these type of structures have a lot of flexibility. However, they do seem to have problems with more complicated curriculum structures that have little flexibility. So, some manual techniques are still necessary.

Maslow defined the concept of "Law of the Instrument" referring to the over reliance of a familiar tool. He apparently said, "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".

This applies to using particular software to solve timetabling problems, each software usually has only one way to look at a problem. I have found if you look at the problem in a different way you can often solve the problem.

The way you look at the problem defines many of the manual techniques of timetabling. The 'reverse timetable' technique, described in Primary Schools is one such method.

Other manual techniques are:

The Solution Space technique - described by Brookes in his text book Timetable Planning (1979) and used in some Timetabling software.

This is an example of a solution space for a Year Level. The "Activity" column represents the subjects, The "No." column represents the number of periods in T(triples), D(doubles) or S(singles).

As you run across a particular ROW, for example ENGLISH you will notice "X" which represents a teacher or room clash from another allocated subject in a different Year level. The open cells are potential places the English class can be scheduled or the Solution Space.

The Solution Space diagram also shows the classes that can be swapped. Often timetable software has a swap feature which is able to swap a pair of classes to remove a clash. In more advanced software there is also and ability to swap another level of classes. However, the Solution Space can reveal many more layers of swaps without going through the combination explosion that occurs in algorithmic loops.

Another use of the Solution Space is to identify staff swaps that open up more solution spaces.

A range of different spreadsheet sub timetables for faculties and rooms.