The effect of genetic algorithm parameters in the solution of the course timetable problem

Abstract

Course timetabiling is a process that must be done at the beginning of the education period in all educational institutions. The purpose of the timetabling is to bring together classrooms, lectures, students and lecturers at the same time without any conflicts. Course timetabiling is a difficult problem to solve when classroom constraints, teaching staff preferences, course restrictions are taken into consideration. With a deterministic approach, it can take a lot of time to try all the possibilities and reach a definite solution, and in cases where there are a lot of constraints, no definite solution can be found. In this study, the solving effect of the genetic algorithm parameters, which is an heuristic approach used in the course timetabiling problem, is investigated. Tests were performed for different iteration of different population size with different crossover and mutation rates. As a result of the experiments, it has been observed that the election operator who decides on the new generation will be effective. The selection operator can be set up as a function that depends on the number of individuals, so that better results can be obtained.