Better solutions for the Thesis Defense Timetabling problem using a three-phase approach

Abstract

Thesis defense is the procedure where a graduation candidate defends his thesis in front of a committee. This procedure usually involves a committee with special composition, while several other rules have to be enforced too. The problem of scheduling many thesis defenses in a designated period of time is a problem known to the timetabling community and is hard to solve. In this work, we experiment on a benchmark dataset that was released along with a formal description of the Problem. We employ three mathematical models and combine them to create a three phase approach. We test this approach with both Integer and Constraint programming solvers and manage to achieve high quality results, while most of them are better than the formerly best known.