Decision Support System for Scheduling of Course

Abstract

This thesis describes a network based Decision Support System(DSS) developed and implemented for scheduling of academic courses at Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala. The study covers dimensions of faculty, courses, time and rooms in a system offering backlog facility to its students. The approach based on network model is capable of solving very large timetabling problems. The proposed system resultsin improved faculty satisfaction, adjusting of maximum under of students having backlogs, more effective room utilization, adjusting of maximum number of students having backlogs, more effective room utilization and smoothlines the tedious scheduling process. The system is in use at TIET for last five semesters since the second semester of academic session 1994-95. It involves scheduling of 75 to 80 faculty membes; 105-115 courses; 19-20 rooms; 25 laboratories; 9 slots in a day with a spread of slots varying over 1 to 6 sections, vertical slots varying d1 hour to 4 hours; restrictions on availability of laboratories for meeting the requirements of Thapar Polytechnic and 40-41 sections spread over 8 disciplines comprising of seven four year programmes offering Bachelors in Engineering and a three year programme in Master in Computer Applications.