Abstract

The efficient scheduling of midterm examinations at higher education institutions poses a multifaceted challenge. Multiple objectives must be optimized, such as minimizing the total number of students who have multiple exams on a single day or on consecutive days, minimizing the number of exams assigned to weekends, etc. The problem also includes many practical constraints belonging to different stakeholders. Some of these constraints are scheduling all exams on the allocated time period, scheduling single section courses to their lecture times, and scheduling all sections of multi-section courses at the same time in the evening or weekends. This study develops an algorithm and a Decision Support System (DSS) for this complex problem. Besides necessary structural constraints, this DSS incorporates real-world complexities such as preferences for exam dates, fixing course dates, and variations in scheduling for single and multi-section courses. A construction heuristic empowered by a local search procedure is proposed, which is implemented using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The user-friendly interface facilitates both scheduling and sensitivity analysis, allowing educators to fine-tune parameters like the setting of the number of weeks allocated for midterms and penalties for unfavorable days and time slots. The system’s performance is evaluated using real data, demonstrating its potential to enhance educational management.

Keywords

Midterm exam scheduling, Decision support system, Heuristic algorithms, Multi-objective problem, Realistic constraints