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An Optimization Model for Scheduling Classes in a

Business School Department


Robert Saltzman
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA

This article describes how an optimization model has been used recently to more effectively
schedule classes in an average-sized business school department. Each semester this department
offers approximately 46 classes taught by 20 different instructors in one of 32 time slots. A myriad
of constraints must be satisfied while trying to maximize faculty preferences for courses and
teaching times. Using the model has reduced the time needed to generate high-quality schedules
from more than a day to less than three hours, and kept our schedule within the departments
allocated time slots, eliminating the need for staff to find additional rooms.

I. INTRODUCTION To initiate the scheduling process for a given


semester, the central SFSU administration
The Decision Sciences (DS) department provides each department chair with a block
is one of eight academic departments within the allocation or set of openings at various times of
College of Business (COB) at San Francisco the day and week called time slots or blocks
State University (SFSU). One of the main during which courses may be offered on the
recurring duties of department chairs at SFSU main campus. Familiar blocks include the 9:10-
and most other universities is to schedule their 10:00 AM slot on Mondays, Wednesdays and
departments classes and assign faculty members Fridays (abbreviated here as MWF0910) and
to teach them. Historically, class scheduling at the 12:35-13:50 PM slot on Tuesdays and
SFSU has been done one semester ahead of Thursdays (TTH1235). Cells B2:W3 of
time, i.e., planning for courses to be offered in Figure 1 show all the standard blocks used on
the next semester has occurred early in the the main campus for the Spring 2009 semester.
current semester. Recently, though, SFSU While department chairs in the COB are
administrators decided to schedule two supposed to fit all of their undergraduate classes
semesters ahead of time to give students greater into these blocks, many end up offering a
ability to plan their future coursework. This has significant number of classes either in excess of
proven difficult for chairs to satisfactorily their allocation (referred to as out of
accomplish due to the inherent uncertainty in the allotment) or during non-standard blocks such
process (e.g., budgetary concerns and personnel as the two shown in cells X2:Y3 of Figure 1. In
availability), as well as the time-consuming doing so, chairs create problems for staff and
nature of the scheduling task. As a compromise, administrators (e.g., a shortage of rooms in
chairs were asked to tentatively schedule Spring which to house classes during standard blocks),
2009 classes during July 2008 (rather than as well as for students (e.g., conflicting times for
during Spring 2008), and to finalize the Spring classes and final exams).
2009 schedule in October 2008. At present, it is Class scheduling in the COB became
unclear how far in advance chairs will be asked further complicated in January 2007 by the
to provide schedules for the Fall 2009 semester. relocation of all graduate business programs to a
new downtown campus (DTC) situated

Volume 7, Number 1, pp 84-92


California Journal of Operations Management 2009 CSU-POM
Saltzman
An Optimization Model for Scheduling Classes in a Business School Department

FIGURE 1: INSTRUCTOR PREFERENCES FOR BLOCKS IN SPRING 2009


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approximately nine miles away from the main load changes for a few faculty members.
SFSU campus where undergraduate classes are Satisfactorily adjusting or rescheduling the
held. In any semester, roughly half of the existing Spring 2008 schedule was more difficult
colleges faculty members teach at both than I had anticipated. Soon thereafter, in
campuses. The COB Associate Dean provides October 2007, it was time to plan the Fall 2008
each department chair with a block allocation for schedule from scratch. Based on guidelines
classes held at the DTC (see blocks in cells given to me by my predecessor, such as how
Z2:AG3 of Figure 1). Thus, department chairs many sections of each course to offer and how
must consider whos teaching in which program, many to offer at night, I began to manually plan
and allow sufficient time to travel from one out the Fall 2008 schedule and was immediately
campus to another. Although possible to get struck by the extraordinary number of factors
from one campus to another in under an hour on that had to be considered to develop a good,
public transportation, DS faculty requested a feasible schedule. Even though our department
minimum of two hours between the end of a offers only about 45 classes per semester, it took
class taught on one campus and the beginning of me at least a full day to prepare the initial
the next class taught at the other campus to schedule. Knowing that Id need to undertake
allow for transit breakdowns, heavy automobile scheduling and rescheduling tasks regularly
traffic, student interaction, eating, and so on. during my tenure as department chair, I began to
Shortly after becoming department chair think about how these tasks might be formulated
in August 2007, I needed to make some as a mathematical program and solved
adjustments to the Spring 2008 schedule planned efficiently on a computer.
by the previous chair to account for recent work

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Saltzman
An Optimization Model for Scheduling Classes in a Business School Department

II. LITERATURE REVIEW conflicts for students, instructors and rooms,


e.g., when a common group of students needs to
The literature contains a wealth of take two classes held at the same time.
articles that have examined variations of the Likewise, Hinkin and Thompson (2002) helped
class scheduling or timetabling problem, as eliminate problems such as conflicts among
documented in Schmidt and Strohlein (1980) required core courses and among electives, as
and in Schaerf (1999), who subdivided the field well as the use of non-standard time blocks.
into three categories: (1) school, (2) university They took many factors into account, including
course, and (3) exam timetabling problems. The room capacity, room features and building
problem analyzed here clearly falls into the utilization (not a departmental concern at
second category because it addresses how a SFSU). Solving their large, nonlinear problem
department chair at a university can required the use of a simulated annealing
appropriately assign instructors to teach courses (heuristic) algorithm, which took more than a
during specific blocks. Some researchers, e.g., year to develop fully.
Deris, Omatu and Ohta (2000), have focused on Once COB chairs have determined their
heuristic algorithms to solve problems in the own departmental schedules, the central SFSU
second category, while others, e.g., Burke and administration takes the next step of assigning
Petrovic (2002), have developed heuristics and classes to classrooms, an important related
metaheuristics to address problems in the third problem addressed by Glassey and Mizrach
category. Dimopoulou and Miliotis (2001) (1986). Martin (2004) solved a mixed integer
addressed problems in both categories with a LP model to not only assign instructors to
two-stage PC-based system; however, in the courses and time slots, but also to assign these to
course scheduling stage of their system, they classrooms, for the entire College of Business at
assigned courses to time slots and rooms, but did Ohio University. Our model and Martins also
not consider instructors. Foulds and Johnson have some features in common, such as concern
(2000) developed a decision support system to for back-to-back teaching assignments and
aid experienced timetablers at each stage of the special course sets. Though more ambitious in
process by pointing out scheduling conflicts, scope, Martins formulation is (surprisingly)
suggesting alternatives, and presenting a variety smaller than ours in terms of number of
of reports. variables and constraints.
Shih and Sullivan (1977) used binary This article concentrates more on the
integer programming models first to assign formulation and unusual aspects of our class
courses to instructors, and then to assign courses scheduling problem, which may be relevant for
to time slots, in each of possibly several terms. academic departments with similar
However, they reported no computational results characteristics. In particular, I address
on the second model, and apparently never scheduling issues faced by an average-sized
implemented their work. Nonetheless, their academic department that operates within the
relatively small models do share some common confines of a large business school, which itself
features with that reported here, such as a desire is part of a large state university. The problems
to maximize instructor preferences for courses formulation leads to an optimization model that
and time slots. is medium-sized by todays standards more
Ferland and Fleurent (1994) developed a than 8,300 binary variables and 10,000
decision support system for course scheduling constraints one not readily formulated or
when student registrations for courses are solved with Microsoft Excel. The problem has
already known (not the case at SFSU). Their been successfully tackled with a widely-
course scheduling process aims to reduce available software package (not specially-written

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Saltzman
An Optimization Model for Scheduling Classes in a Business School Department

code) that can be adapted easily by others The model also employs a number of subsets of
willing to use this or other similar optimization these main sets in various situations, such as
package. Since the model reads in several data CourseUG (CourseGR), a set containing only
files from Excel, much of the model the undergraduate (graduate) courses. Another
maintenance can be done within the familiar useful subset is InstructorTTT, a list of only the
environment of Excel. With both a linear tenured/tenure track faculty. Other subsets will
objective function and linear constraints, the be introduced as the constraints are described
model solves quickly, allowing for fast below.
experimentation. To date, the model has been The models decisions variables are a set
used twice; over time, further refinements may of binary variables {Xi,c,b}, where Xi,c,b = 1, if
be made as more experience is gained. instructor i is assigned to teach course c during
block b, and Xi,c,b = 0, otherwise, for all i
III. PROBLEM DEFINITION AND MODEL Instructor, all c Course, and all b Block. In
FORMULATION planning for the Spring 2009 semester, for
example, there were 20 instructors, 13 distinct
The purpose of the DS class scheduling problem courses (several of which are multi-section) and
is to optimally assign a group of DS instructors 32 blocks, leading a total of 8,320 decision
to teach an array of DS courses during a set of variables.
standard time slots. Assignments must satisfy Feasible schedules must satisfy a large
numerous constraints while maximizing the number constraints and sets of constraints. The
instructors collective preferences for courses first type of constraint requires that our
and time blocks. The problem was formulated department offer multiple sections of certain
as an integer linear programming model and core business classes such as DS 412
solved with OPL Studio 3.5 (ILOG 2001), an (Operations Management):
optimization package whose main features are
reviewed by Skiscim (2001). In an OPL 12  ib Xi,DS412,b  14.
(Optimization Programming Language) model, Similar constraints, with different upper
one can combine elements of traditional and lower bounds, are required for the other
mathematical programming with those of multi-section courses, namely, DS 212, DS 411,
constraint programming, if desired. Lustig and DS 412, BUS 786 and BUS 856. An obvious
Puget (2001) give a brief tutorial on constraint requirement of any feasible schedule is that
programming and how it complements the instructors teach at most one course per block:
features of mathematical programming. The
c Xi,c,b 1, for all i Instructor and b Block.
main components of any OPL model are its sets,
variables, constraints and objective function, Several pre-assignments (Schaerf
each of which is now described. 1999) are needed to impose specific instructor-
Sets, which help make the model easier course-block combinations. For example,
and more compact to specify, and the output Professor Eng is preassigned to teach an
more legible, include the names of the intermediate statistics course, DS 312, which is
departments instructors, courses, and available her specialty:
blocks. In particular, the following indices and b XEng,DS312,b = 1.
main sets are used in the model.
i Instructor = {Azoury, Cholette, , Wing} In this example, the block is not
preassigned. Other decision variables can be
c Course = {DS110, DS212, , BUS786}
preassigned to zero by recognizing that
b Block={MWF0810, MWF0910,,TH1900} undergraduate courses cannot be offered during

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An Optimization Model for Scheduling Classes in a Business School Department

graduate blocks, and graduate courses cannot be i (Xi,DS312,b + Xi,DS601,b)  1, for all b
offered during undergraduate blocks: BlockNight.
Xi,c,b = 0, for all i Instructor, c CourseUG, b
BlockGR, and Faculty-Oriented Constraints
Xi,c,b = 0, for all i Instructor, c CourseGR, b
First, a set of constraints is needed to enforce
BlockUG,
faculty teaching loads:
where BlockUG (BlockGR) is the set of all
cb Xi,c,b = Loadi, for all i Instructor,
undergraduate (graduate) blocks. As stated in
the introduction, the number of undergraduate where Loadi is the number of classes
courses must not exceed the block allocations set instructor i is supposed to teach in the semester.
by the administration; likewise, the number of In the DS department the typical load is three
graduate courses offered at the DTC cannot classes per semester for full-time faculty, and
exceed the allocations set by the COB Associate one or two for part-time lecturers. The model
Dean: also contains constraints that improve the overall
quality of life for the faculty. For instance, to
i cCourseUG Xi,c,b AllocationUGb, for all b
reduce monotony, no tenured/tenure track
BlockUG, and
instructor is asked to teach three sections of the
i cCourseGR Xi,c,b AllocationGRb, for all b same course:
BlockGR,
b Xi,c,b 2, for all i  InstructorTTT, c Course.
where AllocationUGb and AllocationGRb are the
DS faculty members often one night class per
maximum number of undergraduate and
week, but never more than two:
graduate sections, respectively, that the
department may offer during block b. To serve c bBlockNight Xi,c,b 2, for all i Instructor.
students who work during the day, we endeavor Good, coherent schedules (Burke and
to offer sections of some undergraduate courses, Petrovic, 2002, p. 267) avoid requiring
such as DS 212, at night: instructors to teach classes on both MWF and
1  ibBlockNight Xi,DS212,b  3. TTH:
Similar constraints, with potentially different c (Xi,c,b1 + Xi,c,b2)  1, for all i Instructor, b1
upper bounds, are in place for the undergraduate BlocksMWF, b2 BlocksTTH.
core courses DS 110 and DS 412.
Night-time sections of some courses, such
as DS 110, should be offered on different nights Travel Time Considerations
to give non-traditional students the most chance
to take the course: Sufficient time must be allowed for instructors
to travel from the main campus to the DTC. For
i Xi,DS110,b  1, for all b BlockNight. example, an instructor who teaches a graduate
Similar constraints exist for evening sections of class at the DTC on Mondays at 1400 must not
DS 212, DS 412, DS 856 and BUS 786. be assigned a class on the main campus on
Some undergraduate concentration Mondays that finishes after 1200:
courses, such as DS 312 and DS 601, ought to be c (Xi,c,b + Xi,c,M1400)  1, for all i Instructor, b
taught on different nights so that DS majors can MBEA1200,
take both courses in the same semester, if
desired: where MBEA1200 is the set of blocks ending
after 1200 on Monday on the main campus, i.e.,
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An Optimization Model for Scheduling Classes in a Business School Department

{MWF1210, MWF1310, MWF1410, block, IBPi,b can be further adjusted up or down.


MWF1510, M1610, MW1410, MW1535, While most instructors prefer to teach on a TTH
M1900}. The model contains a related constraint schedule rather than a MWF schedule, some DS
set to allow an instructor at least two hours to get courses simply must be offered on MWF to
from the main campus to the DTC for a class make better use of our allocated blocks and to
that starts at 1830 on Monday. Similar give students more options. Consequently,
constraint sets are in place for the other days of weve devised a rotation system to achieve this
the week. All told, the model used to plan the in a balanced way over time. Instructors whose
Spring 2009 schedule included more than 10,000 turn it is to teach on MWF are given values of 1
constraints. for the MWF blocks, and 0s for the TTH blocks,
while the opposite is true for those instructors
The Objective Function who need not teach on MWF. The term
BlockPrefs is found as icb IBPi,b Xi,c,b.
The DS class scheduling problems objective DS department tenure/tenure-track faculty
function is to maximize instructors total members typically teach two sections of a core
preferences for the courses assigned to them and undergraduate class, and a third class for either
the blocks during which these courses are graduate or undergraduate students each
offered, along with terms that try to keep semester. In such cases, instructors almost
multiple sections of one course taught by an always wish to teach two sections of the same
instructor close together. In particular, the core course back-to-back, i.e., in consecutive
weighted linear objective function contains four blocks such as TTH0935 and TTH1100. One
components: way to achieve back-to-back course assignments
w1CoursePrefs + w2BlockPrefs + is by adding a series of hard constraints, as in
w3TotalProxMWF + w4TotalProxTTH, Shih and Sullivan (1977). I chose to treat this
desire as a soft constraint and try to satisfy it by
where user-adjustable weights w1, w2, w3, and w4 incorporating appropriate terms into the
reflect the relative importance of the associated objective function. Note that an instructor has
quantities. The first two terms each require a been assigned to teach during two blocks b1 and
distinct set of input data. One input is a matrix b2 if the value of Xi,c,b1Xi,c,b2 is one. However,
of instructor course preferences (ICP), while the this nonlinear approach cannot be handled by
other is a matrix consisting of instructor block my version of OPL Studio, so I developed an
preferences (IBP). Prior to developing the additive linear approach involving
schedule, DS instructors are asked to provide (Xi,c,b1+Xi,c,b2). This required finding two
positive integer weights summing to 10 for two
or more courses that they wish to teach. The matrices ProxMWF (the proximity of MWF
greater instructor is preference for teaching blocks) and ProxTTH (the proximity of TTH
course c, the higher the weight ICPi,c. The term blocks) such that the quantities TotalProxMFW
CoursePrefs is calculated as icb ICPi,c Xi,c,b. and TotalProxTTH increase when an instructor
Before the schedule is developed, DS is assigned to teach during consecutive blocks
faculty are also asked to submit a list of hard and and decrease when assigned to teach during non-
soft constraints regarding their availability and consecutive blocks. Determining appropriate
preferences for teaching at specific times, which elements for these matrices is itself an
I then translate into primarily ones and zeros interesting problem, but will not be covered
(see Figure 1). In particular, IBPi,b is the here. The terms measuring proximity of
preference value of instructor i for teaching assigned courses are:
during block b. If an instructor has an especially
strong affinity for or aversion to a particular
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TotalProxMWF = icb1BlocksMWF b2BlocksMWF data must be placed in spreadsheet files prior to


(Xi,c,b1+Xi,c,b2)ProxMWFb1,b2, and model execution. In particular, the model reads
in lists of the blocks, instructors, and courses
TotalProxTTH = icb1BlocksTTH b2BlocksTTH involved in the upcoming semesters schedule,
(Xi,c,b1+Xi,c,b2)ProxTTHb1,b2. along with instructor course loads; block
allocation quantities for all undergraduate and
While this linear approach works graduate blocks; and course and block
reasonably well and helps to model to solve preference information from instructors.
quickly, it sometimes leads to schedules in
which an instructors two core class sections are IV. RESULTS
not back-to-back. Fortunately, it is usually not
difficult to manually interchange courses or An OPL script was written to run the DS
instructors to achieve back-to-back classes for class scheduling model and format the resulting
all instructors who desire it. schedule by course and by instructor (e.g., see
To briefly summarize, the DS class Figure 2 below). Model output also shows the
scheduling problem can be formulated as a fairly number of sections of each course offered and
large assignment-type integer linear program, how the usage of blocks compares to the
which is highly constrained. The only departments allocation. Some of this output is
substantial assumption made is that all required copied into Excel and given to the department
FIGURE 2: THE OUTPUT SPRING 2009 SCHEDULE, BY INSTRUCTOR
Instructor Course Block Instructor Course Block
AZOURY DS212 MWF1010 ROEDER DS408 TH1900
AZOURY DS212 MWF1110 ROEDER DS411 TTH0935
AZOURY DS411 W1610 SALTZMAN DS851 W1830
CHOLETTE DS412 TTH0810 UDAYABHANU DS412 TTH1100
CHOLETTE DS412 TTH0935 UDAYABHANU DS412 TTH1235
CHOLETTE DS856 W1830 UDAYABHANU BUS786 W1400
ELIMAM DS412 T1900 Carter DS110 T1535
ELIMAM DS412 TTH1410 Carter DS110 TH1535
ELIMAM DS856 TH1830 Chan DS212 M1900
ENG DS212 TTH0935 Danko DS712 W1830
ENG DS212 TTH1100 Danko DS712 TH1830
ENG DS853 M1830 Klimkovskaia DS212 TTH0810
MEHROTRA DS624 M1900 Klimkovskaia DS212 TTH0935
MEHROTRA DS854 T1830 Lee DS212 TH1900
MIYAOKA DS412 MWF1210 Rainaldi DS710 T1830
MIYAOKA DS412 MWF1110 Sepah DS412 TH1900
MIYAOKA DS604 W1900 Shibuya DS110 T1900
OZLUK DS412 TTH1100 Shibuya DS710 M1830
OZLUK DS412 TTH1235 Wing DS110 MWF0810
OZLUK DS212 T1900 Wing DS110 MWF0910
OZSEN DS412 TTH1235 Wing DS110 MWF1010
OZSEN DS412 TTH1410 Wing DS110 MWF1110
OZSEN BUS786 T1830 Wing DS110 MWF1210
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An Optimization Model for Scheduling Classes in a Business School Department

office manager in a format she prefers for input not the improvement is worth the longer
to the universitys scheduling system. computational time most-likely required.
The model was first run on the Fall 2008 Perhaps more importantly, much greater
schedule, even though I had already planned that effort would be required to get this planning tool
semesters schedule out manually, in order to adopted by other departments within the COB or
test the quality of the models solutions and elsewhere who face issues similar to those of the
make improvements to the model. The Spring Decision Sciences department. I have found that
2009 schedule was planned primarily by running the other COB department chairs have devised
the model, with only a few manual adjustments their own manual processes to plan their
made later. Because the model generally solves schedules, with at least one making limited use
in less than 30 seconds on a Dell Inspiron 6400 of Excel to partially check the feasibility of their
laptop, several schedules can be tried out quickly schedules. However, getting other chairs to
with, say, alternate course preference values. actually adopt an optimization-based approach
For instance, I can try to modify the schedule for such as the one presented here would be a major
a particular junior faculty member by changing challenge for several reasons: (1) they dont
his or her preference values (or someone elses) understand or trust mathematical models; (2)
for a specific course. All told, preparing this they cant afford to buy an expensive software
schedule took less than three hours, including package such as OPL Studio; (3) they fear losing
data entry and making minor changes to the Fall control of the scheduling process; and/or (4)
2008 model. As more experienced is gained they prefer not to share the details of their
with the process, it may take even less time to scheduling process with someone outside of
prepare a high-quality schedule in the future. their own department.
Besides reducing the time required to In the future, it would also be desirable
generate high-quality schedules, running the to examine the rescheduling problem, i.e., how
model has had other benefits. First, it has kept to alter an existing schedule after something has
our schedule completely within the departments changed, such as a tenured or tenure-track
block allocation (a claim not many other faculty member being awarded a sabbatical or a
departments can make), eliminating the need for course release late in the planning cycle. What
staff to spend time looking for additional rooms is the best way to repair the current schedule so
to accommodate our classes. Second, its made as to minimize changes from the current
the scheduling process more transparent to DS schedule? Should change be defined in terms
faculty, who now better appreciate how difficult of the number of instructors whose schedule
it really is to develop a feasible schedule. They changes, the number of classes that are assigned
may even perceive the scheduling process as to a different instructor or block, or some other
more objective and fair than the previous manual measure? The answer may depend on whether
approach. the rescheduling is done before or after students
have registered for classes, and will likely
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK require considerable discussion and
experimentation.
One possible area to investigate further is
whether or not a nonlinear objective function (a VI. REFERENCES
more natural choice to ensure back-to-back
assignments of courses) would actually improve Burke, E. K., and S. Petrovic, Recent Research
the quality of the schedules found. If I had a Directions in Automated Timetabling,
nonlinear solver, I could determine whether or European Journal of Operational Research,
Vol. 140 (2), 2002, 266-280.

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Saltzman
An Optimization Model for Scheduling Classes in a Business School Department

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Support System for Assigning Classes to 307-316.
Rooms, Interfaces, Vol. 16 (5), 1986, 92- Shih, W. and J. Sullivan, Dynamic Course
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Hinkin, T. R. and G. M. Thompson, Programming, Decision Sciences, Vol. 8
SchedulExpert: Scheduling Courses in the (4), 1977, 711-721.
Cornell University School of Hotel Skiscim, C., OPL Studio 3.1, OR/MS Today,
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