Deptt.

of Computer Science & Information Technology

Moradabad Institute of Technology

Moradabad (U.P.)

A Synopsis on

Automatic time-table generator

(Final year project topic)

Project under the guidance of -

Ms Srishti Agarwal

Submitted by -

Manu Gupta

Lucky Rajput

Alfiya mirza

Manoj Kr Kanaujia

(C.S. / A, IV year)
 Project Title

Automatic time-table generator.

Project Decsription

Introduction to timetabling

Timetabling is one of the important tasks encountered in real life situations. Various timetabling
problems are present, like personnel timetabling, production timetabling, education timetabling
etc. Educational time table is a difficult task because of the many constraints that are needed to
be satisfied in order to get a feasible solution. Education timetabling problem is known to be NP
Hard. Hence, evolutionary techniques have been used to solve the timetabling problem.
Methodologies like Genetic Algorithms (GAs) have been used with mixed success.

Timetabling is the allocation, subject to constraints, of given resources to objects being placed in
space time, in such a way as to satisfy as nearly as possible a set of desirable objectives. In
general a university course timetabling problem consists in finding the exact time allocation
within a limited time period (e.g. a week), of a number of events (courses lectures) and also
assign to them a number of resources (a teacher, a room, etc.) in such a way that a number of
constraints are satisfied. Usually courses are organized in a number of semesters (e.g. 8). The
constraints that have to be satisfied by a timetable are usually divided into two categories: hard
constraints and soft ones. Hard constraints are those constraints that must be rigidly fulfilled. On
the other hand, soft constraints are those that it is desirable to be fulfilled to the possible extent,
but are not fully essential for a valid solution. Therefore, soft constraints can also be seen as
optimization objectives for the search algorithm.

An effective timetable is crucial for the satisfaction of educational requirements and the efficient
utilization of human and space resources, which make it an optimization problem. Hence, such
problems are mainly classified as constraint satisfaction problems, where the main goal is to
satisfy all problem constraints, rather than optimizing a number of objectives. At present, science
has no analytical solution method for all problem cases of this category, other than exhaustive
search, which however cannot be applied but only to toy problems, due to the immense search
spaces of real problem cases.

Automated timetabling is a task of great importance as it can save a lot of man-hours work, to
institutions and companies, and provide optimal solutions with constraint satisfaction within
minutes, that can boost productivity, quality of education, quality of services and finally quality
of life. However, large-scale timetables, such as university timetables, may need great effort and
many hours of work spent, by a qualified person or a team, in order to produce high quality
timetables with optimal constraint satisfaction and optimization of the timetable’s objectives at
the same time. The time scheduler has to consider the constraints of class rooms, teaching
utilities, conflicts in courses and making both the faculties and students happy.

About the project

The project will be made keeping in mind the constraints followed by the CS & IT Department
of Moradabad institute of technology, Moradabad.

Evaluation sheet, teaching load distribution and resource availability will form the inputs to the
software. Based on these inputs the software will generate master time table for all sections,
teacher’s time table for all teachers and room time table for all rooms(lecture, tutorial and
laboratories).

Module description

 Interface
A graphical user interface will be provided where the inputs will be fed into and the outputs
will be received from the software.
 Database
All the provided inputs i.e. evaluation sheet, teaching load distribution and resource
availability will be stored in a database to avoid repeated input entry by the user.

 Hard constraint module

Hard constraints are those constraints that must be rigidly fulfilled.

 Soft constraint module

Soft constraints are those that it is desirable to be fulfilled to the possible extent, but are not
fully essential for a valid solution.

Hardware requirements

No special hardware requirements just a computer with-

 Core2duo processor or above.
 At least 1 Gb RAM.

Software requirements

 Microsoft visual studio 2008.

 Microsoft SQL server 2005.

Technology used
Dot net framework
Group

Group number – A11

Group members –

Name Branch/Section Division Signature

Manu Gupta (leader) CS/A A
Lucky Rajput CS/A B
Alfiya Mirza CS/A C
Manoj Kr. Kanaujia CS/A D

Project Guide

Ms. Srishti Agarwal

(Asst. Prof.)