Realization of Tags Based Intelligent Algorithm for Thesis Topic
Assignment
Yang Jinzhong, Wu Weimin*
*Teachers College of Qingdao University
Qingdao, China
woogle@126.com
Keywords: undergraduate education; thesis topic selection;
thesis instruction; intelligence software; tags.
Abstract
In the whole process of undergraduate thesis instruction and
management system, thesis topic selection and assignment is
a very important module. Based on the analysis of traditional
graduation thesis management system of the topic
assignment, proposes a tag based thesis assignment
intelligent assignment algorithm. This algorithm can
matching student's topic voluntary tags and teachers
professional tags for two-way intelligent matching, and
automatically finish their thesis topic assignment, better
overcome traditional artificial two-way selection problem
which have many trivial the steps.
1 Introduction
Undergraduate thesis design is the an important teaching link
of college educational administration, is an important stage
of comprehensive appraisal of the students to master and
apply learned basic theory, the elementary knowledge, basic
skills, improve the problem analysis and problem solving
ability [1], also is the important reference material and the
important information Source of teaching management and
evaluation [2]. About graduation thesis management system
has some related research, mostly concentrated on the thesis
process management, thesis retrieval and thesis design
standards, etc. Among them, Hua Pan etc [1] design and
develop a graduation thesis whole-process management
system which improved the management efficiency and
simplified the process of graduation thesis. GuangYa Li’s
master thesis [3] development a thesis management system,
to guarantee the system stability and high speed,
emphatically resolve the thesis keyword upload and system
multi-processing capability. FengPing Cao etc [4] introduced
the design goal, design principle, system structure, function
characteristics and technical realization of an Internet based
graduate degree in research and instruction system. Yu Guo
etc [5] designed Internet based graduation design two-way
thesis topic selection system application software. Hong Zhu
etc [6] research mainly about provides readers to browse,
sorting and retrieval degree theses function and other aspects
of the thesis system design. Yanling Guan etc [7] research
about thesis standard, expounds the Zhejiang University in
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improving of graduation thesis quality management, deepen
the reform of graduation thesis works, and effectively
regulate scientifically the undergraduate graduation thesis.
Undergraduate thesis instruction system design and
development has actively significance to promote the
improvement of graduation thesis quality, regulate teaching
management process. This study combining undergraduate
thesis work reality and graduation thesis design of each link,
designs and realizes an undergraduate thesis process
instruction management system. According to the thesis
management workflow, system will be divided into 5 kinds
of user role: students, teachers, college level administrators,
department level administrators and administrators, different
users with different function and authority. The thesis
instruction system process can roughly divide into five stages:
thesis selection and assignment, thesis proposal, the thesis
instruction implementation, thesis intermediate inspection
and thesis defense. Thesis selection stage have topic database
generation, proposition audit and topic assignment modules.
Thesis topics selection is an important part of the whole
thesis research, which will affect the whole process of
research and development of thesis instruction, so this paper
carries out a specially research.
2 Related literature and research of thesis
selection
The traditional undergraduate thesis selections basically have
two kinds of ways. One, teacher give topics and formed a
topic database, student choose the topic from the topic
database. Two, student get topic himself and choose an
instruction teacher. The two kind of between students and
teachers, between students and teachers multiple topics all
need to two-way choice. Reference [1] introduced a teachers
given topic, professional group examine and verify topics,
students add choose topic volunteer (one can add 3 topic
volunteer), teacher select students (for the first volunteer
topic), teacher select students (for the second volunteer
topic), teacher select students (for the third volunteer topic),
professional principal assignment the matching unsuccessful
students, release of graduation thesis two-way choice results.
In this way teachers select students may exist greatly repeat
rate, requires teachers to work together in one period, work
together in each round of selection, then go to the next round,
and due to the nature of teachers work time and place more
scattered, to ensure that let teachers work together exist some
difficulties, this requires the students, teachers and
educational administration tripartite collaborates and steps
trivial, increased the difficulty of paper management process. Student Student Student Student
Reference [5] also taken a two-way selection of students and Tag1 Tag2 Tag3
teachers, each student most five optional thesis topics, student[1] s_tag11 s_tag12 s_tag13 …
including five different ranks; each thesis topics are allowed student[2] s_tag21 s_tag22 s_tag23 …
to have five personal choices, in chronological order priority; student[3] s_tag31 s_tag32 s_tag33 …
Teacher fully considers student's wishes and for thesis topic … … … … …
specifies the corresponding students. This means to realize Table 1: Students topic selection table
the two-way choice, but there is still no reduce topic Table 2 is teachers' professional research field tag results.
selection works, there need manual intervention, subjective Among them, t_tag11 means the first tag of the first teacher,
factors overmuch, at the same time as teacher cannot and so on.
simultaneously office, there are also time difference problem,
the last selection teachers may have no choice. Reference [8]
also designed a two-way thesis selection system; students
can choose teachers’ thesis topic, then the teacher according Topic Topic’s tag1 Topic’s tag2 Topic’s tag3 …
to student's voluntary choices students. The system's topic[1] t_tag11 t_tag12 t_tag13 …
topic[2] t_tag21 t_tag22 t_tag23 …
implementation approach is simpler, also did not solve the
topic[3] t_tag31 t_tag32 t_tag33 …
problems existing in the front system. … … … … …
According to trivial steps and too many man-made factors of Table 2: Teachers professional research field tag table
topic selection process, this paper introduces a design of In the thesis assignment process, system according to the
intelligent matching algorithm based on tags. Through add student tags intelligent matching teachers’ topic tags, and
professional field tags to students and teacher’s topics, assigned topics to each student.
system can intelligent matching assignment the topics to
students. This study not only reduce the choice of man-made
factors, and simplifies the thesis management steps, it is a 2.2 Algorithm description
better way to solve this problem.
Because in matching process will appear many repetitive
matching result, in order to better match with students
2 Design of intelligent assignment algorithm volunteer and topic research fields, this design use the
tags sequence position as a weight of research field close
Thesis topics mainly come from teachers or students' own degree, minimum sum position value of the couple
given topics which formed topic database, there needed to matched tags will determine the matched result.
ensure the number of topics must be higher than the number
of students. Students' own topic need select instruction Intelligent matching preparatory work included:
teacher, and teachers' topics need select students. These two x Build professional tag database. Tags of students’
kinds of circumstances is a two-way street, and the matching volunteer and teachers’ topics all from the tag
algorithm is exactly the same. Below we will use the database.
teachers and students volunteer matching way (this is the
main way), to expound the algorithm in detail. x Let the students add one or more tags according to
their research direction and generate the tagged
student database, these tags equivalent to students'
2.1 Basic ideas selection volunteer.
The basic idea of the algorithm is use the tags to mark x Teachers are given the topics and for each topic add
students’ volunteer selections and the teachers’ professional one or more tags according to the topic research
research fields. Each student according to their own research direction, and total the topics with tags into topic
direction, field characteristics add topic selection, a student database.
can add one or more volunteer tags, likewise for each topic
teacher can add one or more tags according to his research
field. In order to improve the matching accuracy and 2.3 Basic steps
efficiency, each professional tag database was unified
management, teachers’ topics and studentsÿ volunteer use Step1˖For each student[i]s’ each tag˖s_tagi1ˈs_tagi2ˈ
the same tag database. System supposed that the tags’ order s_tagi3… Match each tag with each topic’s tags: t_tagi1ˈ
have sequence, the front tag can more accurately depict a t_tagi2ˈt_tagi3… First, according to student[i]’s first tag:
student volunteer or teachers’ topic, so, in matching process s_tagi1ˈmatch from topic[1]’s tags list, if found a matched
the professional field features is considered with tags tag, then record this couple tags and the sum value of the
sequence. couple tags position into temporary selection record table(see
Table 1 is the student volunteer tag results, among them table 3). For example there are couple matched tags: s_tag11
s_tag11 means the first volunteer of first student, and so on. and t_tag12, s_tag11’s position value is 1 and t_tag12’s
s_tagij and s_tagmn doesn't mean two completely different position value is 2, the sum value is 3.Then stop matching
tags, likelihood is the same label, only on different topic tags this topic’s tags, jumped to next topic record, matching next
sequence of different ways. topic’s tags. In this process if found matching tags again, and

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the couple tags position sum value is less than the front logic of the application system, shorten the development
marked value, then replace before value with the new one. cycle, which can greatly improve the efficiency of the
And so on until all the topic cycle a loop. At the end of this development the Web application [11].Meanwhile, Grails
loop can determine the first tag of student[i]: s_tagi1 framework can use multilayer architecture, further
matching topic, and then enter step2. undermines the coupling between each layer, reducing the
Step2˖then according to s_tagi2 the second tag of student[i] design work, enhance readability, be helpful for component
repeat step1ˈdetermine it matching topic, if found the sum reuse, system extension and maintenance [12].
value of the couple tags position less than front marked value, The system can run on Linux or Windows operating system,
it should replace with the less one. Until student[i]s’ all tags using open-source MySql database background, Web server
loop a round. Then can determine the matching thesis topic can use any J2EE server, this system running server is
Tomcat6.0. Figure 2 for system main interface, figure 3 for
of student[i].The selected topic’s state will be marked false,
topics intelligence assignment results interface.
no longer enter the next loop. Then enter step3.
Step3˖Inner loop end, then outer loop enter student[i+1],
repeat step1 and step2 ˈ determine matching topic of
student[i+1]. Until loop all the students, this can determined
all topics matching with students, intelligent matching end.
Then enter step4.
Step4˖According to the results of topics selection generated
topic selection record. Then enter step5.
Step5˖Through the manual way for matching unsuccessful
students assign topics.

Table 3. Topic matching temporary selection record table

Student- s_tag t_tag sum value of couple tags
topic position
topic[1] 11 12 3˄1+2˅ Figure 1. System main interface
topic[2] 22 23 5˄2+3˅
… …

2.4 Algorithm analysis

After using this algorithm, the thesis topic selection can
intelligent assign by the student multiple volunteers and the
topics’ research field, which enables students’ research field
better match with the topic the research field, the teachers
will be more comfortable in the thesis instruction process, it
will plays an important role for improve the quality of the
thesis instruction. Because of the unified regulate the tags
database, in the thesis assignment process basically can
intelligent complete. But in practice, sometimes exist some
students and topics lose match. To solve this problem,
system designed a manual intervention way, according to the
results of the opinions of the teachers and students with Figure 2. Intelligence assignment results interface
manual adjustment; this also fully embodies the flexibility of
the system. 5 Conclusion
After thesis instruction system completed, there already have
4 System implementation practical application in teachers college of Qingdao
university and acquire a good effect and reflection. With
This system design by grails framework which based on Java,
using the system a series of functions can be conducted
grails is an open-source enterprise application which build on
through the network, basically achieved paperless thesis
MVC pattern, and combined with Spring, Hibernate and instruction, this is not only in conformity with low carbon
QuartziteMesh etc prevalent open-source frameworks. Grails environmental protection concept, but also improve the
is a full stack web development framework that enables us to quality and level of the thesis instruction and management.
build complete web applications in a fraction of the time and Especially the implementation of tags based thesis topics
with less code than other frameworks. Grails using the intelligent matching algorithm, greatly reducing the thesis
principle of “Convention Over Configuration” and “Don’t management work and enhance the thesis management
Repeat Yourself”[10].Grails reduced the configuration files efficiency. Of course, strictly speaking, this algorithm can't
and various template files, and greatly reduce complexity say strict intelligence, the future research we prepared to
and difficulty of the Web development in Java platform, and adopt reasoning rule library, separate the algorithm and the
developers could more focused dedicated to the business specific logical affairs, make it more flexibility, and can be

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applied to other related research field. Today, with high
speed development of computer and network technology,
university's instruction management network has become a
trend, and the tags based intelligent matching thesis
instruction system design and implementation did a
beneficial attempt, also provided a certain ideas to university
educational administration teaching informationization
further research.
Acknowledgements
This research project was supported by the 11th five-year
planning key project of Education science, Shandong
Province China under grant number:2010GZ11,and also
supported by the teaching research project of Qingdao
University under grant number:JY1026.
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