ABSTRACT

Lecture timetabling is a very important process in any educational institution. It is an open-ended program in which courses must be arranged around a set of time slot ’T’ and remains so that some constraints are satisfied. It constitutes a class of difficult-to-solve optimization problems that lacks analytical solution method. Data gathering on the current system was analysed to create a requirement definition for the improved timetable system. Literature review was carried out to search the best approach that can help to solve the problem in the timetable system. Genetic Algorithm has been implemented in the Timetable Management System. This is because Genetic Algorithm is able to produce a feasible timetable system. Java, XML and PHP programming languages were used in developing the solution. MySQL database was used as the back-end for the solution. The front-end solution will be implemented in an android mobile operating system for easier accessibility and proximity to users.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE …………………………………………………………………..………. i APPROVAL PAGE ………………………………………………………………………… ii DEDICATION ……………………………………………………………………………… iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ……………………………………………………………… iv ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………….. v

TABLE OF CONTENT …………………………………………………………………vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1           BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY ……………………………………..3 1.2            STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM …………………………………….4 1.3       OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY …………………………………………4 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ………………………………………5 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY ………………………………………………..6 1.6 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY …………………………………………6 1.7            DEFINITION OF TERMS ……………………………………………….6 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1      REVIEW OF RELEVANT THEORIES AND TECHNOLOGIES ………9 2.2       TIMETABLING AS A NP-COMPLETE PROBLEM ………………….14 2.3          BRIEF HISTORY OF GENETIC ALGORITHMS ……………………..15 2.4            BASIS FOR A GENETIC ALGORITHM ………………………………19 2.5 METHODS OF REPRESENTATION …………………………………..21 2.6       METHODS OF SELECTION ……………………………………………23 2.7      METHODS OF CHANGE ………………………………………………26 2.8 STRENGTHS OF GENETIC ALGORITHMS ………………………….27 2.9        LIMITATIONS OF GENETIC ALGORITHMS ………………………..35 CHAPTER THREE: SYSTEMS INVESTIGATION AND ANALYSIS 3.1         ORGANOGRAM FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT …….. 46 3.2   FACTS FINDING …………………………………………………………48 3.3          ANALYSIS ……………………………………………………………….48 3.4            PROBLEM OF THE CURRENT SYSTEM ………………………………49 3.5         PROPOSING A NEW SYSTEM …………………………………………50 3.6         ADVANTAGES OF THE PROPOSED SYSTEM ……………………….50 CHAPTER FOUR: SYSTEM DESIGN 4.1         OBJECTIVES OF THE DESIGN …………………………………………52 4.2 SYSTEM BLOCK DIAGRAM …………………………………………….53 4.3 OUTPUT DESIGN …………………………………………………………54 4.4 INPUT DESIGN ……………………………………………………………54 4.5     PROGRAM DESIGN ………………………………………………………54 4.6 DATABASE ………………………………………………………………..57 4.7           DATABASE SPECIFICATION ……………………………………………57 4.8      PROGRAM FLOWCHART ……………………………………………….58 4.9            MODELLING THE SYSTEM …………………………………………….59 4.10 CHOICE OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE ……………………………66 CHAPTER FIVE: SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION AND IMPLEMENTATION 5.1     SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ………………………………………………67 5.2      HOW TO INSTALL ………………………………………………………..68 5.3 TRAINING OF OPERATORS ……………………………………………..68 5.4   IMPLEMENTATION METHOD …………………………………………..68 5.5       REVIEW AND MAINTENANCE OF THE SYSTEM …………………….70 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION, SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION 6.1  SUMMARY ………………………………………………………………………72 6.2 PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED ………………………………………………….72  6.3 CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………72 6.4 CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE …………………………………………..72 6.5 RECOMMENDATION ……………………………………………………………73

REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………………………74 APPENDICES …………………………………………………………………………….78

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Timetabling concerns all activities with regard to producing a schedule that must be subjective to different constraints. Timetable can be defined as the optimization of given activities, actions or events to a set of objects in space-time matrix to satisfy a set of desirable constraints.

A key factor in running an educational center or basically an academic environment is the need for a well-planned, well-throughout and clash-free timetable. Back in the days when technology was not in wide use, (lecture) timetables were manually created by the academic institution.

Every school year, tertiary institutions are faced with the tedious task of drawing up academic timetables that satisfies the various courses and the respective examination being offered by the different departments.

Timetable development process starts when each Head of Department provide the following information to be used for timetable scheduling. The information provides the modules with dates, time and venues suitable in a particular semester:

• Examinable courses in a particular semester.
• Dates for lectures to be held (Lectures can be scheduled between Monday and Friday).
• Specified time for lectures ( i.e. Between 8am and 4pm)
• The venue of the scheduled lectures.

A timetabling problem consists of four (4) parameters and they are: T (set of time), R (set of available resources), M (set of scheduled contacts) and C (set of constraints). This problem assigns time and resources to the contacts on such a way that the constraints will be satisfied. In various timetabling problems, educational timetabling has been generally examined from practical standpoint. Academic timetable is very crucial but it consumes time due to its frequent occurrences and usage among higher institution of learning. Another reason for the difficulty is because of the great complexity of the construction of size of lectures and examinations, due to the scheduling size of the lectures and examinations periods and high number of constraints and criteria of allocation which is usually circumvented with the use of little strict heuristics, based on solutions from previous year (Jose, 2008).

The quality of the timetable determines the quality of time dedicated by lecturers, students and administrators to academic activities. Various academic timetabling includes:

1. School timetable ii. Lecture timetable iii. Examination timetable and  iv.     Assignment timetable (Qu, Burke, McCollum, Merlot and Lee, 2004).

This academic timetable must meet a number of requirements and should satisfy the desires of all entities involved simultaneously as wee as possible. The timings of events must be such that nobody has more than one event at the same time (Roberts, 2002).

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The Department of Computer Science was carved out from the defunct Systems Science (Two departments were created out of Systems Sciences. Computer Science and Mathematics/Statistics) in the year 1997 with Mr. C.J.C. Ayatalumo as her first Head of Department.

The department’s mission and vision are as follows

• To procure department portal CNET.
• To make the Hardware Maintenance Laboratory fully functional.
• To undertake repairs, maintenance, installation, assembling of computers within and outside the institution in order to generate revenue for the polytechnic.
• To start off new Computer Engineering Technology Department.
• To become Center of Excellence in Computer Science and Engineering.
• To resuscitate staff development programmer in the department.
• To increase the computing equipment in use in both ND and HND

laboratories.

• To ensure regular supply of consumables.
• Procurement of up-to-date software (licensed).
• To provide adequate staff offices and facilities.
• Provision of dedicated power supply.

The department of Computer Science is in the School of Sciences and has been accredited to award National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND).

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The available system currently builds or generates a set of timetables, but most times have issues with generating a clash-free and complete timetable. The tedious tasks of data introduction and revision of usually incomplete solutions are the bottlenecks in this case (Luisa et.al, 2006). Most educational institutions have resorted to manual generation of their timetables which according to statistics takes much time to get completed and optimal. Even at the optimal stage of the manually generated timetable, there are still a few clashes and it is the lecturer that takes a clashing course that works out the logistics of the course so as to avoid the clash.

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The literature on and implementation of educational timetabling problem is scattered, vast and far-fetched. Different research papers that have been brought out on timetable may refer to the same type of institution but they mostly deal with different kinds of assignments, i.e. decisions like timing of events, sectioning of students into groups, or assigning events to locations.

Moreover, each institution has its own characteristics which are reflected in the problem definition (Robertus, 2002). Yet, there have been no leveling ground for developing a system that can work for most of these institutions.

The aim of this work is to generate a timetable while demonstrating the possibility of building the schedules automatically through the use of computers in a way that they are optimal and complete with little or no redundancy.

The objectives of this work are as follows

• To be able to optimize the algorithm used in today’s timetable systems to generate the best of timetabling data with fewer or no clashes.
• To bring approved timetable closer to users especially to those who use android phones.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The reasons for this work are outlined below

1. The proposed system will provide an attractive graphical front-end for the administrators and students (mobile platform).
2. It will improve flexibility in timetable construction. iii. The system will save time. iv.       Productivity will be improved.
3. The system can be revised i.e. its backend can be revised.
4. Proper recording of class size, number of courses offered, number and capacity of available lecture halls.

• Efficient execution of academic activities.

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study will only cover the management and allocation of spaces and time for lectures in the Department of Computer Science, Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic Unwana.

1.6 LIMITATIONS OF STUDY

The researcher outlined some of the limitations as follows

1. Incomplete data from data collation officers.
2. Wrong data input from technical user.

• Wrong constraint specification.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Allocate                                   To set apart for a specific purpose

Android                                   This is a mobile operating system based on the

Linux Kernel and currently developed by Google.

Backend Application                Serves indirectly in support of front-end

services, usually by being closer to the required

resource or having the capability to communicate with the required resource.

building dynamic content for the web.

Extensible Markup Language  XML is a language used in designing android

layouts.

Timetable                                This is a table of events arranged according to

the time when they take place.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE WORK

DISCLAIMER: All project works, files and documents posted on this website, eProjectTopics.com are the property/copyright of their respective owners. They are for research reference/guidance purposes only and some of the works may be crowd-sourced. Please don’t submit someone’s work as your own to avoid plagiarism and its consequences. Use it as a reference/citation/guidance purpose only and not copy the work word for word (verbatim). The paper should be used as a guide or framework for your own paper. The contents of this paper should be able to help you in generating new ideas and thoughts for your own study. eProjectTopics.com is a repository of research works where works are uploaded for research guidance. Our aim of providing this work is to help you eradicate the stress of going from one school library to another in search of research materials. This is a legal service because all tertiary institutions permit their students to read previous works, projects, books, articles, journals or papers while developing their own works. This is where the need for literature review comes in. “What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. The paid subscription on eProjectTopics.com is a means by which the website is maintained to support Open Education. If you see your work posted here by any means, and you want it to be removed/credited, please contact us with the web address link to the work. We will reply to and honour every request. Please notice it may take up to 24 – 48 hours to process your request.