Generic memetic algorithm for course timetabling ITC2007

Abstract

Course timetabling is an important and recurring administrative activity in most educational institutions. This chapter describes an automated configuration of a generic memetic algorithm to solving this problem. This algorithm shows competitive results on well-known instances compared against top participants of the most recent International ITC2007 Timetabling Competition. Importantly, our study illustrates a case where generic algorithms with increased autonomy and generality achieve competitive performance against human designed problemspecific algorithms.