Genetic Algorithm with Elitist-Tournament for Clashes-Free Slots of Lecturer Timetabling Problem

Abstract

<span>Genetic algorithm (GA) approach is one of an evolutionary optimization technique relies on natural selection. The employment of GA still popular and it was applied to many real-world problems, especially in many combinatorial optimization solutions. Lecturer Timetabling Problem (LTP) has been researched for a few decades and produced good solutions. Although, some of LTP offers good results, the criteria and constraints of each LTP however are different from other universities. The LTP appears to be a tiresome job to the scheduler that involves scheduling of students, classes, lecturers and rooms at specific time-slots while satisfying all the necessary requirements to build a feasible timetable. This paper addresses the employment and evaluation of GA to overcome the biggest challenge in LTP to find clashes-free slots for lecturer based on a case study in the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, University Technologi MARA, Malaysia. Hence, the performance of the GA is evaluated based on selection, mutation and crossover using different number of population size. A comparison of performance between simple GA with Tournament Selection scheme combined with Elitism (TE) and a GA with Tournament (T) selection scheme. The findings demonstrate that the embedded penalty measures and elitism composition provide good performance that satisfies all the constraints in producing timetables to lecturers. </span>