2.12. How the Schedule is Generated

The schedule is generated based on a variety of criterion.  If the application is generating a new schedule, of utmost importance is the issue of critical conflicts.  The application will not create a schedule which has a critical conflict unless no schedule exists without a conflict, in which case the schedule with the fewest critical conflicts will be presented.  Critical conflicts include:

• Two instructors teaching two courses at the same time
• One room scheduled to house two course sections at the same time
• An instructor is assigned to a course he or she is incapable of teaching

After critical conflicts are met, the application will attempt to create a schedule which best meets the preferences of the instructors.  The preferences will be taken from the copy of information saved with the particular schedule, and so the preferences may have been changed to the schedule administrator's preferences.  A series of preference criteria are evaluated on a point scale for each potential course, instructor, and classroom placement, and the schedule which is selected is the one with the most total points.  The preference criteria are as follows:

Course Preferences

• Does the course fit well with the instructor assigned to it based on the instructor's teaching abilities

Instructor Preferences

• Does the time slot fit well with the instructor's preferred times to work
• Do the days of the scheduled course fit well with the instructor's preferences for that course

Classroom Preferences

• Is the scheduled classroom close to any classrooms for courses which the selected instructor is scheduled to teach in adjacent timeslots
• Does the classroom meet the handicap and smart room criteria desired by the instructor

Instructor's preferred times to work are not guaranteed, and if an instructor is assigned to a course such that the instructor is scheduled to work an hour before or an hour after they had selected as preferred work times, this element of the rating would receive a 2 out of 5.  If the instructor were scheduled to work two hours outside of their preferred time the element would receive 1 out of 5.  Any more than two hours would receive a 0 out of 5 for the instructor time preferences element of the schedule rating.  If the course is scheduled completely within the instructor's preferred times, a 5 out of 5 is assigned.

If the user has already generated a schedule and is now trying to update the schedule, the application will begin by scheduling any changes made manually in the schedule edit mode, and then attempting to schedule around these as described above.  Note that if the user has manually scheduled such that a critical conflict exists, the critical conflict will be preserved but the user will be warned about it after the schedule is generated.