Automation of the OST-RJ Examination Scheduling (Semester Project)
Semester project regarding the automation of examination scheduling. This project resulted in a proof of concept.
Abstract
Exam scheduling is known to be a challenging problem to solve. Manually scheduling the exams was executed in an enormous Excel file and took several weeks. With the help of computer-aided exam scheduling, we provided the first version of an automated solution.
In the exam scheduler’s current version, all mandatory rules for feasible schedules are fulfilled. One optimization rule is in place. The rules are defined with a constraint solver called OptaPlanner, an open-source library maintained by RedHat. The exams and students are imported from files, processed, scheduled, and exported as files and visualized in a web application.
The current results are not production-ready but provide a reasonable basis for future work. Scheduling the exams becomes much more comfortable. The manual work can be reduced from several hours to an absolute minimum. Comparing a generated examination schedule with the manually created one has shown the potential to create better examination timetables.
To make it production-ready, all the remaining rules need to be implemented. The frontend requires additional features, a design overhaul, and some quality of life features. For performance improvement, the algorithms for scheduling the exams can be optimized. With the continuation of this project, a fully automated scheduling process is possible. It promises significant improvements in the quality of the schedules and the time and iterations it takes to create such a schedule.
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