Fuzzy Multiple Ordering Criteria for Examination Timetabling

Ordering exams by simultaneously considering two ordering criteria using a fuzzy expert system is presented in this paper. Combinations of two of the three ordering criteria largest degree, saturation degree and largest enrollment are considered. The fuzzy weight of an exam is used to represent how difficult it is to schedule. The decreasingly ordered exams are sequentially chosen to be assigned to the last slot with least penalty cost value while the feasibility of the timetable is maintained throughout the process. Unscheduling and rescheduling exams is performed until all exams are scheduled. The proposed algorithm has been tested on 12 benchmark examination timetabling datasets and the results show that this approach can produce good quality solutions. Moreover, there is significant potential to extend the approach by including a larger range of criteria.