Conference Seminar Timetabling

Abstract

Participants at a conference held in 1985 were asked to select seminars that they wished to attend, before the schedule of seminars was constructed. The conference organizers were then faced with the problem of finding a timetable that would allow participants to attend the seminars they had chosen. This interesting combinatorial optimization problem is investigated here. A heuristic method, incorporating an annealing algorithm, is developed to help the organizers timetable similar conferences in the future.

Keywords:

• heuristics
• timetabling