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Automated school timetabling with Predecessor of WebSAMS Timetabling Module - @PT
Alvin C. M. KWANCITE, The University of Hong Kong
&Ken C.K. Chung
REAL Logic Technology
Agenda Historical background Major differences between the decision-
support timetabling module, TESS, in SAMS and TT in WebSAMS
Timetabling functions that TT supports @PT Demonstration web-based TT vs. client-server based
@PT
Historical background (1/3) In May/June 2001, the Education
Department (ED), now Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB), in Hong Kong awarded a tender to NCS (prime contractor) to build a web-based school administration and management system (WebSAMS) for all government funded schools
school timetabling (TT) is one of the WebSAMS modules
Historical background (2/3) Prime contractor had contacted a
number of companies and arranged demonstrations to ED but ED were unhappy with those timetabling software packages
We demonstrated a timetabling system that one of us had built to ED in August 2001 and ED was happy with its performance
Historical background(3/3) Prime contractor subcontracted the
development of the timetabling engine (not GUI) to us in late August 2001
We further developed our own front-end and enhanced the scheduling engine to make @PT a standalone software package
Project status The timetabling engine of @PT has been
integrated to other WebSAMS components and the whole project is undergoing the user-acceptance test now
WebSAMS is expected to be delivered to more than 1,000 schools by the end of 2004
TESS vs. TT (& @PT)Semi-automatic Ask for user advice
whenever a dead-end is hit
Take many hours to finish scheduling
Interactive tuning Five timetables can be
viewed at the same time Three tuning operatorsTedious data preparation Need to re-enter data all
over again when certain data are changed
Fully automatic Try to resolve dead-end by
itself as much as possible Take a few minutes to
finish schedulingInteractive tuning No limit on the no. of
opened timetables Six tuning operatorsStreamlined data preparation Data re-entry is minimized Batch selection to reduce
editing effort
TESS vs. TT (& @PT)Do not support all typically
school timetabling requirements
Limited support on notion of class subject
Do not support non-successive day constraint
Difficult to learn and to useFoxPro reportNo bilingual interfaceLimited solution process
tracking support
Support all typically school timetabling requirements
Full support on notion of class subject
Support non-successive day constraint
Easy to learn and to use
Crystal report (TT) / Excel (@PT)
Bilingual supportSophisticated solution process
tracking with user-friendly GUIs
Demo Time
Edges of @PT over TT Supports better reusability of data
The impact due to changes in data to any previously generated timetable is reduced
Better GUI design to support faster timetabling planning
Improved scheduling engine to further reduce the number of violated timetabling requirements
Better interactive tuning support Does not subject to restrictions that TT encounters
in supporting complicated GUI in web environment
Final remarks TT is good but the web architecture that
it conforms to imposes serious restriction to its interface design, which in turn affects the usability of the software
Though TT is emerged from @PT, the new @PT release definitely outperforms TT in terms of usability and scheduling effectiveness