CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background According to Hussin, Basari & Othman (2011), timetabling is at large covering many different types of problems which have their own unique characteristics. There are three most common academic timetabling problems which are school timetable, university timetable and exam timetable (Hussin et. al, 2011). However, this study only covered on examination timetabling. Examination timetabling is concerned with an assignment of exams into limited number of timeslots subject to a set of hard constraint (Burke, Elliman, Ford & Weare, 1996 in Ayob, Abdullah & Abdul Malik, 2007). Basic problem in examination timetabling is to assign examinations to a limited number of time periods in such a way that there are no conflicts with some requirements (Carter, Laporte & Lee, 1996). A set of exams must be scheduled to a set of timeslots such that every exam is located in exactly one timeslot within the timetable, subject to certain constraints (Burke, Eckersley,McCollum, Patrovic & Qu, 2004).

There are two types of constraints known as hard constraints and soft constraints. Hicks et al. (2006) defined hard constraints as those which definitely need to be satisfy. On the other hand, soft constraint might be some requirements that are not essential but should be satisfied as far as possible. Examination timetabling is concerned with an assignment of exams into a limited number of timeslots subject to a set of hard constraints (Burke et al., 1996 in Ayob et al., 2007). According to Ayob et al. (2007), common hard constraints for the examination timetabling problem are: (i) no students should sit for two or more exams at the same timeslot and (ii) the scheduled exams must not exceed the room capacity. In practical examination timetabling problem, there are many other constraints and the constraints vary among institutions (Ayob et al., 2007). Previous studies, problem statement and objective of the study will be discussed in this chapter. Method that consist initial solution and improvement solution will be discussed in chapter two. Chapter three will discussed about results, contribution of the study, discussion and some recommendation for future works. However,

this project will use Graph Coloring with Largest Degree approach and Tabu Search to find best solution for examination timetabling at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM).

1.2 Previous Studies There are lots of prior studies about examination timetabling in institutions. Rahim, Bargiela & Qu (2013) introduced new optimization method for the examinations scheduling problem by performing permutations of slots and assignments of exams upon the feasible schedules obtained by the standard graph coloring methods with largest degree (LD) ordering. Hussin et al. (2011) use graph coloring approach in order to guarantee that all exams are scheduled and students can sit all the exams that they are required to do. After producing the examination timetabling for all subjects, distribution of students among the rooms was done using selection heuristic which equivalent to the knapsack filling problem. Cupic, Golub & Jakobovic (2009) use genetic algorithm to produce best solution. The quality of the solution will depend on how many students are scheduled to have more than one exam at the same day and how many times this happens for those students. Quality solution also depends on how many students have scheduled exams at adjacent days and how many times this happens for those students.

Ayob et al., (2007) presented a real world examination timetabling problem proposed objective function which called Penalty Cost. Penalty Cost attempt to spread out exams over timeslots so students have larger gaps between exams. On the other hands, Malim, Khader & Mustafa (2006) use three artificial immune algorithms and compare the effectiveness of the algorithm on examination timetabling. This paper proved that the clonal selection and negative selection algorithms are more effective than immune network algorithm in producing good quality of examination timetabling. Hussin (2005); Gaspero & Schaerf (2001); White & Xie (2001) used tabu search technique for examination timetabling. Burke et al. (2004) suggest some methods which suitable to be used in examination timetabling problem which are Simulated Annealing, Tabu Search and Great Deluge.

Carter (1996) focused on Graph Coloring Approach while Carter et al. (1996) focused on comparing five Algorithmic Rules. Carter et al. (1996) considered five criteria for the list of
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processing scheme. There are five types of Algorithmic Rules which are Largest Degree (LD), Saturation Degree (SD), Largest Weighted Degree (LWD), Largest Enrollment (LE) and Random Ordering (RO). LD is that examinations conflicting with many others are hard to schedule and should be assigned first. SD considered the examination that is selected next is the one with the fewest number of feasible available periods remaining. In a sense, the most difficult exam to schedule is the one that has the least flexibility in terms of choice of period. LWD is done by selecting the exams with largest degree, which each edge is weighted by the number of students in conflict. LE involved examinations with large enrollments are difficult to schedule as they create more conflict will be assigned first. Lastly, RO is selecting the exams randomly. This type of Algorithmic Rules is mainly considered for benchmark comparisons. Carter et. al (1996) come out with LD strategy produces a better solution cost most of the time. However, SD is better than LD on all measures: solution quality, backtracking and CPU time.

1.3 Problem Statement This study is conducted to solve examination timetabling problem by using heuristic techniques. There are 13 schools in UUM, but this study only focused on undergraduate students examination data for School of Quantitative Science in Universiti Utara Malaysia (SQS UUM) due to time restrictions. Sufficient time is needed to assign examination for all undergraduate students in UUM. Particularly, the dataset use in this study is the real data for undergraduate students examinations for second semester 2012/2013 session. The total number of examinations is 33 exams with 582 students. Total of 350 capacities for 9 rooms per timeslots are available in this study.

In SQS UUM there are two exams that taken by more than 350 students. In real situation, these exams will be scheduled in huge halls rather than in halls SQS UUM due to capacity constraint. Thus, these exams have to be excluded. Each exam must be scheduled in a time slots and no students will be assigned in two or more exams in a same timeslots. This study involved 7 consecutive days. This mean this exam will be conducted for whole 1 week including weekend. Each day have 2 timeslots, so there are 14 timeslots in total. 3 hours are provided for each timeslots. Morning session start from 9.00 a.m to 12.00 p.m while evening
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session start from 2.30 p.m to 5.00 p.m. In order to replicate the real-world timeslots model, following vectors (Figure 1) which demonstrate the idea is produced.

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11

12

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Figure 1 : Vector of Timeslots

In Figure 1, the timeslots are represented as indexes. Timeslots 0 and 1 are referring to day 1; timeslots 2 and 3 are referring to day 2, etc. Room specifications are shown in Table 1. Each examination should be assigned to a single room, unless this cannot be avoided. In exceptional cases such as no room available to fit the exam, then the exam can be assigned to multiple rooms but the room location should be close to each other. This constraint is enforced due to the location practicality. Room location is shown in Figure 2.

Examination Room BTB1 BTB3 BTB7 BTB9 BTB11 DPB1 DPB2 DPB3 DPB4 Total

Capacity 30 30 30 30 30 50 50 50 50 350

Table 1 : Examination room specifications

Figure 2 : Location for examination rooms

1.3 Objective of the Study The objective of the examination timetabling is to minimize the cumulative inconvenience implied by the proximity of consecutive exams taken by students. This measured by the cost function originally proposed as in Formula 1.

Formula 1

where N is the number of exams, sij is the number of students enrolled in both exams i and j, tj is the time slot where exam j is scheduled, ti is the time slot where exam i is scheduled, M is the total number of students, w| tj ti| is the weight that can be calculated as following formula : =
Formula 2

The lower the cost obtained, the higher is the quality of the schedule, since the gap between two consecutive exams allows students to have extra revision time. Hard constraints and soft constraints involved in this study are stated in next section.
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1.4 Constraints

Hard constraints: i. Every exam must be scheduled in exactly one timeslot. for all i {1,,N} , where

= 1 if exam i is assigned.

ii.

No student must be scheduled to be in two different exams at the same time.

where

if ti=tj.

iii.

There must be enough seats (room capacity) in each period for all exams scheduled. Students t Seats for t {1,..,T}

Soft constraints: i. More spacing between exams should be allocated to maximize students exams preparation time. This represent by function above. = which was mentioned as objective

ii.

Each examination should be assigned to a single room, unless this cannot be avoided. In exceptional cases such as no room available to fit the exam, then the exam can be assigned to multiple rooms but the room location should be close to each other.

CHAPTER TWO METHODOLOGY

2.1 Introduction
This chapter will explain more on method in producing initial solution and improvement solution. Graph Coloring approach are used in to initiate initial solution while Tabu Search are used to generate best solution. However, assigning students into examination halls was done manually since several exams were scheduled per timeslots. Figure 3 shows overall flow in this chapter.

Start

Data Collection and Analysis

Initial Solution

Improvement Solution

Fitting into Rooms

Final Solution

Figure 3 : Process in Examination Timetabling

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2.2 Data Collection An interview with staffs in Academic Affair Department UUM was conducted in order to identify soft and hard constraints involve for examination timetabling at UUM. Soft and hard constraint involve in this study have been explained in Constraint section. However, there are some soft constraints that excluded in this project such as weekend constraint since this study just involve small data size and short duration which only 14 timeslots. Data for registered students for each courses offered in SQS UUM was gathered from Computer Center UUM.

2.3 Data Analysis Data gathered from Computer Center was analyzed. The data include all SQS UUM undergraduate students matric numbers and courses taken. This study only considered courses offered by SQS UUM thus other courses taken by these students but offered by other schools are excluded. Specific codes are given to each students and courses. Table 2 shows example of code given to each students.

Current Code Matric Number Course 122826 BJTM2033 122826 SBLF1053 122826 SQIT3033 122826 SQPX3908 122826 SQQS3033 122826 SQQS3073 129184 BPMM1013 129825 BWFN3013 129825 BWRR3023 129831 SQQM2043 129831 SQQS2043 129873 SQQM2043 129874 SQQM2043 129874 SQQP3043

New Code Matric Number Course excluded excluded e4 s1 excluded e28 e32 s2 excluded excluded s3 s4 s5 e12 e26 e12 e12 e21

Table 2: Code Given for Each Students and Courses Based on Table 2, each students are assign as sn which n = {1,2,582} while each courses are assign as ei which i = {1,2,33}. There are some courses that we exclude, such as courses
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BJTM2033 since this course are offered by other school. We also exclude some case such as student 129825 since this student only take subjects offered by other schools. This process continues for all 4153 enrollments. However, there was only 1789 enrollment that included in this study. Table 3 shows the 33 courses and new code given for each of them.

NO. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

COURSES PENGATURCARAAN DALAM APLIKASI PERNIAGAAN KOMPUTER DALAM PEMUTUSAN PERNIAGAAN SISTEM MAKLUMAT DAN PEMBUATAN KEPUTUSAN PEROLEHAN PENGETAHUAN DALAM PEMBUATAN KEPUTUSAN KALKULUS I KALKULUS I PERISIAN MATEMATIK DAN PENGGUNAANNYA MATEMATIK DISKRET ALGEBRA LINEAR KALKULUS LANJUTAN KALKULUS II KALKULUS II PERSAMAAN PEMBEZAAN PERMODELAN MATEMATIK MATEMATIK PERNIAGAAN TEKNIK PEMBUATAN KEPUTUSAN I TEKNIK PEMBUATAN KEPUTUSAN II TEKNIK PEMBUATAN KEPUTUSAN III PEMODELAN PEMUTUSAN PEMODELAN BERKOMPUTER DALAM PERNIAGAAN TEKNIK-TEKNIK HEURISTIK PEMODELAN SISTEM DINAMIK PENJELAJAHAN DAN PENGITLAKAN DATA KEBARANGKALIAN DAN STATISTIK STATISTIK PERNIAGAAN DAN PENTADBIRAN ANALISIS REGRESI BERGANDA DALAM PERNIAGAAN PEMUTUSAN MELALUI KAEDAH TIDAK BERPARAMETER RAMALAN PERNIAGAAN ANALISIS MULTIVARIATE BAGI DATA PERNIAGAAN REKABENTUK UJIKAJI DALAM PERNIAGAAN PENINGKATAN KUALITI BERSTATISTIK KAEDAH PENYELIDIKAN PERSAMPELAN UNTUK PEMBUATAN KEPUTUSAN

Current Code SQIT1013 SQIT3013 SQIT3023 SQIT3033 SQQM1034 SQQM1043 SQQM1053 SQQM1063 SQQM2023 SQQM2033 SQQM2034 SQQM2043 SQQM2053 SQQM3023 SQQM3063 SQQP1013 SQQP2013 SQQP3013 SQQP3023 SQQP3033 SQQP3043 SQQP3063 SQQS1033 SQQS1043 SQQS2023 SQQS2043 SQQS3023 SQQS3033 SQQS3043 SQQS3053 SQQS3063 SQQS3073 SQQS3083

New Code e1 e2 e3 e4 e5 e6 e7 e8 e9 e10 e11 e12 e13 e14 e15 e16 e17 e18 e19 e20 e21 e22 e23 e24 e25 e26 e27 e28 e29 e30 e31 e32 e33

Table 3: Courses with Code

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2.4 Initial Solution This study used Use Graph Coloring technique to assign the examination to timeslot. First step involve construction of conflict matrix. The conflict matrix is one of the most important aspects in exam timetabling problem representing hard constraint or a pair of clashing exams. The construction of the conflict matrix helps in determines the constraints that no student must attend more one exam at the same time. Two subject conflict with each other if there are at least one student take both subject. Conflict matrix in Table 5 is developed based on students courses registration. Based on conflict matrix, 33 examinations (e1,e2,,e33) is assigned into 14 timeslots (t1,t2,,t14) using LD Algorithmic rules. As mention earlier in previous studies section, LD is that examinations conflicting with many others are hard to schedule and should be assigned first. Initial solution obtained is shown in Table 4. Objective function, z(x) is calculated as Formula 1.

Timeslot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 e18 e3 e2 e9 e12 e20 e4 e22 e28 e21 e26 e31 e29 e30

Exams e11 e19 e1 e27 e5 e8 e14 e10 e17 e6 e32 e13 e24 e23 e33 e16 e7 e15

e25

Table 4: Initial solution based on Largest Degree (LD)

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Table 5: Conflict Matrix

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2.5 Improvement Solution Tabu Search (TS) is used in getting best solution. At each state ti, TS explores a subset V of the current neighborhood N (ti). Among the elements in V, the one that gives the minimum value of the cost function becomes the new current state ti+1, independently of the fact whether z(ti+1) is less or greater than f(ti).Such a choice allows the algorithm to escape from local minima, but creates the risk of cycling among a set of states. In order to prevent cycling, tabu list is used, which determines the forbidden moves. This list stores the most recently accepted moves. The inverses of the moves in the list are forbidden. The simplest way to run the tabu list is as a queue of fixed size k. That is, when a new move is added to the list, the oldest one is discarded. The stop criterion is based on the so-called idle iterations: The search terminates when it reaches a given number of iterations elapsed from the last improvement of the current best state. However, iteration=12 and tabu tenure = 5 were fixed in this project.

TS involve three steps which are initialization, choice and termination, and update. We begin with the same initialization used in neighbourhood search. After determine the neighborhood, candidate solution from the set that minimize solution that minimize cost was chosen in choice and termination step. Then, we perform update for the search method. Appendix A shows calculation for best solution with fixed iteration=12.

2.6 Assign Exams into Rooms After producing the exam timetable for all the subjects, distribution of students among the room will be done manually since there are 9 rooms available with 350 capacities per timeslots. There are only one to three subject scheduled per timeslots due to clashes constraint. The objective is to assign every exam to single rooms. Rooms capacities are shown in Table 1. However, in some cases, exams may be scheduled to multiple rooms that close to each other based on room location in Figure 2. Table 6 show total students enrollment for each exam.

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Exams e1 e2 e3 e4 e5 e6 e7 e8 e9 e10 e11 e12 e13 e14 e15 e16 e17

Number of Students 22 60 52 39 72 12 1 32 187 27 136 56 13 30 3 31 1

Exams e18 e19 e20 e21 e22 e23 e24 e25 e26 e27 e28 e29 e30 e31 e32 e33

Number of Students 102 34 92 20 58 35 146 36 78 50 83 24 14 97 101 25

Table 6: Total Students for Each Exam

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CHAPTER THREE FINDINGS

3.1 Results Table 7 shows list of iteration

Iteration

n 1 2

Tabu Tenure 3

Criteria (swap) e4 & e12 e2 & e22 e18 & e22 e20&e29 e2 & e29 e33&e26 e20&e29 e31&e2 e7&e14 e3&e21 e5&e11 e3&e26 e5&e25 e2&e4 e4&e30 e7&e14 e4&e30 e15&e13 e30&e31 e27&e30 e21&e28 e28&e29 e3&e22 e27&e30 e13&e16

z(x) 15.8959 16.3785 16.9743 16.0922 16.883 16.2754 15.7842 17.7497 16.3088 17.1312 17.4025 19.0072 14.2779 15.9765 15.7788 14.7344 14.2725 14.3894 13.4179 13.6527 13.5317 13.4813 13.5844 12.9117 13.4100

3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12

e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29
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e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25

e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31

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1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e4 & e12 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32

e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e20&e29 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22

e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e5&e25 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19

e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e30&e31 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19 e12&e20 e12&e20 e12&e20 e12&e20 e12&e20

e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e27&e30 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e10&e14 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e4&e32 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e3&e22 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19 e16&e19 e12&e20 e12&e20 e12&e20 e12&e20 e12&e20 e2&e21 e2&e21 e2&e21 e2&e21 e2&e21

e3&e22 e18&e22 e10&e14 e7&e14 e2&e22 e3&e26 e4&e32 e18&e22 e2&e20 e2&e31 e3&e22 e7&e16 e13&e15 e2&e20 e12&e27 e7&e15 e7&e16 e16&e19 e11&e19 e18&e22 e6&e17 e7&e15 e12&e20 e20&e29 e20&e27 e12&e21 e6&e17 e7&e15 e5&e25 e2&e21 e5&e25 e27&e30 e10&e13 e1&e6 e10&e14

12.9587 13.6140 12.9186 13.3682 13.4747 16.4625 12.8371 13.6209 13.9227 14.0099 12.8976 12.9005 12.9211 13.2187 13.9936 12.8748 12.9609 12.8495 13.5488 13.1666 12.7738 12.8267 12.6825 13.4440 13.4985 13.2529 12.6377 12.6597 14.0510 12.5614 13.9608 13.2939 12.8300 12.4938 12.5606

Table 7: Tabu Search

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Iteration 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

n 1 2 3 4 4 3 2 1 3 3 5 4

Tabu Tenure 3

5 e4&e12 e20&e29 e5&e25 e30&e31 e27&e30 e10&e14 e4&e32 e3&e22 e16&e19 e12&e20 e2&e21

e4&e12 e20&e29 e5&e25 e30&e31 e27&e30 e10&e14 e4&e32

e4&e12 e20&e29 e5&e25 e30&e31 e27&e30 e10&e14 e4&e32 e3&e22

e4&e12 e20&e29 e5&e25 e30&e31 e27&e30 e10&e14 e4&e32 e3&e22 e16&e19

e4&e12 e20&e29 e5&e25 e30&e31 e27&e30 e10&e14 e4&e32 e3&e22 e16&e19 e12&e20

Criteria (Swap) e4&e12 e20&e29 e5&e25 e30&e31 e27&e30 e10&e14 e4&e32 e3&e22 e16&e19 e12&e20 e2&e21 e1&e6

z(x) 15.8459 15.7842 14.2779 13.4179 12.9117 12.9186 12.8371 12.8976 12.8495 12.6825 12.5614 12.4938

Table 8: Tabu List

Timeslot 0 1 2 3

Exams/Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms Exams

e11 DPB1, DPB2, DPB3 e7 BTB 1 e6 BTB9 e9 DPB1, DPB2, DPB3, DPB3 e25 DPB4 e8 DPB3 e10 BTB1
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Exams e18 BTB3, BTB7, BTB9, BTB11 e16 DPB3 e15 BTB7 e30 BTB1 e32 BTB3, BTB7, BTB9, BTB11 e29 BTB1 e20 BTB3, BTB7,

e19 DPB4 e22 DPB1, DPB2 e21 BTB11 e33 DPB3 e24 DPB1, DPB2,

4 5 6

Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms

BTB9, BTB11 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Exams Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms Exams Rooms e3 DPB3, BTB1 e17 BTB1 e1 BTB1 e4 DPB4 e13 BTB1 e12 BTB9, BTB11 e5 DPB1, DPB 2 e14 BTB11 e28 DPB1, DPB2 e2 DPB3. DPB4 e26 BTB1. DPB3 e27 DPB2 e31 DPB3, DPB 4

DPB3 e23 DPB4 -

Table 9: Exams Timetable with Rooms

3.2 Contribution of the Study solve the basic examination timetabling problem of assigning examinations to timeslots without violating a clash constraint. Assign the exams while considering more spacing between exams to maximize students exams preparation time

3.3 Conclusion Use a computerized system which the output can be more consistent and the experiment can be applied for any problem size. Use hybridization method to generate best solution. Use heuristic method in assigning exams into rooms.

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References Ayob, M., Abdullah, S. & Abdul, M., A., M. (2007). A Practical Examination Timetabling Problem at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, 9(7): 198-204. Burke, E. K., Eckersley, A. J., McCollim, B., Petrovic, S., & Qu, R., (2004). Analyzing Similarity in Examination Timetabling. Retrieve May 13, 2013 from eprints.nottingham. ac.uk/368/01/rxqPATA04.pdf. Carter, M., W., Laporte, G., & Lee, S., Y., (1996). Examination Timetabling: Algorithmic Strategies and Applications. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 3(47): 373-383. Cupic, M., Golub, M., & Jakobovic, D., (2009). Exam Timetabling Using Genetic Algorithm. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2009 Information Technology Interfaces Conference. Gaspero, L. & Schaerf, A. (2001). Tabu Search Technique for Examination Timetabling. Retrieved June 16, 2013 from citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download. Hicks, B. J., Medland, A. J. & Mullineux, G. (2006). The Representative and Handling of Constraints for the Design, Analysis, Optimization of High Speed Machinery. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacture, 313-328. Hussin, B., Basari, H., A., S., Shibghatullah, A., S., & Asmai, S., A., & Othman, N., S., (2011). Exam Timetabling Using Graph Coloring Approach. IEEE Conference on Open Systems. Naimah Mohd Hussin (2005). Tabu Search Based Hyper-heuristic Approach to Examination Timetabling. Unpublished Dissertation, Universiti of Nottingham. Nor, A. R. S. K., Bargiela, A. & Qu, R., (2013). Domain Transformation Approach to Determnistic Optimization of Examination Timetables. Journal OF Artificial Intelligence Research 1(2):122-138. White, G., M., & Xie, B., S., (2004). Examnation Timetables and Tabu Search with Longer Term Memory. Retrieved June 16, 2013 from http://www.csi.uottawa.ca/~white/docs/lncs01 .pdf.

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