A tabu search algorithm to schedule university examinations

Scheduling examinations in a large university is an increasingly complex problem, due to its size, the growing flexibility of students' curricula and the interest in including a wide set of objectives and constraints. In this paper we present a new algorithm for this problem and its application to a university in Spain. A combination of heuristics, based on Tabu Search, first finds a solution in which no student has two exams simultaneously and then improves it by evenly spacing the exams in the examination period. The algorithm has been imbedded into a package to be used by Faculty administrators and proposes solutions to be considered by the parties involved: administration, departments and students. Computational results, comparing our results with the timetables actually used, are presente