Comprehensive approach to student sectioning

Student sectioning is the problem of assigning students to particular sections of courses they request while respecting constraints such as course structures, section limits, and reserved spaces. Students may also provide preferences on class times and course alternatives. In this paper, three approaches to this problem are examined and combined in order to tackle it on a practical level: student sectioning during course timetabling, batch sectioning after a complete timetable is developed, and online sectioning for making additional changes to student schedules. An application and some practical results of the proposed solutions based on actual data are also included.