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University timetabling through conceptual modeling
Author(s) -
Lee Jonathan,
Ma ShangPin,
Lai Lien Fu,
Hsueh Nien Lin,
Fanjiang YongYi
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
international journal of intelligent systems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.291
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1098-111X
pISSN - 0884-8173
DOI - 10.1002/int.20115
Subject(s) - computer science , task (project management) , software engineering , key (lock) , conceptual graph , automation , constraint (computer aided design) , constraint programming , software , artificial intelligence , expert system , programming language , systems engineering , knowledge representation and reasoning , mathematical optimization , engineering , mechanical engineering , computer security , mathematics , stochastic programming
A number of approaches have been proposed in tackling the timetabling problem, such as operational research, human‐machine interaction, constraint programming, expert systems, and neural networks. However, there are still several key challenges to be addressed: easily reformulated to support changes, a generalized framework to handle various timetabling problems, and ability to incorporate knowledge in the timetabling system. In this article, we propose an automatic software engineering approach, called task‐based conceptual graphs, to addressing the challenges in the timetabling problem. Task‐based conceptual graphs provide the automation of software development processes including specification, verification, and automatic programming. Maintenance can be directly performed on the specifications rather than on the source code; moreover, hard and soft constraints can be easily inserted or removed. A university timetabling system in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Central University is used as an illustrative example for the proposed approach. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 20: 1137–1160, 2005.