| proposed by | Brahim Hnich, Zeynep Kiziltan , and Toby Walsh Brahim.Hnich@dis.uu.se, Zeynep.Kiziltan@dis.uu.se, tw@cs.york.ac.uk |
Academic curriculum: an academic curriculum is defined
by a set of courses and a set of prerequisite relationships among them.
Number of periods: courses must be assigned within a maximum number
of academic periods.
Academic load: each course has associated a number of credits
or units that represent the academic effort required to successfully follow it.
Prerequisites: some courses can have other courses as
prerequisites.
Minimum academic load: a minimum amount of academic credits per
period is required to consider a student as full time.
Maximum academic load: a maximum amount of academic credits per
period is allowed in order to avoid overload.
Minimum number of courses: a minimum number of courses per period
is required to consider a student as full time.
Maximum number of courses: a maximum number of courses per period
is allowed in order to avoid overload.
The goal is to assign a period to every course in a way that the
minimum and maximum academic load for each period, the minimum and
maximum number
of courses for each period, and the prerequisite relationships are satisfied.
An optimal balanced curriculum minimises the maximum
academic load for all periods.
Note that we could consider other types of balance criterion such
as minimising the sum of the academic load of all periods.