Academic Timetabling Project

Preparation of the annual academic timetable at a large University like AUT is a substantial task involving thousands of interconnected requirements and constantly changing circumstances.

To date, creating the timetable has relied on a substantial amount of manual  work on the part of administrators and academics.  While the results have served AUT well, it is not practical to continue with this approach.

The University requires a more sophisticated approach in the future, for its curriculum development and improved use of the available space.  Much of the hard work can be undertaken by software specifically designed for this purpose.

This project introduces a more automated timetabling system to AUT over a two-year period.

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Current Challenges

AUT faces numerous challenges for its ongoing success, including:

• The number of courses is growing
• Increased diversity of student attendance (eg. block courses, evenings, distance learning)
• There are new channels of teaching via the Internet
• The sophistication of tuition components is increasing
• Ongoing competition with other institutions for students
• Increasing flexibility in the structure of AUT programmes
• A desire to increase student choice for their programmes of study
• Increasing costs of inner-city buildings (Wellesley).

Project Goal

The manual approach to timetabling is too time consuming and limited in scope to meet these challenges. The aim of the project is introduce a sophisticated timetabling system to AUT, incorporating a high degree of automation.

Project Benefits

• Development -  Increased ability to improve and extend the timetable, as part of curriculum development
• Flexibility -  Support for more flexible course offerings
• Timing -  Earlier publication of timetable likely to be achieved
• Scenarios -  Ability to model different scenarios and evaluate the effects
• Space -  Improved space utilisation

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