Evolving an adaptive optimization course [Application Notes]

This article describes a course that has been taught for about a half dozen times at two institutions and how it has evolved. The course began in the 1990's at the University of Pittsburgh and focused on genetic algorithms, at that time the highest profile paradigm among the metaheuristics. The course title is Adaptive Optimization although Metaheuristics Inspired by Nature is probably a more descriptive title. This is a three credit hour, semester long course that is letter graded. There have been a few excellent articles in this publication about focused graduate programs in the metaheuristic field [1, 2] but this article is a course specific exposition. Below I give some information about the pedagogical evolution of this course.