Assignment of Students to Preferred Laboratory Groups Using a Hybrid Grouping Genetic Algorithm

In this paper we present an application of the grouping genetic algorithm to the problem of assigning students to laboratory groups in university courses. This problem includes an important constraint of capacity, due to laboratories usually have a maximum number of equips or computers available, so the number of total students in a group is constrained to be equal or less than the capacity of the laboratory. In addition, our approach considers the case in which the students provide a sorted list of preferred laboratory groups, so the objective of the assignment must take this point into account. Another case in which lecturers' preferences are considered is also treated. The performance of the approach is shown in several test instances of the problem and compared with the results of an existing heuristic algorithm.