Discrete Firefly Algorithm for an Examination Timetabling

Timetabling or scheduling is a common problem in an institution of medicine, transportation, education, etc. It is a process of resource allocation by considering some predetermined constraints. In this paper, a discretization scheme is proposed to improve a meta-heuristic swarm intelligence approach called discrete firefly algorithm (DFA) in solving an undergraduate thesis defense timetabling. Some computer experiments show that the proposed discretization scheme is capable of reducing the number of constraint violations to reach an accuracy of 98.98% for a simple case of 70% occupancy. The accuracy decreases to be 82.19% for a more complex case of 95% occupancy.