CourseScheduler [academic courses scheduling]

A typical problem in an academic environment is trying to find the best set of courses to offer students in a given semester, taking into consideration which courses are needed by students, and the availability of instructors capable of teaching those classes. The optimal solution is to offer all courses that will allow all students to graduate in the minimum number of semesters. This allows students to finish their course-work quickly so that they can enter the work force and earn a living. The job of determining which courses to schedule (usually done by a department chairperson) requires information about the student-body needs and information about instructor availability/capability. The most difficult part of this process is to determine which instructors should teach which courses, and in which time-slots they should teach them, and still be able to satisfy all of the students. Selection of instructors is determined by the fact that an instructor knows the course material and that they are available to teach a given course. Instructors may have preferences as to what time of day they teach, or on which days of the week they would like to instruct the courses for which they are responsible. This paper presents a small set of software components-CourseScheduler, IApplet, and AdmValidatorApplet-which, when used together as a suite of tools will aid department-chairpersons in their scheduling process