Heuristic Factors in Ant System Algorithm for Course Timetabling Problem

This paper presents an algorithm that is based on ant system to solve the course timetabling problem. The problem is modeled using the bipartite graph. Four heuristic factors are derived from the graph characteristic, are used to direct ants as the agent in finding course timetable elements. The concept of negative pheromone was also applied to ensure that paths leading to dead ends are not chosen. The performance of this proposed algorithm is promising when comparison of performance was made with the original ant system algorithm.