Help with years

[silvia]

Hello,
sorry to bother you all again, but I've downloaded 5.0.7 and I'm testing it from scratch. I did wrongly the years last time, so I would like to get it right this time

The problem is that I don't really understand how years and subgroups work. Let's see if someone can help me.

I have 6 years (forms). I have 3 or 4 groups in each year (1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B, etc). Then, some activities a week, these groups are split in different ways. For example, slower students from 1A, 1B and 1C go to a separate group for maths, spanish and catalan.. Then, all students from first form remix in 5 different groups to do diversified curriculum (they can choose a subject among 5 offers).

The question is: how do I tell FET to do these subgroups? Another question is: will FET consider the maths2 subgroup as part of 1A group? auto dividing year 1 into 1A 1B and 1C was easy, but I don't understand what the categories are for.

Any idea?

Thans a lot in advance.

[Liviu Lalescu]

Hello,
sorry to bother you all again, but I've downloaded 5.0.7 and I'm testing it from scratch. I did wrongly the years last time, so I would like to get it right this time

The problem is that I don't really understand how years and subgroups work. Let's see if someone can help me.

I have 6 years (forms). I have 3 or 4 groups in each year (1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B, etc). Then, some activities a week, these groups are split in different ways. For example, slower students from 1A, 1B and 1C go to a separate group for maths, spanish and catalan.. Then, all students from first form remix in 5 different groups to do diversified curriculum (they can choose a subject among 5 offers).

The question is: how do I tell FET to do these subgroups? Another question is: will FET consider the maths2 subgroup as part of 1A group? auto dividing year 1 into 1A 1B and 1C was easy, but I don't understand what the categories are for.

Any idea?

Thans a lot in advance.

I think you cannot do it with automatic divisions, because you have too many categories: (A, B, C), (Maths advanced, Maths beginner), (Spanish advanced, Spanish beginner), (Catalan advanced, Catalan beginner) and diversified curriculum (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -----there are 5 categories and in FET you can consider at most 3 or 4 (with a trick) categories.

The categories I wrote above represent how you can divide year automatically in FET according to categories. You can define years: 1, 2, 3, 4 and divide them (as a trick, you may define years 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2A,... and divide each of them - this way you obtain 4 categories possible).

I think yes, the Math2 subgroup will be part of 1A group.

Please try to do a divide according to categories (maybe less categories) and see how FET makes groups and subgroups. It is not difficult to understand the idea. The idea is to define the smallest independent subgroups.

Please let me know.

[mbarsan]

...
I have 6 years (forms).

This is easy. Years 1 to 6
Now you can let FET divide automatically them. Let's see how...

...I have 3 or 4 groups in each year (1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B, etc)....

You have to select each year and, as first category, select the number of 3 or 4 as needed. Give a name at each element (A, B, C...).

Then, some activities a week, these groups are split in different ways. For example, slower students from 1A, 1B and 1C go to a separate group for maths, spanish and catalan..

A second category is enough (infact maths, spanish and catalan are subjects). Your second category may split each year into 2 parts, named more_deep and less_deep. FET will let you to define activities with subgroups 1A-less_deep, 1B-less_deep, 1C-less_deep, subject maths (and other activities with spanish or with catalan), teachers involved (as you know). Next, you will define other specular activities with subgroups 1A-more_deep, 1B-more_deep, 1C-more_deep, subject maths (and other activities with spanish or with catalan) and other teachers involved (as you know). These specular activities will be constrained to be overlapping, to interest subgroup 1A-less_deep at same time subgroup 1A-more_deep is occupied. Let's go on...

Then, all students from first form remix in 5 different groups to do diversified curriculum (they can choose a subject among 5 offers).

To achieve this, you will use a third category to split Year number 1 into 5 parts: curr1, curr2..., curr5. You have a lot of choices now to define the students involved into various activities:

• 1A-curr1 is a subgroup of group 1A involved into subject1. At same time you have other 4 subgroups (1A-curr2 to 1A-curr5) involved into other subjects. Same activities may be defined with more subgroups engaged (1A-curr1 + 1B-curr1 ...). Constraint these activities to be overlapping, as you need.
  
• 1A-curr1-less_deep is a part of 1A-curr1. They can be assigned at a different activity from 1A-curr1-more_deep.
  ...
  

The question is: how do I tell FET to do these subgroups? Another question is: will FET consider the maths2 subgroup as part of 1A group?

Yes, FET will, but if you use the feature "divide year automatically by selecting categories" (highly recomanded) you are going to work with subgroup named 1A-maths2 (and then, 1A-maths1...)

auto dividing year 1 into 1A 1B and 1C was easy, but I don't understand what the categories are for.

To divide year 1 into 1A, 1B and 1C, you used a first category.
You have other 2 categories to divide year 1.
For example, English and French can be a second category (one foreign language chosen).
In this case, FET let you define activities for a variety of students: you can define (i.e.) an activity regarding group 1-English. This group is done with all students of Year 1 that study English (= 1A-English + 1B-English +1C-English).
If you prefer (and if you have more teachers for English subject), you may define activities involving the split subgroup 1A-English, then other activities for other subgroup 1B-English ... and so on.

A third category may be less_deep and more_deep. I don't know if you will have an activity for group 1-less_deep, but if you want, you can. Surely you may have activities for subgroup 1-English-less_deep, or activities  for subgroups 1A-French-more_deep, 1B-French-more_deep, 1C-French-more_deep...

I don't want to be too verbose... Please, tell me what do you think, thanks.

[/color]

[Liviu Lalescu]

Thanks, mbarsan, for answer.

mbarsan, so you say that silvia has only 3 categories? OK then, silvia, you can use directly the facility.

Divide for 3 categories: category 1 has 3-4 divisions: A, B, C, D. Category 2 has 2 divisions: basic and advanced (or lower and higher, or other names). Category 3 has 5 divisions: subject 1, subject 2, subject 3, subject 4, subject 5.

After that, please see how FET did the groups/subgroups.

I think that, unlike mbarsan said, you can use groups (so you don't have to use subgroups). You will have groups: 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1basic, 1advanced, 1subject1, 1subject2, 1subject3, 1subject4, 1subject5, exactly as you need. You will add for each activity one group out of these.

[Volker Dirr]

I have 6 years (forms). I have 3 or 4 groups in each year (1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B, etc). Then, some activities a week, these groups are split in different ways. For example, slower students from 1A, 1B and 1C go to a separate group for maths, spanish and catalan..

There are two other solutions.
1. A bad workaround: If you know that the activities must be simultaneously then you can also add all teachers and students in a single activity. But the timetable looks not nice and you get not the best table if the (students)tables are not 100%. You also need to use dummy activities if you have room problems.

2. The best solution:
If you also use a school administration tool or a software to print students credentials, then you already have a database with all students names, the year, class and groups. You just need to export them and import them with FET.

Example:
Student "Maria Sanzech" is in year 8, Class 8a and visit group "catalan for beginners".
Students "Enrico Magalan" is in year 8, Class 8a and visit group "catalan for experienced".

You just need a cvs file with that information.
For example:
"8","8a","Maria Sanzech"
"8","8a","Enrico Magalan"
...
"8","catalan for beginners","Maria Sanzechs"
...
"8","catalan for experienced","Enrico Magalan"

You don't need Students names, maybe even better is if every Students has a unique identity number.
Also field separator and text quotation signs can be different. Also the your file can contain more columns and that can be also in an different order. that doesn't matter, you can also import that into FET.

So if Enrico has the identity number id107 and Maria has identity number id109, then you can also import a file like:
id107|...|8|8a|...
id109|...|8|8a|...
...
id107|...|8|catalan for beginners|...
...
id109|...|8|catalan for experienced|...

If you have such an file, you just need to import that into FET. (FET->import->cvs->import years, groups, subgroups)

This is the fastest and best solution.

[silvia]

wow, everything is now more clear about all the categoriesthing, and subgroups. i really thank you all. I'll re-read all the suggestions while using the automatic subgroups and will let you know how it goes.

It is very important for me that FET recognises 1A-maths_advanced, etc as part of 1A because I need to give the students a comprehensive timetable.

The thing is that the tutor tells the class what their timetable is going to be. For example: Monday 8.15 maths (then, advanced students will go to classroom1 with teacher1, and slow students will go to classroom2 with teacher2 (at the same time).

Will I get a complete timetable for 1A with all those activities? or will I get a timetable for every subgroup (which will be incomplete)?

Thats just another one of the multiple doubts I have. But it's all your fault, because you all are so kind and helpful that I feel free to ask  

[Liviu Lalescu]

wow, everything is now more clear about all the categoriesthing, and subgroups. i really thank you all. I'll re-read all the suggestions while using the automatic subgroups and will let you know how it goes.

It is very important for me that FET recognises 1A-maths_advanced, etc as part of 1A because I need to give the students a comprehensive timetable.

The thing is that the tutor tells the class what their timetable is going to be. For example: Monday 8.15 maths (then, advanced students will go to classroom1 with teacher1, and slow students will go to classroom2 with teacher2 (at the same time).

Will I get a complete timetable for 1A with all those activities? or will I get a timetable for every subgroup (which will be incomplete)?

Thats just another one of the multiple doubts I have. But it's all your fault, because you all are so kind and helpful that I feel free to ask  

Yes, you'll get a complete timetable.

I think you will need to add some constraints activities same starting time.

[silvia]

Hello boys,
just a quick note to let you know that I'm starting to work with the timetable for next school year and I implemented the suggestions you made me about years/groups and subgroups. It's working wonderfully so far.

I haven't put any teachers or activities constraints yet, but FET generates full timetables for gropu 3A even if I'm putting activities to subgroups 3A-1 and 3A-2, etc.Thanks very much.

It seems to have some problems with rooms, but I'll take a look at those some time later.

Is it still not possible to assign several classrooms to an activity with several groups and teachers?Do I still have to use dummy activities.

Thanks very much

[Volker Dirr]

Is it still not possible to assign several classrooms to an activity with several groups and teachers?Do I still have to use dummy activities.

Correct. Each activity can get max one room. So you need to use dummy activities (with constraint same starting time) to "use" more then one room.

[Liviu Lalescu]

Yes, unfortunately the algorithm does not accept more rooms for an activity. It would be difficult to change that. I'll think about it, but I don't think I'll solve it the way you need.

[silvia]

Thanks for your concern. I don'tknow how the algoritm works, but what would be nice and useful is to be able to right click (or click) in an activity (in the data section or in the timetable section) and assign/change the room. Or maybe being able to select multiple rooms as we are able to select multiple groups foran activity. Even if it is impossible to assign multiple rooms to an activity, would it be possible to assign one room to an activity with more than one group or more than one teacher? This way at least the main room would be shown and I could add another room by hand. Even though it would be better that the occupation of rooms was reflected in that wonderful timetable generated for rooms  

There are some new improvements in this version (comparing to the one I used last summer) that are really really good. Thank you very much for your work.

[Liviu Lalescu]

It is not that simple, to add more rooms for an activity like adding students sets or teachers :-) The algorithm was designed having in mind that each activity must have a unique time and unique room. The generation algorithm, which is the most important and most difficult, chooses at each step a single room for an activity. It is (very?) difficult to change, probably. Also, the space constraints for preferred rooms might become too difficult to understand by the user.

About adding at least one room for an activity with multiple teachers/students sets: of course you can add that, using preferred room(s) constraints (you have a very large palette, maybe even use the new act. tag. preferred room(s), and add multiple activity tags for an activity - speaking of new features in FET :-)

Please inform us if you discover any bug, or report even if everything worked out nice.

[silvia]

hhahahaa, oh, well, my ignorance has no limits when it comes to algorithms  

I'll try those new features about rooms and let you know when I get no rooms. I don't think I can distinguish a bug from something I did wrongly  

[Liviu Lalescu]

Anything that looks not good please let us know. Also, if FET fails to find a timetable when it should find it.

Did you publish the last year timetable on the internet? I searched "horario generado con FET", but found nothing on the internet. I found in English, Romanian, Greek and Italian only.

[silvia]

oh, I posted last year's timetable in this forum and it is now included as sample in the downloadable file. Do you mean that file? I'll look for it. I posted it and received some suggestions from you all that I am using now. I'm only testing these days because I still don't know the teachers. I'm generating timetables only with the activities using students and subjects and time/space constraints. It generates timetables in less than 3 seconds, but it will get more difficult when I add the teachers. teachers are always more difficult