Hi All,
Thanks for all the help you are about to provide:)
I have been playing aorund with FET for about a week trying to figure things out but am still very confused by the terminology. I am investigating whether this will work for a US High School.
It may not be able to do what I am trying to do.
I will start with what I am trying with an small example.
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Lets say I have 60 students in a year that all have to take algebra 1. We limit the class size to 24 students so I need at least 3 sections. I want them to have the same teacher in the same room. Based on that they need to be at different times.
I set that up by having the 60 students each by a subgroup and made three groups of 20. I then made three activities for the three sections of Algebra, all in the same room and same teacher. I generated a timetable no problem. I added some time constraints and again, no problem.
No those same 60 studnets need to take a language, 30 chose Spanish and 30 chose Mandarin. I can make two Spanish classes (activities) and two Mandarin classes (activities). Do I need to regroup the students according to language? What if I add another course where they have a choice of two or three different courses. Do I need to keep making smaller groups of students with common courses?
Is there some way to FET figure this out or am I asking too much?
Thanks,
David
You question is a very important one. You should know that answer as soon as possible.
Sadly it is difficult to answer without knowing your dataset.
Overall there are 2 variants how to enter the data.
Variant 1:
subgroups = student names
groups = courses
So if you already added 60 subgroup (students names) you need to add new groups with the same subgroups.
advantage: you will get the "best" data. (easy to read, fast to generate).
disadvantage: much work to enter the data. You can avoid this disadvantage if you import the data from your school administration software. i but you already added all needed data into the software that you use to print the credentials. So you should check how to import it from there.
Variant 2:
If you don't have got to many courses, then it is better to use the automatic split year feature.
see:
http://www.timetabling.de/manual/FET-manual.en.html#id_12
So in your case you currently only need at 2 categories:
1st Category with "algebra 1a", "algebra 1b" and "algebra 1c"
2nd Category with "Spanish a", "Spanish b", "Mandarin a", "Mandarin b".
Advantage: If you don't have many courses it is much easer to enter the data, since you don't need to add student names.
Disadvantage: Students can't see if they are in course a,b or c. You need to tell it them (on the other hand that is also an advantage, since it is easy to place them into an other course.)
Sadly this variant will produce too many subgroups if you have got a lot of courses.
Variant 1) is used by many US schools, while Variant 2) is used by many European schools.
Thank you. That makes a little more sense.
I can import the data. I'll give it try with some fake data.
I agree with Volker.
I would have forgotten the first variant. It's a good thing Volker reminded me.
The only thing is that the screenshot in the manual is old. Now we improved the automatic division of years by categories.
I think the best for your file is the first variant.
I attach an example CSV (exported from the corresponding German file).
For instance, subgroup 5aMF goes into groups 5a and 5MF (overlapping groups).
Thanks everyone,
How do I access the split year feature? I can't seem to find anything like that.
Thanks again,
David
In the Years dialog, there are many buttons. On the first row, 4 buttons, then underneath them a button "Divide year by selecting categories".
Thank you very much.
David
You are welcome!
So, you decided for Variant 2? Variant 1 might be better if you have many categories. FET generates faster if there are less total subgroups. But in Variant 1 is more difficult to input the data.
In Volker's manual, the automatic division of years dialog is different (old style). We improved it in newer FET versions.
Thank. I am going to try both ways to see what is better.
I am still learning the basics. I think I am going to have a lot of questions:(
David
No problem. That is why we have the forum :)