FET Terminology and Data Structure to Follow

[ogursoy]

How to structure a schedule model?

Students follow curriculum for their study programs. All curricula have semesters (4 years = 8 semesters) where courses (subjects?) are predefined for registration at the beginning of each semester.

We have 20 study programs (which means 20 curricula x 8 semester).

Most of the courses shared between the curricula for different semesters.

I am confused by the terms FET uses. How should I structure the data interms of curricula, (which actually shows the constrains for that particular program where courses should not be placed on the same time slot) and courses.

I can see that FET has subjects which refers to "our courses".

Note: Time table is generated before students register the courses at the beginning of each semester.

Any idea and help is highly appreciated.

Thanks for the awesome application and community.

Best Regards

[Volker Dirr]

"moste are shared" is pretty "difficult".

As far as i can see so far:

4 of your years are 4 FET years.
20 study programms are 20 groups. (of course in every year. So 4*20).

if they share, then just select several groups/years and place them into the same actvitiy.

it might be more complicated. impossible to say without knowing your database.

[ogursoy]

Dear Volker,
It is very kind of you. I really appriciate your help. If you dont mind I would like to give some more brief information. So If you wish to help more, I appreciate it a lot.

We have the courses as in the following structure.

University Level Courses : These courses are for 1. year students. If some students failed to pass they can try in next years.
Faculty Level courses      : These courses are mostly for 2.,3. year students.We have 5 faculty and each faculty course is common to that faculty students.
Program Level Courses  : These courses are mostly for 4. year students.We have 20 study programs in total under these 5 faculties. So same faculty students even on different programs, might take these courses as well.

Overall above, each study program has curriculum showing which courses should be taken on which semester. 1.Semester Fall, 2.Semester Spring, 3.Semester Fall, 4.Semester Spring and so on.

Please notice that if students fail some courses they can repeat it on upcoming semesters.

Our main concern is to avoid overlapping courses which are on the same semester for that particiular program. So, if one program 2.semester curriculum says that course A, course B, course C, Course D should be taken, basically these courses should not be placed on the same time slot.

I hope this is more clear ?

I really appreciate your guidance.

Best Regards

[Liviu Lalescu]

I am sorry, I do not quite understand your situation, because it uses terms different from what I know and different from FET.

In FET, you can make the timetable for only a week (max. "days" = 35).

To ensure that some activities do not overlap, you can make them have common subgroups, or you can use constraints activities not overlapping.

[Volker Dirr]

still much to less information to tell you how to do it best.

about your courses:
your faculty courses can be (also) done by adding the 2. and 3. year into the same activity.

do you "only" have courses are do you also have "classes"/"groups"/... ?

If you only have courses:
i bet your request (not overlapping) will be impossible. will be easy to prove as soon as you told us your number of courses, hours per course and hours per week.

Lets just imagine you have got 6 courses each with 4 hours. So you need 6*4=24 hours peer week. but since students might fail and might visit that course again if he is in a higher year, then it mean you will need double number of hours/slots (if the other year have got also 6*4 hours). Now you have got similar "problems" in the other years. then it is very easy to understand, that you need to have a few hundret hours per week. but that is of course imposible, since a day have got max 24 hours. so there will be always conflicts. YOU should tell FET which one is needed or not. Because it doesn't make sence to set up courses conflict free (not overlapping) if all students finished that course (maybe because all guys are (nearly) always able to finish the "sports" course. But maybe you know that many students are not clever enough to pass the "Math" course. So you "only" need to care about that course. You can use "not overlapping" constraints for that (or just setup 2 students groups).

[ogursoy]

Once again thank you very much. I appreciate it.

We are approximately offering 215 courses (subjects)  in each semester for (5 faculties and 20 programs in total).

All students from all programs (according to their curriculum and requirements) can take the courses. We are not willing to satisfy every case, our main concern is to satisfy students curricula.
(On the study program curricula, according to students' semester they can take up to 5-6 courses (subjects) each semester.)

I hope it is much clear?

Best Regards

[Liviu Lalescu]

With FET, you cannot allocate students to activities. In FET, each activity (course?) needs to have a specified teacher, students set, and subject.

But I hope Volker can understand better your problem.