Major and elective courses

[mohammad-k]

Hi,
I'm working on timetable to generate course schedule for school. This school has two learning systems, first one is the normal learning system which there are a set of major courses and the student must register all of them. The second one is the high school learning system which there are a set of major and elective courses that the student might select, and here is my problem in the this learning system.

For example:

Grade 10 has 40 available session per week.
    Major courses: 10 courses with total number of sessions equal to 40.
    Elective courses: 5 courses with total number of sessions  equal to 15.

so, the total is 55 which is greater than the number of available session per week. ( but the student can select from both courses with total number of sessions equal to just 40).

How can i cheat the software in a way to obtain both major and elective courses in the schedule ?

And is there a way to make FET schedules 2 or more courses at the same day - period !?

Thanks in advance.

[Liviu Lalescu]

I hope others will answer better, but I can try to suggest:

- Maybe make two groups, in parallel, to correspond to a real group;
- Think of using the constraint activities max simultaneous in selected time slots and activities occupy max time slots from selection.

But I admit I did not think too much before writing this, which is not an example to follow

[mohammad-k]

I tried  both constraints but unfortunately didn't work.
Now i'm trying to make two groups but how i can do in parallel to reference them to the same grade. I tried before tow groups with different names but the major courses obtained in a section and the electives in second section.
I need to display them under one section for one grade.

[Volker Dirr]

first of all you should think about which courses are allowed to be at the same time.
as soon as you done that, you should think about the correct students structure.

as far as i understood your elective courses are "just select 1 out of 5". So of course all elective course are allowed to be at the same time (but must not).
so this courses should be in the same category if you split the year automatically.

what about the Major courses? If i understood your request correct, then they are not allowed at the same time, since every students need it.
but if your numbers are correct, then you wrote that only Major courses are already 40 hours, but you said that you have got only 40 hours per week. So there will be not slot available for elective courses.

So there is a bug?!
You need to increase the number of hours per week, or you need to place some Major courses at the same time, but that mean not every student can choose every Major course.
So you need to change something.
Your request as you wrote it is impossible.
You need to increase number of hours per week OR you must allowed Major courses at the same time.

[mohammad-k]

Thank you Volker for your reply.

First of all let me explain to you what is my issue.
I have a set of major & elective courses and the total of hours for both can be 60 or more,but i have only 40 available hours per week( to select), and the student can select major courses and more than one elective course not just one.

So in this case i have to display all the courses in my schedule knowing that the students will get only 40 hours to register from these 60 hours.

The student must select only 40 hours (maybe all from major or mix from major and elective).

for example: I have a major course (English) on Monday in period 1 with student group 1;
FET can place an elective course (ART) on Monday period 1 with student group 2, Moreover FET can place another elective course {Sport} on Monday period 1 with student group 3.

So, Monday Period 1 now have a set of courses:
1. English (group1)
2. Art (group2)
3. Sport (group3)

So i don't need to increase the number of hours per week it's 40 and must be well and what should FET do is to place multiple courses at the same slot ( sure with different student groups).

Kindly note that i don't have the ability to specify which course must be placed in what time slot. (FET must schedule these courses due to teacher and course availability to avoid the conflict).

[Volker Dirr]

if you have bad luck, and the students select "bad" (in your view, not in the students view), then it is very easy to prove that it can happen that it will be impossible to solve such a problem!

overall there are 2 variants:
a) use the FET MAPR version and just enter the data. If you have luck, FET will be able to solve it.
b) do it like nearly all schools do it that have similar problems: do an activity / course planning first! So like i wrote in my first answer already: you need to tell me/yourself if courses are allowed at the same time or not. That is depending on the students selection. That is why you should plan it! In worst case students selected so "bad" that nearly no course is allowed at the same time -> impossible dataset/timetable. If you have luck a lot courses are allowed at the same time -> easy dataset/timetable. But FET need to know that! Because FET need to know if courses are allowed at the same time or not. FET don't need to know if they must be at the same time. Only if it is allowed or not. In normal case you enter that data by the students structure. Depending on your dataset, you can use the official FET or the FET MAPR version and solve the timetable pretty fast.