1.1 Introduction
Timetable Scheduling System for Tertiary Institution is a software application that will computerize and deal with the allocation of examination halls and time of a specific academic course of study. A timetable is the plan of lecture time and duration, lecture venue and lecture date between teachers and students in a prefixed time period (typically a week), satisfying a set of varying constraints. Timetables are crucial for lecture scheduling and proper allocation of resources such as time and venues for lectures or examinations. A perfectly planned timetable serves as a tool for aiding time management among individuals and organizations. This in turn leads to efficiency and positive outcomes in performances (Mathias, Abifarin & Imavah, 2019).
Every school year, institutions of education face the rigorous task of drawing up timetables that satisfies the various courses and their respective examinations being offered by the different department. The difficulty is due to the great complexity of the construction of timetables for lectures and exams, due to the scheduling size of the lectures and examinations periods and the high number of constraints and criteria of allocation, usually circumvented with the use of little strict heuristics, based on solutions from previous years (Jose, 2008).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Lens Polytechnic is a polytechnic incorporated in Nigeria by the same management that owns and runs Lens school of management, Offa which is an innovation enterprise institution. Lens Polytechnic is an expansion from Lens School of Management and Technology (Lenspolytechnic, 2021).
The school was established on 20th April, 2012. Lens polytechnic was founded by Azeez Yisa Bukola and Abdulazeez Isahq, an educationalist and a banker of high repute, the school was accredited duly by National Board for technical education. The Proprietors have always been concerned with education and had always been disturbed with the situation of Nigeria youth who struggle to get admitted into tertiary institutions but cannot. Another set of concern are those that studied in the tertiary institutions and then find it difficult to get employed. They cannot integrate well into the industry or they cannot start up something on their own because they lack entrepreneurship skills. As part of remedy to all these situations, the Proprietors then decided to establish Lens Polytechnic.
Timetabling problem in educational institutions is categorized in three groups: university examination, university course, and school timetabling. University examination timetabling defines the exact day, time slot, and room that each exam is held. The main objective in the examination timetabling problem is no student takes more than one examination at any time period. This conflict can be regarded as a hard constraint and must be eliminated.
The academic environment has gone so complex that an automated system may be required to automate certain aspects of the academic system. One such area of difficulty is timetable scheduling; those saddled with the responsibility of time table creation are always faced with challenges of creating effective system that will deliver its purpose.
Automation has been seen as a way of enhancing Manual activities. For instance, Manual operations are characterized with some setbacks such as erroneous computation etc. with automation, those setbacks are either eliminated or reduced to barest minimal. To this effect application are being created to hide the manual operations and project automation.
The general task of solving timetable scheduling problems is iterative and time consuming. In real world application, the participants to the timetable scheduling have conflicting preferences which make the search for an optimal solution a problem. In order to solve the problem it is necessary to find a compromise between all the parties involved in the requirement, usually conflicting (e.g. day, time). The constraints are related to the availability, timetabling and preference of each of the instructor, to rooms availability, number of student and curricula. In order to solve this problem for the particular case of university system, timetable scheduling has to adopt the computer-base approach. Computer-base approach enables the institution to automate certain manual task and work efficiently. Also, in the particular case of timetable scheduling, the automated system could find an optimal or a sub-optimal solution using mainly inter agent communication.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that the scheduling problem can be defined as a problem of finding the optimal sequence for evaluating a finite set of operation (task or job) under a certain set of constrains that must be satisfied. A typical example of scheduling problem is timetable scheduling.
- The problems to be solved by timetable scheduling are mapped out below.
- Maximize individual in timetable scheduling or other resources.
- Minimize time required to complete the entire process for timetable scheduling.
- Production of timetable and of conflict interest, place, etc.
All these problems and more are to be solved so that the proposal solution for timetable scheduling will be an enchantment over the manual.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to Design and Implement a Web Based Timetable for Computer Science Department. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To develop flexible and interactive timetable scheduling software that enables automatic generation of examinations schedules for tertiary institution in Nigeria;
- To develop a system that will capture the actual sizes of the class and allocate venues accordingly;
- To develop a system that will create room for easy amendment where there are errors; and
- To develop a simple easy-to-use software which an individual with little or no idea of software application can interact with a great deal of comprehension.
1.5 Significance of Study
This research work is greatly hoped to eliminate the manual way of scheduling examination Timetable in the school. It will more also eliminate stress in planning of the Timetable. It will also avail the students to go for their worship at Sundays that is no more writing exams on Sundays. Students will now write exams comfortably with good venue and much time and more also eliminate examination clash.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of this research is focused on the Design and Implementation of a Web Based Timetable for Computer Science Department in Lens Polytechnic, Kwara State Offa.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Exam: An entrance examination offered the system, have some question and multiple choices answer.
Linear Programming: A method of finding maximum and minimum of a linear transformation using variables that is subject to constraints.
