Conflict reduction in examination schedules

Abstract

Several times a year. Universities and Colleges must generate final examination schedules for many of the courses they offer. There are many issues involved in this schedule generation; these include the generation of a conflict-free schedule and the reduction in the number of students writing back-to-back examinations. This paper deals with the issue of the reduction of these so called second order conflicts and extends the concept further in consideration of third and fourth order conflicts by the use of a two-stage process. The application of these two stages process to examination has been used successfully at the University of Calgary, Canada.