Solving Examination Timetabling Problems at the University of Malaysia Perlis through Adaption of FET Software

This paper presents an issue related to examination timetabling raised in the University of Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP). UniMAP is a distributed campus university in Perlis, North of Malaysia, which is comprised of four branch campuses that offers a total of 31 programmes at 12 schools or faculties. This study looked into an issue related to examination timetabling based on intricacy, time, and several challenges. As such, real world data were analysed by employing the Free Educational Timetable (FET) software program in the attempt to seek a solution for the issue at hand. The FET refers to an open-source and free software program can schedule timetable automatically for any learning institutes by applying an efficient and rapid algorithm meant for timetabling. Nevertheless, due to absence of solution in the literature and the employment of new dataset, the outcomes from the analyses were compared with a manual solution made available. It was discovered that the solution generated from this study appeared better in terms of its capacity of offering an examination timetable that is high in quality within a shorter period of time, as well as improved proximity cost. In conclusion, the results generated from this study have the ability to lessen the burden of the Examination Unit related to examination timetabling.