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International Timetabling Competition 2011

Welcome to the home page of ITC2011.

ITC2011 is the third International Timetabling Competition, devoted to High School Timetabling and sponsored by PATAT, EventMAP and CTIT.

Following on from the first and second competitions, the third International Timetabling Competition aims to stimulate timetabling research generally, and especially to encourage the alignment of research with practice by offering real-world instances of timetabling problems for solution.

Consisting of three separate rounds, the Competition focuses on the important area of High School Timetable. This is a complex common problem faced by thousands of educational institutions worldwide.

The overall objective of the competition are the following:

(i) Allow researchers to trial their techniques in a competitive setting on 'real world' practical problems.

(ii) Encourage research in the area of complex NP hard real world problems.

(iii) Attract researchers from all disciplines to compete.

(iv) Further algorithmic development in the area of educational development.

(v) Generate all-time best solutions to these problem instances.

All instances will be provided in XML.

The first round makes use of a set of existing benchmark data and is aimed at generating the best recorded results. Competitors can use what ever resources and techniques in attempting to generate their solutions. This is an attempt to replicate the 'real world' where timetabers are more interested in achieving the 'best' solution as opposed to getting a solution quickly. Solutions must be submitted by May 7, 2012.

The second round will make use of additional data to be released on 1st January 2012. On submission on the 7th May 2012, solutions will be ranked and the winner chosen based on effectiveness of a particular technique in a specified time on hidden archive instances. Imposing a restrictive time limit allows for the investigation of algorithmic techniques which can provide 'good' solutions in a short space of time. This is often a key requirement in the 'real world' when alternative solutions are required in a short space of time. Hidden instances are used to ensure submitted techniques are not overly tuned to particular instances of the data.

In the third round, the hidden archive instances will be released and for Competitors to trial their techniques on. As with the first round, competitors can use what ever resources and techniques in attempting to generate their solutions. The solutions should be submitted by July 1, 2012. At the end of the Competition all best overall solutions will be made available for future comparison purposes.

Overview gives a short tour of the competition. Dates states the important dates, while Rules contains a more formal description of the organisation of the competition.

The competition is supported by the following organisations.