An Introduction to Scheduling Systems for Vocational Colleges and Universities

The problem of scheduling has been troubling most vocational institutions, especially those with large classes and tight teaching resources. This paper describes the scheduling characteristics of various types of schools and three scheduling methods for vocational institutions. In practice, many schools can only helplessly choose to manually arrange courses, which is the common expectation of all kinds of schools.  

1. overview of scheduling system The scheduling problem is the NP schedule problem. This problem is a special processing and scheduling problem, which can be described as the arrangement of events into appropriate time slots under the condition of limited resources, the essence is to reasonably allocate time resources, classroom resources and teacher resources, arrange a set of appropriate teaching time and space, so that the whole teaching can be carried out in a planned and orderly manner. With the rapid development of education in China, various factors such as the increasing number of students, insufficient school buildings, strained teaching equipment, and insufficient teaching staff have brought great pressure on normal teaching, especially the challenge of course scheduling. Under the premise of limited resources such as teachers, laboratories and classrooms, the course schedule has become more burdensome. The development of computerized teaching aid systems has attracted more and more attention, and the scheduling systems of various schools have been widely promoted and applied. Due to the different situations in various schools, the use of course scheduling systems varies, some of them are only useful in computer-assisted courses, or even just using computerized forms instead of paper-manual courses, and some course scheduling systems are very intelligent, achieving automatic course scheduling and high quality of course scheduling.

 2. Characteristics of scheduling in various types of schools

 2. Characteristics of primary and secondary school scheduling Primary and secondary school scheduling is the simplest because they have the smallest curricula and are generally characterized as follows.

 ① The elementary school curriculum is based on language and math, with English added in the upper grades, and scheduling revolves around these three lessons. In fact, the elementary school curriculum is very standardized. You can make a new schedule using the old one: for example, the third grade schedule is the same every year. The difference is that the teacher who teaches the class can make a new schedule by simply changing the teacher's name.  

② Secondary schools have more courses than elementary school, making scheduling more difficult, but still continuing the standardization of elementary school: there are relatively fewer categories of courses, and teachers are generally responsible for only one course for two or three classes; there are no cross-curricular issues, and the old curriculum can be used for modification and use.  

(iii) Courses with space needs, such as laboratory and physical education, have difficulty in scheduling in secondary schools: as the number of classes increases, scheduling conflicts may be due to a shortage of resources.

④ There is only one schedule for primary and secondary schools: that is, the schedule is the same every week without regard to festivals, which are holidays that need to be made up and adjusted.  

2. Characteristics of university scheduling As there are different types of universities with many majors and courses, the general characteristics are as follows: ① University-wide courses are generally arranged for public classes, and other specialized classes are arranged by each department. The most important feature is that all classes are arranged by the university, all classes are not fixed classroom, there is no classroom, students find self-study place, do not take up classroom resources. ② Elective courses are the most difficult to schedule in the university. Students of different majors and grades may choose the same elective courses, the number of students in each elective course is variable, and it is more difficult to arrange classrooms. ③ Some higher vocational colleges and universities may also have a shortage of resources for laboratory classes and stadiums: as the number of classes increases, the scheduling of classes may be in conflict. (iv) Some universities have the same courses every week, and there are festivals or vacations that do not need to be made up. There are also some universities that schedule classes in phases, with different courses at different stages, adding to the complexity of scheduling. 2.3 Characteristics of Scheduling in Vocational Colleges and Universities The scheduling of courses in vocational colleges and universities is similar to that of higher vocational colleges and universities, but it also has its own characteristics. Different types of vocational colleges and universities are different, and courses of the same type are basically the same. The general characteristics are as follows: ① Tight teaching resources are the biggest characteristic of vocational colleges. In addition to the tension of ordinary classrooms, laboratories and training places, the tension of teachers' resources is also a common feature of the scheduling difficulties in vocational colleges and universities, and teachers in some vocational colleges and universities take 20 classes per week. ② Each class in vocational institutions has a regular classroom, but vocational institutions have many laboratory and training courses, and space scheduling is generally tight. ② Each class in vocational institutions has a regular classroom, but vocational institutions have a lot of experimental and training courses, and space arrangements are generally tight. (iii) Due to the shortage of teachers, some vocational colleges arrange two or even three classes, so they need to use large classrooms, which often brings related problems. As the number of classes increases, it inevitably leads to conflicts in classroom arrangements. ④ There are also some vocational institutions that have the same curriculum every week and take holidays when there are festivals, so they do not need to make up classes. However, most vocational colleges schedule classes in phases, with some of the time being a full day or a whole week of practical training classes, so the schedules are not the same for all phases, which also adds to the complexity of scheduling.

3. Analysis of scheduling in vocational institutions Generally, vocational institutions have four sessions in the morning and two in the afternoon, with 30 sessions per week. Due to the tight resources of various types of course scheduling in vocational colleges and universities, there is little adjustable space, and even no adjustable space at all for some courses. For example, a physical education teacher 20 classes a week, the general provisions of the morning 1, 2 classes are not on the physical education class, so the time can be arranged are full, can not be adjusted after class. Some vocational institutions require that each course must fulfill the number of hours in the teaching schedule. The schedule is very strict. Generally, there are fewer self-study courses, and self-study courses cannot be scheduled for 1 or 2 periods in the morning. As a result, it is very difficult to schedule courses in such vocational institutions. 3.1 Manual Scheduling For some vocational institutions with fewer classes, course scheduling can be accomplished with a pen and a piece of paper. As the number of classes increases, manual scheduling becomes more and more difficult, and the use of computerized forms to assist in scheduling courses is an inevitable choice. In fact, most vocational institutions now use this computer-aided scheduling method for scheduling processing, and as classes increase, these schools are eager to use computers for automatic scheduling. 3.2 Semi-Automatic Scheduling Applying EXCEL data reference, function and conditional format features to achieve efficiency in course scheduling, avoid rescheduling errors, solve the problem of automatic data updating, and automatically prompt errors such as rescheduling courses and resource conflicts during the course scheduling process, and better solve the problems that usually exist in manual courses, a semi-automatic course scheduling system can be set up [2] to satisfy the needs of schools with different characteristics. Although this semi-automatic scheduling has some limitations, it is at least much better than manual scheduling. Of course, it is better to have fully automated scheduling. 3.3 Automatic scheduling There are two kinds of teaching requirements in general vocational colleges and universities, one is loose semester teaching, each course does not have a strict class time, and the courses are the same every week, or set up as a single week or bi-weekly; and the other is strict class time teaching, each course has a strict class time task, and the courses tend to be different every week. General vocational institutions use a combination of partition, greedy, and priority algorithms, which can realize automatic computer scheduling. For schools with lax teaching requirements and sufficient resources, courses can be automatically scheduled without manual adjustments. For resource shortage, appropriate manual adjustment can also accomplish automatic scheduling. For schools with strict teaching requirements and tight resources, manual adjustment is crucial and may not even accomplish automatic scheduling, but at least it is better than manual scheduling. For some automatic scheduling software, they cannot provide good flexibility due to flaws in algorithm design. In fact, they have become an adjunct to manual scheduling when schools are short of teaching resources. Therefore, designing targeted algorithmic strategies to improve the intelligence of course scheduling and reduce manual operations according to the requirements of different schools is the development direction of course scheduling systems.

4.Prospect of Scheduling System for Vocational Colleges and Universities Vocational colleges and universities have complicated course scheduling, and general course scheduling software is not suitable for the school's situation, while self-development and technical strength is not enough. For a long time, course scheduling in vocational colleges has been manual or semi-manual. The purchased software is only computer-assisted course scheduling, not computer-automated course scheduling, which cannot completely solve the difficulties of course scheduling.

After several trials, our school has adopted the Daily Cloud Class System. This system solves the problem of course scheduling that plagued the teachers of our school's Academic Affairs Office. Whether it is arranging courses separately for single and double weeks, dismantling practical training courses, or fixing courses for courses and teachers, all of them can be accomplished through conditional settings.

TEN Cloud Scheduling System is a cloud-based scheduling system that requires only one account to complete the scheduling task and is easy and convenient to operate. The product includes the following features.

It can meet the characteristics of universities and colleges with many majors, training courses, and large changes in course scheduling. It supports multiple course scheduling tasks, free switching of course structure according to different course scheduling tasks, and flexible setup of flexible venue scheduling functions to solve the problem of shortage of functional classrooms and difficulties in course scheduling for training courses, computer courses, and so on. Flexible single-session and multi-session settings support teachers daily and weekly classroom hours limitations, reminders to support classroom scheduling and classroom scheduling flexible scheduling conditions, can be set up for the course and the teacher respectively, can be customized to preset the range of presets, preset values can be selected: fixed rows, do not rows, the most rows, the least rows to support the teacher, the course, the holiday rows of special rows of requirements, the average arrangement of the automatic rows and manually adjusted to present a perfect Curriculum flexible alternative functions, drag and drop can adjust the course, support for pinyin initial classification search elements, support for classes, teachers, venues, the whole school and other types of curriculum query support data excel support for the import of online editing of data, and provide error data information download function

It is hoped that such a generalized vocational school scheduling system can be popularized and used nationwide for the benefit of more vocational education teachers.