Meeting #2 - TechnionYearlyProject/Exam-Scheduler GitHub Wiki

A MEETING WITH MIKA

11/05/2017, Sunday

Overview:

• Mika, the secretary of CS faculty, receives predefined exam dates (e.g. first semester courses) from Ullman.
• Ullman are responsible to deal with assigning rooms for each exam.
• Students asked for a short holiday between the two exam periods, in addition, they asked for a minimal gap between every two consecutive exams. As a result, each exam period became shorter.
• In our faculty there are 7 different study programs, the computer engineering program is shared between CS faculty and EE faculty.
• There are three different exam cycles in each day of the week, except for Friday, there is only one exam cycle. This is a constraint we must take into account.
• Generally, if two courses are being taught in the same semester according to at least one recommended study program, their exams dates shouldn’t conflict, not should they be scheduled in two consecutive days.
• If two exams were scheduled to the same day/time in the first exam period, it is recommended to avoid another conflict in the second exam period.
• There is a minimal gap between Moed A and Moed B of each exam, we should check that.

Difficulties:

• Cs and Physics shared program: there are courses passed only once a year.
• Computer Engineering program: CS courses are delayed by one semester.
• There is a new program at the faculty, we should take its courses into account.

Questions to MIKA:

• Q: What is the input format?
A: PDF files, generally written in Hebrew. We can get a list of the active CS courses for each semester from the CS faculty site.

• Q: Do we need to consider the exam rooms?
A: After CS exams are scheduled by MIKA, they need an approval from Ullman. Sometimes, there is a problem with the defined dates and number of rooms for every exam, which leads to minimal modifications.

• Q: Is there a chance for two different exams to be scheduled at the same day and time?
A: It is possible, if the two courses are passed at different semesters according to the recommended study plans for all the study programs.

• Q: Is the study catalogue always available?
A: for MIKA it is always available.

• Q: What is the output format?
A: A manual upload to the UG server.

• Q: Which features MIKA wants at the main menu?
A: Two calendars, one for every exam period, in addition, an option to add constraints and new courses.

We should base the solution for conflicts between two exams on the amount of students which registered to both courses. Since the exams are scheduled before registration to courses, we can get a good prediction from previous semesters.
Some exams dates may exceed the assigned exam periods, for example OS (Operating Systems).