Constraint: Course: Distribution

Specification

Checks a balanced distribution of occurrences of lessons of a course throughout the cycle.

Deviation

The balanced distribution is calculated based on the number of days in the cycle and lessons in the course.

Example: For a typical five-day timetable this constraint is broken if a course with two or three lessons has all lessons on consecutive days.

Also for a course with two lessons the lessons cannot be scheduled on the first and the last day, which case produces a smaller penalty.

Courses with four or more lessons are ignored and their regularity is handled by a separate constraint checking the course daily booking.

Comments

The penalty is scaled by the size of the deviation, which is mostly felt for cycles of more than five days.

See also Course: Daily booking constraint.