Assigning Classes

[Dave Hodgkinson]

Prolog. Facts and rules then go solve.



On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Dave Cross <dave at dave.org.uk> wrote:

>
> I have offered to help a friend[1] solve what sounds like an interesting
> problem.
>
> She has a list of courses that are offered. Some of these courses have a
> maximum class size and others are effectively infinite (I don't believe
> that second part, but hey!) There are about thirty of these courses.
>
> She also has a list of students who have decided which courses they are
> interested in doing. For each student, we have their five favourite choices
> - ranked from 1 to 5.
>
> The problem is, of course, to find the optimum arrangement of students to
> courses so that each student is doing the course as close to their first
> choice as possible.
>
> There are, however, a couple of extra constraints.
>
> 1/ Each course much be run with at least two students. So if there is a
> course that has no students choosing it, two students must be assigned to
> it.
>
> 2/ Each student actually does two courses. So if someone is forced into a
> course because of rule 1 above, we can sweeten the pill slightly by
> guaranteeing (insofar as we can) that they get their first choice for their
> other course.
>
> I'm sure that most of this must be a previously solved problem. But I'm
> not sure where to start looking.
>
> Any ideas would be much appreciated.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dave...
>
> [1] And those of you who know that my wife is a teacher might well draw
> conclusions about who that friend is :-)
>
>