Examination Assignment
Screen Description
The Examination Assignment screen provides interface for assigning time period and/or room to an examination manually (that includes making changes to the current assignment).
Examination
The top section of the screen provides an overview of examination properties.
Courses/Classes
The instructional offering components that identify the students who need to take the examination (the students of these classes/courses/instructional offerings/configurations have to take this examination)
Type
Midterm or Final
Length
Length of the examination in minutes
Size
Expected number of students to take this examination
Seating Type
Exam or Normal
Based on the seating type, either room capacity (for Normal) or room examination capacity (for Exam) is used when fitting the examination into room(s) with sufficient seating capacity
Maximum Number of Rooms
The maximum number of rooms into which an examination can be split (for example, an examination for a class of 400 students can be split into two or three rooms if they need to use Exam seating type and do not have a room with exam seating capacity of 400 seats)
An exam is not assigned to a room when the maximum number of rooms is set to zero (it is assigned to a period that best meets the student needs and period preferences).
Period
The time period currently assigned to the examination
Room
The room (or rooms) currently assigned to the examination
New Assignment(s)
A list of changes that will be made to the examination timetable after the Assign button is clicked.
Examination
Name of the examination
Period Change
Change in the time period assignment
Room Change
Change in the room assignment
Direct
Change in number of direct conflicts for students
>2 A Day
Change in number of students who will have more than two examinations in one day
BTB
Change in number of students who will have back-to-back examinations
Violated Distribution Preferences
This list of violated distribution preferences is displayed only if applicable.
Preference
The preference level (prohibited, strongly discouraged, ..., required)
Distribution
Distribution preference that has been violated
Exam
Name(s) of the other examination(s) involved in that distribution preference (other than the New Assignment(s) examination)
Period
Time period currently assigned to the conflicting examination
Room
Room(s) currently assigned to the conflicting examination
Student Conflicts
This table lists details about student conflicts for the selected examination.
Students
Number of students with the conflict detailed on a particular line
Conflict
Type of conflict (direct, back-to-back, ...)
Exam
Examinations that are in conflict with the examination(s) in the New Assignment(s) section
Period
Time period assignment of the conflicting examination
Room
Room assignment of the conflicting examination
Instructor Conflicts
The structure of the Instructor Conflicts table is the same as the one of the Student Conflicts table described above.
Available Periods
This section presents a list of available time periods for this examination with the following information for each of the periods:
Available Period
A time period available for the examination
Violated Distributions
Examination Distribution Preferences that would be violated if the period was assigned to the examination
Student Direct
Number of direct student conflicts (i.e., overlapping examinations)
The parenthesis contain the change in number of direct student conflicts that would be caused by change of assignment from the currently assigned time period to the time period on a given line
Student >2 A Day
Number of students who would have more than two examinations on the same day if this time period was assigned to the examination
Student Back-To-Back
Number of students who would have back-to-back examinations if this time period was assigned to the examination
Instructor Direct
Number of cases when instructors would have overlapping examinations if this time period was assigned to the examination
Instructor >2 A Day
Number of instructors who would have more than two examinations on the same day if this time period was assigned to the examination
Instructor Back-To-Back
Number of instructors who would have back-to-back examinations if this time period was assigned to the examination
Available Rooms
This section, listing rooms available for the examination at a given time, is displayed after a time period has been selected.
Room Size
Only rooms with seating capacity in this range will be displayed
For examinations with Normal seating type the rooms capacity is considered, for examinations with Exam seating capacity the examination room capacity is considered
Filter
Enter e.g. a room abbreviation to see only available rooms in a given building
Semicolon can be used as logical or. For instance, a,b;c will display all rooms containing both a and b in their names or containing c in their names.
Allow Conflicts
Include rooms that are already used for an examination
Such rooms are displayed in red
If such room is selected, the New Assignment(s) section of this screen will have a new line with the examination that got unassigned (you can click on that line to find time/room assignment for that examination)
Order
Select order of the rooms displayed in this section
Click Apply to apply changes to the list of rooms
The rooms are displayed in six columns. For each of the room there is a building abbreviation, room number and room capacity. To select a room for a given examination, click on its name. Only when you have the desired number of seats in the room(s) selected the rooms become a part of the assignment in the New Assignment(s) section. (You can select more than one room if the number in Maximum Number of Rooms is larger than one.)
Suggestions
The Suggestions section is only displayed when the examinations are loaded to the solver (through the Examination Solver page). Check the checkbox in front of the name of the section to see possible period/room assignment changes (suggestions). The suggestions are listed in the order of possible "harmfulness" to the existing examination timetable.
Value
Change in the value of the optimization function caused by accepting this suggestion (the lower number the better)
Examination
Examinations affected by this change
Period Change
Change in period for the given examination
Room Change
Change in room for the given examination
Direct
Change in the number of direct student conflicts (overlapping examinations)
>2 A Day
Change in the number of students who will have more than two examinations per day
BTB
Change in the number of students who will have back-to-back examinations
Notes
Sample use of this screen
Situation: The user wants to switch rooms for two examinations that are held at the same time. At the beginning, Exam 1 has Room A at a certain time and Exam 2 has Room B at the same time. The user wants to end up with Exam 1 in Room B and Exam 2 in Room A, time unchanged.
Solution:
Get to this Examination Assignment screen for Exam 1 from e.g. the list of Examinations.
In Available Periods, click on the time period highlighted with a blue background - that is the currently assigned time period.
In the Available Rooms section (that showed up after clicking on the time period), check the "Allow conflicts" checkbox and click Apply. Room B should appear in red letters.
Click on Room B in the Available Rooms
In the New Assignment(s) section, click on Exam 2 (the line with Exam 2 was added to New Assignment(s) because the room for Exam 2 was unassigned)
In Available Periods, click on the time period that also became unassigned (the time that you want to keep)
In Available Rooms, click on Room A; now the New Assignment(s) section should show a change that results in Exam 1 having Room B and Exam 2 having Room A.
Click on the Assign button under the New Assignment(s) section
Click OK in the pop-up window (yes, you want to save changes)
The switch has been made!