The Bees Algorithm for Examination Timetabling Problems
Malek Alzaqebah1, Salwani Abdullah2
1Malek Alzaqebah, Data Mining and Optimization Research Group (DMO) Center for Artificial Intelligence Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
2Salwani Abdullah, Data Mining and Optimization Research Group (DMO) Center for Artificial Intelligence Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia.
Manuscript received on October 04, 2011. | Revised Manuscript received on October 19, 2011. | Manuscript published on November 05, 2011. | PP: 105-110 | Volume-1 Issue-5, November 2011. | Retrieval Number: E0161081511/2011©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Bees Algorithm (BA) is a population-based algorithm inspired by the honey bees forage for food. The algorithm presents a neighbourhood search associated with a random search which can be used for optimisation problems. In the basic version of BA, when a bee finds a food source, it returns to the hive and shares the information with other bees. Later, the bees will decide how many of them should fly towards the food source, depending on its quality (the quality represents the fitness value). In this paper, we have proposed to investigate the using of BA for examination timetabling problems, in addition a modification on the algorithm has been applied by replacing the fitness value by probability value. Experimental results indicate that the proposed approach produces promising results in solving examination timetabling problems and also show that the modified bees’ algorithm outperforms the basic bees algorithm when tested on the same problems.
Keywords: Bees Algorithm, Examination Timetabling Problems.