Hybridising heuristics within an estimation distribution algorithm for examination timetabling
Publication date
June 30, 2015
Abstract
This paper presents a hybrid hyper-heuristic approach based on estimation distribution algorithms. The main motivation is to raise the level of generality for search methodologies. The objective of the hyper-heuristic is to produce solutions of acceptable quality for a number of optimisation problems. In this work, we demonstrate the generality through experimental results for different variants of exam timetabling problems. The hyper-heuristic represents an automated constructive method that searches for heuristic choices from a given set of low-level heuristics based only on non-domain-specific knowledge. The high-level search methodology is based on a simple estimation distribution algorithm. It is capable of guiding the search to select appropriate heuristics in different problem solving situations. The probability distribution of low-level heuristics at different stages of solution construction can be used to measure their effectiveness and possibly help to facilitate more intelligent hyper-heuristic search methods.
Item Type
Article
Additional Information
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10489-014-0615-0.
Associated Schools / Departments
Department of Computer Science
School of Computer Science (MY)
School of Computer Science (UK)
Date Deposited
February 19, 2026