blog/data/2012-07-07-debian-edu-fet.txt

   1 Title: Free Timetabling Software - nice free software
   2 Tags: english, debian edu
   3 Date: 2012-07-07 09:50
   4
   5 <p>Included in <ahref="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu</a> is a
   6 large collection of end user and school specific software.  One of the
   7 packages not installed by default but provided in the Debian archive
   8 for schools to install if they want to, is a system to automatically
   9 plan the school time table using information about available teachers,
  10 classes and rooms, combined with the list of required courses and how
  11 many hours each topic should receive.  The software is
  12 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
  13 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
  14 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
  15 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
  16 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
  17 Windows</a>.</p>
  18
  19 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
  20 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
  21
  22 <p><ul>
  23         <li><p>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
  24         You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it</p>
  25         </li>
  26
  27         <li><p>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca (Catalan), da (Danish),
  28         de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew),
  29         hu (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian),
  30         mk (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian),
  31         ru (Russian), si (Sinhala), sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz (Uzbek)
  32         and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)</p>
  33         </li>
  34
  35         <li><p>Fully automatic generation
  36         algorithm, allowing also semi-automatic or manual allocation</p>
  37         </li>
  38
  39         <li><p>Platform independent
  40         implementation, allowing running on GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any
  41         system that Qt supports</p>
  42         </li>
  43
  44         <li><p>Flexible modular
  45         XML format for the input file, allowing editing with an XML editor
  46         or by hand (besides FET interface)</p>
  47         </li>
  48
  49         <li><p>Import/export from CSV format</p>
  50         </li>
  51
  52         <li><p>The resulted timetables
  53         are exported into HTML, XML and CSV formats</p>
  54         </li>
  55
  56         <li><p>Flexible students
  57         structure, organized into sets: years, groups and subgroups. FET allows
  58         overlapping years and groups and non-overlapping subgroups. You can even
  59         define individual students (as separate sets)</p>
  60         </li>
  61
  62         <li><p>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
  63         (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight percentage)</p>
  64         </li>
  65
  66         <li><p>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on demand,
  67         as a custom version, because this would require a bit more memory):</p>
  68
  69         <ul>
  70                 <li><p>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</p></li>
  71
  72                 <li><p>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</p></li>
  73
  74                 <li><p>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</p></li>
  75
  76                 <li><p>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</p></li>
  77
  78                 <li><p>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</p></li>
  79
  80                 <li><p>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</p></li>
  81
  82                 <li><p>Maximum number of activities: 30000</p></li>
  83
  84                 <li><p>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</p></li>
  85
  86                 <li><p>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</p></li>
  87
  88                 <li><p>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and students sets for each activity.
  89                 (it is possible also to have no teachers or no students sets for an activity)</p></li>
  90
  91                 <li><p>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</p></li>
  92
  93                 <li><p>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</p></li>
  94         </ul>
  95
  96         </li>
  97
  98         <li><p>A large and flexible
  99         palette of time constraints:</p>
 100         <ul>
 101
 102                 <li><p>Break periods</p>
 103                 </li>
 104
 105                 <li><p>For teacher(s):</p>
 106                 <ul>
 107                         <li><p>
 108                                 Not available periods
 109                         </p></li>
 110                         <li><p>
 111                                 Max/min days per week
 112                         </p></li>
 113                         <li><p>
 114                                 Max gaps per day/week
 115                         </p></li>
 116                         <li><p>
 117                                 Max hours daily/continuously
 118                         </p></li>
 119                         <li><p>
 120                                 Min hours daily
 121                         </p></li>
 122                         <li><p>
 123                                 Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag
 124                         </p></li>
 125                         <li><p>
 126                                 Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of days per week
 127                         </p></li>
 128                 </ul>
 129                 </li>
 130
 131                 <li><p>For students (sets):</p>
 132                 <ul>
 133                         <li><p>
 134                                 Not available periods
 135                         </p></li>
 136                         <li><p>
 137                                 Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)
 138                         </p></li>
 139                         <li><p>
 140                                 Max gaps per day/week
 141                         </p></li>
 142                         <li><p>
 143                                 Max hours daily/continuously
 144                         </p></li>
 145                         <li><p>
 146                                 Min hours daily
 147                         </p></li>
 148                         <li><p>
 149                                 Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag
 150                         </p></li>
 151                         <li><p>
 152                                 Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of days per week
 153                         </p></li>
 154                 </ul>
 155                 </li>
 156
 157                 <li><p>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:</p>
 158                 <ul>
 159                         <li><p>
 160                                 A single preferred starting time
 161                         </p></li>
 162                         <li><p>
 163                                 A set of preferred starting times
 164                         </p></li>
 165                         <li><p>
 166                                 A set of preferred time slots
 167                         </p></li>
 168                         <li><p>
 169                                 Min/max days between them
 170                         </p></li>
 171                         <li><p>
 172                                 End(s) students day
 173                         </p></li>
 174                         <li><p>
 175                                 Same starting time/day/hour
 176                         </p></li>
 177                         <li><p>
 178                                 Occupy max time slots from selection
 179                                 (a complex and flexible constraint, useful in many situations)
 180                         </p></li>
 181                         <li><p>
 182                                 Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)
 183                         </p></li>
 184                         <li><p>
 185                                 Not overlapping
 186                         </p></li>
 187                         <li><p>
 188                                 Max simultaneous in selected time slots
 189                         </p></li>
 190                         <li><p>
 191                                 Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities
 192                         </p></li>
 193                 </ul>
 194                 </li>
 195         </ul>
 196
 197         </li>
 198
 199         <li><p>A large and flexible
 200         palette of space constraints:</p>
 201         <ul>
 202
 203                 <li><p>Room not available periods</p>
 204                 </li>
 205
 206                 <li><p>For teacher(s):</p>
 207                 <ul>
 208                         <li><p>
 209                                 Home room(s)
 210                         </p></li>
 211                         <li><p>
 212                                 Max building changes per day/week
 213                         </p></li>
 214                         <li><p>
 215                                 Min gaps between building changes
 216                         </p></li>
 217                 </ul>
 218                 </li>
 219
 220                 <li><p>For students (sets):</p>
 221                 <ul>
 222                         <li><p>
 223                                 Home room(s)
 224                         </p></li>
 225                         <li><p>
 226                                 Max building changes per day/week
 227                         </p></li>
 228                         <li><p>
 229                                 Min gaps between building changes
 230                         </p></li>
 231                 </ul>
 232                 </li>
 233
 234                 <li><p>Preferred room(s):</p>
 235                 <ul>
 236                         <li><p>
 237                                 For a subject
 238                         </p></li>
 239                         <li><p>
 240                                 For an activity tag
 241                         </p></li>
 242                         <li><p>
 243                                 For a subject and an activity tag
 244                         </p></li>
 245                         <li><p>
 246                                 Individually for a (sub)activity
 247                         </p></li>
 248                 </ul>
 249                 </li>
 250
 251                 <li><p>For a set of activities:</p>
 252                 <ul>
 253                         <li><p>
 254                                 Occupy a maximum number of different rooms
 255                         </p></li>
 256                 </ul>
 257                 </li>
 258
 259         </ul>
 260
 261         </li>
 262 </ul></p>
 263
 264 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
 265 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
 266 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
 267 manually, check it out.
 268
 269 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
 270 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
 271 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
 272 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
 273 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
 274 section</a>.</p>