An Empirical Heuristic Algorithm for Solving the Student-Project
Allocation Problem with Ties
Authors: Hoang Huu Bach, Nguyen Thi Thuong, Son Thanh Cao
Science and Technology
: 3 : 665-672
Publishing year: 2/2023
In this paper, we propose a simple heuristic algorithm to deal with the Student-Project Allocation problem with lecturer preferences over Projects with Ties (SPA-PT). The aim of such a problem is to find a maximum stable matching of students and projects to meet the constraints on students’ and lecturers’ preferences over projects, and the maximum numbers of students given by lecturers for each lecturer and her/his projects. Our algorithm starts from an empty matching and iteratively constructs a maximum stable matching of students and projects. For each iteration, our algorithm chooses the most ranked project of an unassigned student to assign for her/him. If the assigned project or the lecturer who offers the assigned project is over-subscribed, our algorithm removes a worth student assigned the project, where a worth student is a person corresponding to the maximum value of the proposed heuristic function. Experimental results illustrate the outperformance of the proposed algorithm w.r.t. the execution time and solution quality for solving the problem.
Student-Project Allocation Problem, Matching Problem, Heuristic Search