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Efficiency of a university timetable. An application of entropy of choice.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2009

William E. Smith
William E. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of New South Wales, Kensington 2033, Australia.
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Abstract

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In a large university with a wide range of student options it is often impossible to cater for all allowable student courses of study within the constraints of a practical timetable, and a decision must be made to exclude some options. The entropy of choice available to students is used to develop a measure of timetable efficiency which balances the desirability of having both popular and rarer options available against the need to deny some students of their chosen courses. This efficiency gives a way for ranking the merit of different timetable exclusions. A simple numerical example is used for illustrations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , August 1984 , pp. 19 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Mathematical Society 1984

References

[1]Khinchin, A.I., Mathematical foundations of information theory (Dover Publications, New York, 1957).Google Scholar
[2]Landau, L.D. and Lifshitz, E.M., Statistical Physics, (Pergamon Press, London, 1958).Google Scholar