Conference scheduling — A personalized approach. (December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Vangerven, Bart; Ficker, Annette M.C.; Goossens, Dries R.; Passchyn, Ward; Spieksma, Frits C.R.; Woeginger, Gerhard J.
• Is Part Of: Omega. Volume 81(2018)
• Page Start: 38
• Page End: 47
• Publication Date: 2018-12
• Subjects: Conference scheduling -- Computational complexity -- Case study -- Integer programming; Management -- Periodicals; 658.4005
• DOI: 10.1016/j.omega.2017.09.007
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-0483

Abstract

Highlights: We present a conference scheduling method that maximizes participant attendance. We present computational complexity results. We present four case studies: Mathsport 2013, MAPSP 2015 & 2017 and ORBEL 2017. Abstract: Scientific conferences have become an essential part of academic research and require significant investments (e.g. time and money) from their participants. It falls upon the organizers to develop a schedule that allows the participants to attend the talks of their interest. We present a combined approach of assigning talks to rooms and time slots, grouping talks into sessions, and deciding on an optimal itinerary for each participant. Our goal is to maximize attendance, taking into account the common practice of session hopping . On a secondary level, we accommodate presenters' availabilities. We use a hierarchical optimization approach, sequentially solving integer programming models, which has been applied to construct the schedule of the MathSport (2013), MAPSP (2015 and 2017) and ORBEL (2017) conferences.