1. DVM Program Scheduler
(4th Year Practicum)
[Formerly known as Senior Practicum]
Presented by
Patrick McDougle

2. Old Way Was
• ColdFusion
• Hard to update/fix/modify
• UI is old and dated
• Students hate it!
(which application do they not hate???)
• 10+ hours to run
• Year selection issues
• Page errors out (404’ed)
• One person developed application
• Many people have maintained it

3. New Way Should
• C#, MVC
• Easy to Update/Fix
• UI new and improved and responsive
• Students should love it!
(Fingers Crossed)
• Take only a few minutes to run
• No timeouts
• No errors during the use of the application
• 3 people developing
• Little to no maintenance required

4. Defining Terms
• Practicum
• A practicum is a graduate level course, often in a specialized field of study,
that is designed to give students supervised practical application of a
previously or concurrently studied theory.
• Rotation
• A rotation is a period in which a medical student in the practicum part of
his/her education passes through various “working” services in 2-4 week
blocks.
• Track
• A track is a study program or level of curriculum to which a student is
assigned on the individual’s interest. Multiple rotations make up a track.

5. Student Can Do:
• Track selection
• Elective ranking
• View one’s own schedule
• View rotation’s roster

6. Faculty/Staff Can Do:
• View a student’s Schedule
• View rotation’s roster

7. Admin Can Do:
• Setup a practicum year
• Open & close dates
• Tracks
• Rotations
• Students
• View information
• Students
• Schedules
• Rankings
• Preferences
• Duty rosters
• Capacity
• Run Scheduler & Checks

8. The Interface:
2
1 4
5

9. The Scheduler Controls:

10. Genetic Algorithm:
• In the field of artificial intelligence, a genetic algorithm is
a search heuristic that mimics the process of natural selection.
• This heuristic (also sometimes called a metaheuristic) is routinely
used to generate useful solutions to optimization and search
problems.
• Genetic algorithms belong to the larger class of evolutionary
algorithms, which generate solutions to optimization problems using
techniques inspired by natural evolution, such as crossover, mutation,
inheritance, and selection.
• Genetic algorithms are simple to implement, but their behavior is
difficult to understand.

11. Scheduler Process:
1. Generate a full schedule
2. Evaluate/Score/Fitness schedule
3. Generate children schedules
4. Permutate child schedule
5. Fill child schedule
6. Evaluate/Score/Fitness child schedule
7. Select best schedule
X 200

12. 1. Generate a Full Schedule:
1. Pre-scheduled rotations
2. Schedule odd week length rotations (Anesthesia & Radiology)
3. Schedule even week length core rotations (must haves)
4. Schedule any elective rotations
5. Schedule vacation

13. 2. Evaluate/Score/Fitness :
1. Score individual students
a. Core is not scheduled (Very Bad)
b. Top electives (Not so good)
c. Odd length back to back (Not so good)
d. Double booked
e. No blanks/full schedule
f. No back to back
2. Score individual rotations
a. Under capacity (Very Bad)
b. Over capacity (Not so good)
c. Standard deviation (Even things out)
3. Score whole schedule
a. All Student Scores + All Rotation Scores

14. 3. Permutate (MutationInheritance):
1. Rotation
2. Student
3. Rotation & Student
• Clear out vacations
• Clear out any electives below 4th ranked

15. 3a. Permutate Diagram Example:

16. Feedback Is A Gift
Questions??? Feedback!!!
• Any Questions?
• Any Comments?
• Any Feedback?