The bees algorithm for a practical university timetabling problem in Vietnam

University timetabling problem refers to the assignment of a set of courses to appropriate periods and rooms within a working week subject to a variety of hard and soft constraints. In this paper, the Bees algorithm is applied to solve a highly constrained real-world university timetabling problem in Vietnam. The algorithm is tested on nine real-world instances. Results obtained from the proposed algorithm are superior to the handmade timetables currently used in practice.