Formulating capstone project groups using lexicographical analysis and heuristic algorithm

Capstone design course prepares students for career advancement and professional practice, where it mainly focuses on collaborative team settings. One of the main challenges facing the capstone design course is grouping the students into teams based on their professional and assigning the formulated groups to faculty members based on their preferences and teaching load. This study uses lexicographical analysis and a heuristic algorithm to handle this challenge, considering two performance measures: the students' and faculty members' satisfaction levels. The lexicographical analysis is an approach that prioritizes multiple performance measures in a strict hierarchical order. Meanwhile, the heuristic algorithm is used to find the near optimal solution. The students' satisfaction levels are measured based on their preferences, which are determined based on grade point average (GPA). On the other hand, the faculty member satisfaction levels are estimated based on the value of the overload resulting from assigning the capstone course students to faculty members. The results conclude that the propounded lexicographical analysis could be utilized when the faculty member satisfaction levels have more weight than the students' satisfaction levels. Meanwhile, the proposed heuristic algorithm could be applied when the students' satisfaction levels are more important than the faculty members' satisfaction levels.