Abstract
This paper focuses on presenting a new method for assigning students to elective course class under the constraint of needing to limit the student enrollment in specific classes due to insufficient facilities availability. Many Japanese universities offer practical training and liberal arts classes using same course title but scheduled for different days and/or times. Using the data of an elective information literacy course offered at a university, this paper examines whether or not a mathematical programming technique can have a substantial positive effect on assignment of students to classes. In past, it was difficult to assign the appropriate number of students to a specific class because the students were required to select a "first preference" date and time for a class in advance of being informed of the schedule for their required classes. This paper proposes a mathematical programming technique to effectively resolve the problem of assigning students to elective course classes under the constraint of limiting the number of students due to classroom availability. The method consists of four sequences, and each sequence has and solves a different mathematical programming problem. To prove the effectiveness of technique, two examples of the results of actual assignment of students to an elective information literacy course are given.
