IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v48y2018i3p204-216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Allocating Students to Multidisciplinary Capstone Projects Using Discrete Optimization

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas L. Magnanti

    (Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore 487372; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139)

  • Karthik Natarajan

    (Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore 487372)

Abstract

We discuss an allocation mechanism of capstone projects to senior-year undergraduate students, which the recently established Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) has implemented. A distinguishing feature of these projects is that they are multidisciplinary ; each project must involve students from at least two disciplines. This is an instance of a bipartite many-to-one matching problem with one-sided preferences and with additional lower and upper bounds on the number of students from the disciplines that must be matched to projects. This leads to challenges in applying many existing algorithms. We propose the use of discrete optimization to find an allocation that considers both efficiency and fairness. This provides flexibility in incorporating side constraints, which are often introduced in the final project allocation using inputs from the various stakeholders. Over a three-year period from 2015 to 2017, the average rank of the project allocated to the student is roughly halfway between their top two choices, with around 78 percent of the students assigned to projects in their top-three choices. We discuss practical design and optimization issues that arise in developing such an allocation.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas L. Magnanti & Karthik Natarajan, 2018. "Allocating Students to Multidisciplinary Capstone Projects Using Discrete Optimization," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 48(3), pages 204-216, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:48:y:2018:i:3:p:204-216
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.2017.0940
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.2017.0940
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.2017.0940?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J. N. Hooker & H. P. Williams, 2012. "Combining Equity and Utilitarianism in a Mathematical Programming Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(9), pages 1682-1693, September.
    2. Hindriks, Jean & Myles, Gareth D., 2013. "Intermediate Public Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262018691, December.
    3. Rex Cutshall & Srinagesh Gavirneni & Kenneth Schultz, 2007. "Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business Uses Integer Programming to Form Equitable, Cohesive Student Teams," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 37(3), pages 265-276, June.
    4. Craig W. Kirkwood, 2004. "Selecting Student Project Teams When it Really Matters: An Optimization-Based Approach Using Internet Resources," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 4(3), pages 9-27, May.
    5. Leo Lopes & Meredith Aronson & Gary Carstensen & Cole Smith, 2008. "Optimization Support for Senior Design Project Assignments," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 38(6), pages 448-464, December.
    6. Hanan Luss, 1999. "On Equitable Resource Allocation Problems: A Lexicographic Minimax Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(3), pages 361-378, June.
    7. K R Baker & S G Powell, 2002. "Methods for assigning students to groups: a study of alternative objective functions," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 53(4), pages 397-404, April.
    8. Hylland, Aanund & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1979. "The Efficient Allocation of Individuals to Positions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(2), pages 293-314, April.
    9. Dimitris Bertsimas & Vivek F. Farias & Nikolaos Trichakis, 2011. "The Price of Fairness," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 17-31, February.
    10. Eric Budish & Gérard P. Cachon & Judd B. Kessler & Abraham Othman, 2017. "Course Match: A Large-Scale Implementation of Approximate Competitive Equilibrium from Equal Incomes for Combinatorial Allocation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 314-336, April.
    11. Eric Budish & Yeon-Koo Che & Fuhito Kojima & Paul Milgrom, 2013. "Designing Random Allocation Mechanisms: Theory and Applications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 585-623, April.
    12. Nigar Hashimzade & Jean Hindriks & Gareth D. Myles, 2006. "Solutions Manual to Accompany Intermediate Public Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582694, December.
    13. Dimitris Bertsimas & Vivek F. Farias & Nikolaos Trichakis, 2013. "Fairness, Efficiency, and Flexibility in Organ Allocation for Kidney Transplantation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 73-87, February.
    14. Michael F. Gorman, 2010. "The University of Dayton Operations Management Capstone Course: Undergraduate Student Field Consulting Applies Theory to Practice," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 40(6), pages 432-443, December.
    15. Andrew J Mason, 2013. "SolverStudio: A New Tool for Better Optimisation and Simulation Modelling in Excel," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 45-52, September.
    16. Bogomolnaia, Anna & Moulin, Herve, 2001. "A New Solution to the Random Assignment Problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 295-328, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher Garcia, 2019. "Practice Summary: Managing Capacity at the University of Mary Washington’s College of Business," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 49(2), pages 167-171, March.
    2. Andrew Bowers & Melissa R. Bowers & Nana Bryan & Paolo Letizia & Spencer Murphy, 2023. "Forming Student Teams to Incorporate Soft Skills and Commonality of Schedule," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 53(2), pages 111-127, March.
    3. Schulz, Arne, 2021. "The balanced maximally diverse grouping problem with block constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 294(1), pages 42-53.
    4. Nahid Rezaeinia & Julio César Góez & Mario Guajardo, 2022. "Efficiency and fairness criteria in the assignment of students to projects," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 319(2), pages 1717-1735, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marta Boczoń & Alistair J. Wilson, 2023. "Goals, Constraints, and Transparently Fair Assignments: A Field Study of Randomization Design in the UEFA Champions League," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3474-3491, June.
    2. Nikhil Agarwal & Eric Budish, 2021. "Market Design," NBER Working Papers 29367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    4. Karsu, Özlem & Morton, Alec, 2015. "Inequity averse optimization in operational research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 245(2), pages 343-359.
    5. Miralles, Antonio & Pycia, Marek, 2021. "Foundations of pseudomarkets: Walrasian equilibria for discrete resources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    6. Bogomolnaia, Anna & Moulin, Herve, 2015. "Size versus fairness in the assignment problem," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 119-127.
    7. Eun Jeong Heo & Vikram Manjunath, 2017. "Implementation in stochastic dominance Nash equilibria," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(1), pages 5-30, January.
    8. Yinghua He & Antonio Miralles & Marek Pycia & Jianye Yan, 2018. "A Pseudo-Market Approach to Allocation with Priorities," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 272-314, August.
    9. Eric Budish & Judd B. Kessler, 2022. "Can Market Participants Report Their Preferences Accurately (Enough)?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1107-1130, February.
    10. Yusuke Narita, 2018. "Experiment-as-Market: Incorporating Welfare into Randomized Controlled Trials," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2127r, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised May 2019.
    11. Ortega, Josué, 2020. "Multi-unit assignment under dichotomous preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 15-24.
    12. Martin Bichler & Soeren Merting, 2021. "Randomized Scheduling Mechanisms: Assigning Course Seats in a Fair and Efficient Way," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(10), pages 3540-3559, October.
    13. Pycia, Marek & Ünver, M. Utku, 2015. "Decomposing random mechanisms," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 21-33.
    14. Echenique, Federico & Miralles, Antonio & Zhang, Jun, 2021. "Fairness and efficiency for allocations with participation constraints," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    15. Balbuzanov, Ivan, 2022. "Constrained random matching," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    16. John P. Dickerson & Ariel D. Procaccia & Tuomas Sandholm, 2019. "Failure-Aware Kidney Exchange," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1768-1791, April.
    17. Zhan Wang & Jinpeng Ma & Hongwei Zhang, 2023. "Object-based unawareness: Theory and applications," The Journal of Mechanism and Institution Design, Society for the Promotion of Mechanism and Institution Design, University of York, vol. 8(1), pages 1-55, December.
    18. Cole, Richard & Tao, Yixin, 2021. "On the existence of Pareto Efficient and envy-free allocations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    19. Onur Kesten & Morimitsu Kurino & Alexander S. Nesterov, 2017. "Efficient lottery design," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(1), pages 31-57, January.
    20. Erya Yang, 2021. "Reduced-form mechanism design and ex post fairness constraints," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 9(2), pages 269-293, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:48:y:2018:i:3:p:204-216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.