The student-project allocation problem

Abraham, D.J., Irving, R.W. and Manlove, D.F. (2003) The student-project allocation problem. In: Proceedings of ISAAC 2003: the 14th Annual International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation, Kyoto, Japan, 15-17 December, 2003, pp. 474-484. ISBN 3-540-20695-7

Abstract

We study the <i>Student-Project Allocation problem</i> (SPA), a generalisation of the classical Hospitals / Residents problem (HR). An instance of SPA involves a set of students, projects and lecturers. Each project is offered by a unique lecturer, and both projects and lecturers have capacity constraints. Students have preferences over projects, whilst lecturers have preferences over students. We present an optimal linear-time algorithm for allocating students to projects, subject to these preferences and capacities. In particular, the algorithm finds a <i>stable matching</i> of students to projects. Here, the concept of stability generalises the stability definition in the HR context. The stable matching produced by our algorithm is simultaneously best-possible for all students. The SPA problem model that we consider is very general and has applications to a range of different contexts besides student-project allocation.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Manlove, Professor David
• Authors: Abraham, D.J., Irving, R.W., and Manlove, D.F.
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Research Group: Formal Analysis, Theory and Algorithms
• Publisher: Springer Verlag GmbH
• ISSN: 0302-9743
• ISBN: 3-540-20695-7
• Copyright Holders: © Springer
• First Published: First published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2906:474-484
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.