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

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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.

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