INFORMS Open Forum

  • 1.  ITC 2021: International Timetabling Competition – Sports Timetabling

    Posted 11-04-2020 05:26

    *** ITC 2021: International Timetabling Competition – Sports Timetabling ***

    * https://www.sportscheduling.ugent.be/ITC2021/ *

    We are announcing the start of the new edition of the international timetabling competition (ITC 2021), which focuses on sports timetabling. We call for your participation. 

    In sports timetabling, the problem is to decide on a suitable date for each of the matches to be played in the tournament. This is a complex and challenging problem, even for a small number of contestants. Our competition offers a rich and diverse set of sports timetabling instances, involving up to 9 different constraints that are common in real-life.

    We invite any interested timetabler to participate, and aim to keep the threshold for participation as low as possible. In that sense, the competition rules have no time or technology restrictions: we are looking for the best solutions regardless of the computation time, and commercial solvers are allowed. Our website offers support for handling the problem instance format.

    Thanks to our sponsors, we can award several prizes for the winners, such as 1000 EUR and a free registration for the PATAT 2021 conference (Bruges, Belgium) for the winner, and a free registration for the MathSport 2021 conference (Reading, UK) for the best intermediate result.

    There will be a special track related to ITC 2021 at the PATAT 2021 conference. Moreover, each participant will have the opportunity to submit a paper for a special journal issue of the conference.

    The competition closes on April 30th, 2021. We will release the instances in three groups (early, middle, and late); the early instances are now available on our website.

     

    IMPORTANT DATES

     

    October 31, 2020:  Early instances are published

    January 1, 2021: Milestone submission deadline

    February 2021:  Middle instances are published

    April 2021: Late instances are published

    April 30, 2021: Submission deadline, competition closes

    May 2021: Finalists are announced

    August 2021: Winners are announced

     

    PRIZES

    Winner first milestone:

    Free registration for MathSport International 2021 (Reading, UK)

    Top three overall:

    Winner: 1,000EUR + free registration for PATAT 2021 (Bruges, Belgium)

    Runner-up: 500EUR + discount on registration for PATAT 2021

    Third: 250EUR + discount on registration for PATAT 2021

     

    SPONSORS

    - EURO working group on Automated Timetabling (EWG PATAT)

    - EURO working group OR in Sports (EWG OR in Sports)

     

    ORGANIZERS

    - David Van Bulck, Ghent University

    - Dries Goossens, Ghent University

    - Jeroen Beliën, KU Leuven

    - Morteza Davari, SKEMA Business School

     

    We refer to our website (https://www.sportscheduling.ugent.be/ITC2021/) for all further information. In case you have any questions or want to participate in the competition, please send a mail to itc2021@ugent.be.



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    Jeroen Belien
    Editor-in-Chief INFORMS Transactions on Education
    Professer
    KU Leuven
    Brussel
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: ITC 2021: International Timetabling Competition – Sports Timetabling

    Posted 02-10-2021 10:00

    *** ITC 2021: International Timetabling Competition – Sports Timetabling ***

     

    * https://www.sportscheduling.ugent.be/ITC2021/ *

     

    This is a reminder that you can still participate in the international timetabling competition (ITC 2021), which focuses on sports timetabling, and an update of the competition.

     

    We would like to point out that 15 extra competition instances (the "middle" instances) are now available on the competition website https://www.sportscheduling.ugent.be/ITC2021/instances.php

    We are releasing the instances in three groups (early, middle, and late); the early and middle instances are now available on our website. The late problem instances, which will be the last group of instances, will follow half April 2021.

     

    The competition closes on April 30th, 2021 (until that data, solutions on all instances can be submitted). While the order of the competitors will be based on all data instances (early, middle, and late), the instances released later in the competition have a higher weight in the final ranking. More details are available in the competition rules.

     

    There will be a special track related to ITC 2021 at the PATAT 2021 conference. Moreover, each participant will have the opportunity to submit a paper for a special journal issue of the conference.

     

    We are also pleased to announce the top three of the first milestone:

     

    1st place (138 points)

    Team UoS consisting of Toni Martínez-Sykora, Chris Potts, and Carlos Lamas-Fernández

    Team UoS wins a free registration for MathSport International!

     

    2nd place (96 points)

    Team Udine consisting of Roberto Maria Rosati, Matteo Petris, Luca Di Gaspero, and Andrea Schaerf.

     

    3rd place (57 points)

    Team TUE consisting of Jasper van Doornmalen, Roel Lambers, Frits Spieksma, and Christopher Hojny.

     

    Please note that the participation in the first milestone was completely voluntary and has no impact on the final ranking of participants.

     

    IMPORTANT DATES

    October 31, 2020:  Early instances are published

    January 1, 2021: Milestone submission deadline

    February 2021:  Middle instances are published

    April 2021: Late instances are published

    April 30, 2021: Submission deadline, competition closes

    May 2021: Finalists are announced

    August 2021: Winners are announced

     

    PRIZES

    Top three overall:

    Winner: 1,000EUR + free registration for PATAT 2021 (Bruges, Belgium)

    Runner-up: 500EUR + discount on registration for PATAT 2021

    Third: 250EUR + discount on registration for PATAT 2021



    ------------------------------
    Dries Goossens
    Professor
    Ghent University
    Gent
    ------------------------------