Abstract
The University Course Timetabling Problem is a particular type of scheduling problems known as a difficult problem arising in academic institutions, and an application of combinatorial optimization. The problem consists of a coordination of lectures, students, teachers and classrooms to avoid clashes between them. In this work, we address a course timetabling problem encountered at Taibah University. A binary integer programming model of the problem is proposed and a solution methodology based on an exterior penalty function and two new penalty functions, called variance-penalty function and pseudo-convex combination-penalty function, is developed. Solving this problem aims to minimize the waiting time between lectures for students and teachers and preventing clashes of lectures and classrooms.