A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimizer for Curriculum Sequencing Problem

Curriculum sequencing problem is crucial to e-learning system, which is a NP-hard optimization problem and commonly solved by swarm intelligence. As a form of swarm intelligence, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is widely used in various kinds of optimization problems. However, PSO is found ineffec...

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Main Authors: Xianjie Peng, Xiaonan Sun, Zhen He
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2022-01-01
Series:Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2022/5291296
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author Xianjie Peng
Xiaonan Sun
Zhen He
author_facet Xianjie Peng
Xiaonan Sun
Zhen He
author_sort Xianjie Peng
collection DOAJ
description Curriculum sequencing problem is crucial to e-learning system, which is a NP-hard optimization problem and commonly solved by swarm intelligence. As a form of swarm intelligence, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is widely used in various kinds of optimization problems. However, PSO is found ineffective in complex optimization problems. The main reason is that PSO is ineffective in diversity preservation, leading to high risks to be trapped by the local optima. To solve this problem, a novel hybrid PSO algorithm is proposed in this study. First, a competitive-genetic crossover strategy is proposed for PSO to balance the convergence and diversity. Second, an adaptive polynomial mutation is introduced in PSO to further improve its diversity preservation ability. Furthermore, a curriculum scheduling model is proposed, where several constraints are taken into considerations to ensure the practicability of the curriculum sequencing. The numerical comparison experiments show that the proposed algorithm is effective in solving function optimization in comparison to several popular PSO variants; furthermore, for the optimization of the designed curriculum sequencing problem, the proposed algorithm shows significant advantages over the compared algorithms with respect to the degree of the satisfaction of the objectives, i.e., 20, 14, and 5 percentages higher, respectively.
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spelling doaj-art-d6f2f370d22d4239a1402c80cc7d016a2025-08-20T02:19:33ZengWileyDiscrete Dynamics in Nature and Society1607-887X2022-01-01202210.1155/2022/5291296A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimizer for Curriculum Sequencing ProblemXianjie Peng0Xiaonan Sun1Zhen He2Department of Human ResourcesInstitute of Vocational EducationFaculty of EducationCurriculum sequencing problem is crucial to e-learning system, which is a NP-hard optimization problem and commonly solved by swarm intelligence. As a form of swarm intelligence, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is widely used in various kinds of optimization problems. However, PSO is found ineffective in complex optimization problems. The main reason is that PSO is ineffective in diversity preservation, leading to high risks to be trapped by the local optima. To solve this problem, a novel hybrid PSO algorithm is proposed in this study. First, a competitive-genetic crossover strategy is proposed for PSO to balance the convergence and diversity. Second, an adaptive polynomial mutation is introduced in PSO to further improve its diversity preservation ability. Furthermore, a curriculum scheduling model is proposed, where several constraints are taken into considerations to ensure the practicability of the curriculum sequencing. The numerical comparison experiments show that the proposed algorithm is effective in solving function optimization in comparison to several popular PSO variants; furthermore, for the optimization of the designed curriculum sequencing problem, the proposed algorithm shows significant advantages over the compared algorithms with respect to the degree of the satisfaction of the objectives, i.e., 20, 14, and 5 percentages higher, respectively.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2022/5291296
spellingShingle Xianjie Peng
Xiaonan Sun
Zhen He
A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimizer for Curriculum Sequencing Problem
Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
title A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimizer for Curriculum Sequencing Problem
title_full A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimizer for Curriculum Sequencing Problem
title_fullStr A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimizer for Curriculum Sequencing Problem
title_full_unstemmed A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimizer for Curriculum Sequencing Problem
title_short A Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimizer for Curriculum Sequencing Problem
title_sort hybrid particle swarm optimizer for curriculum sequencing problem
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2022/5291296
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