Thisvolumecontainsaselectionofpapersfromthe5thInternationalConference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling (PATAT 2004) held in Pittsburgh, USA, August 18-20, 2004. Indeed, as we write this preface, in the Summer of 2005, we note that we are about one month away from the tenth anniversary of the very ?rst PATAT conference in Edinburgh. Since those very early days, the conference series has gone from strength to strength and this volume represents the latest in a series of ?ve rigorously refereed volumes which showcase a broad spectrum of ground-breaking timetabling research...

This volume constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Third International Conference on Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, PATAT 2000, held in Konstanz, Germany, in August 2000. The 22 revised full papers were carefully selected after two rounds of reviewing and revision. Besides foundational and methodological issues from combinatorics, optimization, evolutionary computing, genetic algorithms, planning, constraints, and searching, a variety of application fields are addressed including course and school timetabling, examination timetabling, employee timetabling,...