Teaching meta-heuristics within virtual learning environments

Modern education of operations research and management science (OR/MS) can greatly benefit from interactive learning methods in order to build and develop modeling and problem-solving skills. In this paper we consider the teaching of meta-heuristics as an important part of OR/MS with significant recent interest. We discuss possibilities of supporting the teaching of meta-heuristics such as simulated annealing or tabu search through intensive learning. The paper also presents a survey of some relevant issues within VORMS (Virtual Operations Research/Management Science), a project currently undertaken at six universities within Germany, and provides a presentation of the advances regarding the teaching of meta-heuristics within this project. Further ideas refer to incorporating HOTFRAME, a heuristic optimization framework, into the virtual learning environment.