A general framework for testing different student team formation strategies Juan M. Alberola 1 , Elena del Val 1 , and Victor Sanchez-Anguix 2 and Vicente Juli´an 1 1 Universitat Polit` ecnica de Val` encia, Valencia, Spain {jalberola, edelval}@dsic.upv.es 2 Coventry University, Department of Computing, Gulson Road, CV1 2JH ac0872@coventry.ac.uk Abstract. One of the most important problems faced by teachers is grouping students into proper teams. The task is complex, as many tech- nical and interpersonal factors could affect team dynamics, with no clear indication of which factors may be more relevant. Not only the problem is conceptually complex, but its computational complexity is also expo- nential, which precludes teachers from optimally applying strategies by hand. The tool presented in this paper aims to cover both gaps: first, it provides a range of grouping strategies for testing, and second, it pro- vides artificial intelligence mechanisms that in practice tone down the computational cost of the problem. Keywords: team formation, teamwork, education, artificial intelligence 1 Introduction A recent graduate has just been hired by an e-commerce company after finishing her degree in Computer Science. In the first day in the job, she is introduced to her team, which is composed by a variety of profiles. Let us be honest, it did not matter if the student had finished a degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Literature, or Ecology. It also did not matter whether she was going to be part of an e-commerce company, a manufacturing company, a bank, or a retail shop. The scenario will be in all cases similar, as the problems faced by these organizations will be so complex that they will require the action of teams [15, 13]. Despite the ability for teams to tackle complex problems, it has also been documented that teamwork is by no means a trivial soft skill and it requires to be polished. If team dynamics are not adequate, the results can be totally opposite to those intended when the team was formed [6, 3]. Given these circumstances, teamwork has been introduced in Higher Education as one of the core general competences in the course programmes [4, 14]. Nevertheless, a very unsatisfac- tory team experience may preclude team members from adequately polishing their teamwork skills, and it may overly emphasize the negative experiences in future scenarios. Therefore, for students to correctly sharpen their team skills, it is necessary to create an adequate environment in educational settings.