The statistic department was founded in 1399 AH after it was part of the Mathematics Department since the founding of the Sciences College in 1378AH. The department has evolved rapidly during the few years since its foundation where it began offering a Masters in Statistics in 1400AH also a significant increase in the number of students especially after the opening of the operations research specialty in 1406 AH. The female department was opened in 1408 AH as a supportive to serve other departments in college of Science but a Bachelor degree is not granted. The department now gives masters and doctorate degree in its two branches: statistics and operations research (in male and female sections).
The department provides services inside and outside the University; it offers courses in Statistics for students in Science College and other students in different departments such as engineering (for male only), computers, agriculture, social studies, medicine, applied medical science, dentistry and pharmacy. Also, department provides statistical advice to applied research projects within and outside the university, both in designing the research or in data analysis and interpretation of results. The department also provides through the branch of operations research, advice on programming and project planning and scheduling production and optimal use of resources of all kinds.
Department location, its human recourses and financial capability
The Department of Statistics and Operations Research (male department) has two locations in college of Science building (4), one in the ground floor in front of the stairs (4), which includes offices of faculty members, halls and computer laboratories that accommodate a multitude of computers to facilitate the research needs and training students and teaching purposes, and to meet the needs of research projects for final year students and graduate students. The second location is on the second floor next to the Department of Physics and Astronomy and it includes department presidency and offices of faculty members and teaching assistants and the department library.
The department now includes 10 professors, 10 associate professors, 8 assistant professors and 16 lecturers and technicians and research assistants altogether. It is worth mentioning that more faculty members involved in the review and arbitration research presented for publication in scientific journals, some also involved in the deployment of a number of international journals. The number of books published in both Arabic and English to the faculty member's account for more than 50 books.
As for the students branch it shall hold the Department of Statistics and Operations Research at one site, which is based on building (9) in Faculty of Science – Malaz. The site includes the offices of members of faculty, classrooms, and three computer laboratories to accommodate a multitude of computers and high-tech devices used for teaching purposes, the workshops to serve the rest of the posts in the Faculty of Science, and a dedicated lab to scientific research and graduate students. In addition department library includes a number of books and magazines. In the female department, there is one professor, five assistant professors, and thirteen lecturers and researchers.
Objectives
The mission of the Department of Statistics and Operations Research in the context of the overall objectives of the Faculty of Science is to do the following:
Preparation of qualified cadres to participate in the service of comprehensively developing the development witnessed by the Kingdom in various fields, through:
1- Meet the needs of the labor market and to contribute to the developments witnessed by the Kingdom in all areas.
2- Keep abreast of global scientific issues and strengthen the relationship with government institutions and the private sector.
3- Shape the graduate programs to attract distinguished students for both applied and theoretical fields.
4- The delivery of training and consultation in the areas of statistics and operations research for public and private institutions.
5- Contribute in building the Arabic library through writing Arabic books and translating the popular and useful books in the Arabic language.
6- Contribution in scientific research, and devote them through innovative, hosting and participation in international conferences.
7- Achieve internal and external accreditation for the academic programs in the department
The nature of the curriculum
The Department is witnessing developments in the curriculum so that it can fulfill the functions entrusted to it, while committed and consistent to the overall goals of the College and specific objectives of the department.
The Department has great vitality, and a persistent endeavor to meet these goals. Featuring curriculum section carefully and clearly on the balance between the theoretical and practical training so that graduates are able to assume his place in the labor market so that the superior student to pursue graduate studies in his or her place in the two sides both in the Kingdom’s universities or any other well known universities outside the Kingdom. This is also in order to ensure that the budget is consistent with the objectives within both the theoretical and applied. In the theoretical approaches to the allocation of census statistics are given priority for the theoretical and statistical extrapolation, and draws the decisions of the possibilities to serve as best as possible the needs of statistical theory and at the same time constitute a succinct introduction to probability theory and its applications.
On the application, this approach is keen to strike a balance between the following main headings: statistical methods in general - Experimental Design - Methods of regression - Analysis of data - statistical sampling - Mathematical Statistics and the use of computers and statistical packages in the analysis of statistical data. The curriculum is all encompassing and provides students with a myriad of decisions to assist in stochastic processes and applications, time series and applications, and applications of statistics and operations research in the industry such as quality control and demography.
Approaches in the specialty operations research started from a strong base of decisions, assistance in statistics and probability, mathematics, computer science, which a student must be studied by this specialization first to be able to continue her studies in the decisions of specialization more efficiently. The focus of operations research methods is on the following major topics: All topics and applications of mathematical programming, written and numerical programming, dynamic programming and programming objectives and methods of optimization, theory and classroom applications, methods of control and inventory control, reliability, and applications - methods of prediction - analysis of networks and their applications - game theory and its applications in addition to some other special topics.
The aim of the main topics of research and special operations are to identify to the student the theoretical underpinnings of these subjects, giving them the opportunity to learn how to address many of the problems that arise in scientific fact and provide the best solutions. It also provides an opportunity to train students in the use of computers to solve the models faced by the student during the study.
Graduates Job Opportunities
It is rare to find a ministry or department or government or private institution that does not have a Department of Statistics under different headings such as: Statistics, documentation, studies, planning, and research. Statistical working in these ministries or centers under various names, such as: functional and research department of Statistics prime, Statistician, Data Analyst specialist, in addition to the census scheme. As a graduate of operations research can be allocated to work in the planning, programming and production, distribution and control storage operations and scheduling of projects, business and regulation of telecommunications, transport and planning economic processes, military, security and resource utilization in any quarter.