Profile of the Department of Mathematical and Computing Sciences
The Department teaches B.Sc. degrees in the following subjects:
Computing and Information Systems;
and various programmes involving computing, mathematics and statistics:
Mathematics;
Mathematics with Computer Science;
Mathematics and Computer Science;
Mathematics with Statistics;
Mathematics and Statistics;
Computer Science and Statistics;
Statistics, Computer Science and Applicable Mathematics;
Computing, Statistics and Operational Research for Business.
The Computing and Information Systems degree serves the international need for graduates educated in the theory, techniques and good practice of information technology in organisations. Introductory courses in computing, software engineering and information systems lead on to more advanced topics including the decision support and management of information systems, communications and multimedia. The degree programme consists of three levels. Levels I and II are designed to provide the foundations and level III includes a compulsory project and a number of options which may include Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks, Software Engineering Management, Human Computer Interactions, Information Systems Management, Decision Support and Executive Information Systems. Over half the students recruited each year are registered for this degree.
In most of the other programmes, a common first year (one quarter of which is comprised of Computer Science) leads to a choice of routes into the second year, according to the degree programme, while the third year consists of a range of options of which about 15 are offered each year. In addition, the Department offers joint B.Sc. degrees with Psychology, and carries out some service teaching in Computing and Statistics for the department of Psychology.
Planned developments include masters degrees in Information Systems and Computer Science. The Department administers the University of London Degrees in Mathematics, Computing and Statistics and in Computing and Information Systems for the External System; it also participates in the inter-collegiate M.Sc.
The Department has 19 academic staff, of whom 10 work in Computer Science/ Information Systems, while 6 are Mathematicians and 3 are Statisticians.
The Department maintains two computer laboratories for exclusive use by students of the department. The present equipment includes 60 networked PCs running Windows95, together with two UNIX servers that provide X-clients for the PCs. These laboratories and the computing equipment of the staff of the Department are administered and maintained by the Departmental Systems Administrator. The College Computing Service also maintains four laboratories with PCs, Macintoshes and terminals for general use.
The Department's current research strengths are in Combinatorics, Functional Analysis, Statistics, Computer Science and organisational impacts of information systems.
There are currently eight full-time and two part-time M.Phil./PhD. students, in areas spanning the range of the department's interests.
Mathematical and Computing Sciences is located in a pair of pleasant Victorian houses on the main College site at New Cross. Good transport links are available to the City, the West End, Docklands and the South and South-East of London.
The majority of staff in the department have their individual offices equipped with Pentium PCs running DOS, Windows and/or a PC based UNIX such as Linux. They are connected via Ethernet to the College's mainframe and, through the latter, to the London Metropolitan Area Network, superJANET and the Internet.
The College has a no smoking policy.