10516 Dynamic Planning: Applications in Human Resources 1

Credits: 6 advanced credits in Management

Prerequisites: 36 credits, including one of the following: Calculus for Students of Economics and Management, Differential and Integral Calculus I, Infinitesimal Calculus I; one of the following: Introduction to Statistics for Students of Social Sciences I, Introduction to Statistics and Probability for Science Students; and one of the following: Introduction to Statistics for Students of Social Sciences II, Statistical Inference. Students must also fulfill all English requirements and take bibliographic instruction in the Library.

Recommended: Familiarity with matrices, vectors and mathematical operations (these topics are included in Mathematics for Students of Social Sciences or in Linear Algebra I)

The course, developed by Aviad Bar-Haim, Ronit Nirel and Ayelet Rosenberg, is based on a Hebrew translation of Statistical Techniques for Manpower Planning, by D. J. Bartholomew, A. F. Forbes and S. I. McClean (John Wiley & Sons, 1991).

The course provides the student with theoretical and practical tools for planning, evaluating and predicting human resource systems which undergo change over time. These tools have wide range applications to varied systems and areas such as human resources, medicine and education, as well as demographic analyses and actuary calculations.

Topics: Analysis of wastage – rates and life-table methods and model-based methods; Transition models based on the theory of Markov chains; Transition models based on renewal theory; Semi-Markov models; Career patterns, stationarity and control.


1Students may write a seminar paper in this course, although it is not required.

Mathematics and computer science students may find this course of interest; however, they need to keep in mind that the credits are granted in Social Sciences.