cstat-gradstatnotesforguidanceaugust2013 (1)

8/10/2019 CStat-GradStatnotesforguidanceAugust2013 (1)

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Chartered Statisticianand

Graduate Statistician

Notes for Guidance for applicants for CStat and GradStat

These notes are provided to assist you in deciding whether or not to apply. They include asummary of the criteria used for awarding these professional qualifications.

Applications are submitted and processed via a secure online portal(www.rssprofmembership.org.uk )

Briefly, award of Chartered Statistician status (CStat) is based both on criteria that coverqualifications and on criteria that cover professional development in terms of professionaltraining and experience. Award of Graduate Statistician status (GradStat) is based on criteriathat cover qualifications, and these criteria are identical to those in the award of CharteredStatistician status. Graduate Statistician status may therefore be seen as an award suitable forpersons who have satisfied the academic requirements for Chartered Statistician status but donot yet have the necessary practical professional training and experience.

Applications are considered in confidenceby the Professional Affairs Committee, which mightrequire further evidence to be submitted after an initial consideration of an application.

The confidentialnature of the process is stressed. Nevertheless, it is recognised that someapplicants may need further assurance or guidance in this regard. This might for example arisein respect of use of an organisation's internal documents as part of an applicant's trainingportfolio, or if there are issues of security clearance. Applicants who anticipate problems withconfidentiality should contact the Office for advice.
http://www.rssprofmembership.org.uk/http://www.rssprofmembership.org.uk/http://www.rssprofmembership.org.uk/http://www.rssprofmembership.org.uk/


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Chartered Statistician and Graduate StatisticianCriteria for qualifications

Applicants must meet at least one of the three criteria for qualifications set out below, which arebased on an academic degree or equivalent in which a substantial amount of statistics has beenstudied to a suitably high level. The following notes might assist in interpreting the criteria.

For UK undergraduate Honours Degrees, the general guideline is that at least half of the finalyear should consist of statistical material of, at least, final Honours level. (For "enhanced"undergraduate degrees of MMath type, an appropriate interpretation of this is made.) Thestatistical material can include a project if it is part of the curriculum. It is likely that single-honours specialist degrees in Statistics would meet this requirement. So also might degreeswith titles such as Mathematics and/with Statistics, or sometimes simply Mathematics, if there issubstantial high-level statistics content. Joint degrees in Statistics and/with other subjectswhere the high-level statistics content is substantial might also qualify.

For UK taught Masters degrees (usually MSc), an equivalent guideline of substantial high-levelstatistics content applies. MSc degrees specialising in statistics are likely to qualify.

For overseas degrees, a broad equivalence with UK degrees as set out above is required. TheSociety is normally guided by UK NARIC (the National Recognition Information Centre for theUnited Kingdom) in assessing the level of overseas degrees. In some cases, the level of MSc isa necessary requirement.

For research degrees, whether at Masters level (often called MPhil) or at Doctors level (PhD), itwill often be necessary for an applicant to demonstrate a breadth of study as well as the depththat is inherent in research work. This might for example be achieved by taking some taught

courses alongside the research work, or it might be implicit in an undergraduate degreeobtained previously.

All qualification(s) are assessed for being appropriate by the Professional Affairs Committee.Some university courses are formally accredited; other cases are considered on an individualbasis.

The third of the criteria refers to the Society's own professional examinations. It might be helpfulto view the criteria in respect of university degrees in terms of a requirement for comparabilitywith the breadth and depth of coverage of the Society's Graduate Diploma. Exactcorrespondence with the Society's syllabus is not expected, but there should be a broadequivalence. The Society's syllabus is available from the website by following links from

http://www.rss.org.uk/exams.


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Criteria

At least one of the following three criteria must be met.

1. A good UK Honours Degree (Class I or II) and/or an appropriate Higher Degree in

Statistics or in a subject containing a substantial coverage of statistical theory, methodsand practice. It will be necessary to know what modules/special subjects have beentaken.

2. An appropriate Overseas Degree (in some cases an MSc will be the appropriate level) inStatistics or in a subject with a substantial coverage of statistical theory, methods andpractice. It will be necessary to know what modules/special subjects have been taken.

3. The Graduate Diploma of the Royal Statistical Society or the Institute of Statisticians.

Note

There is also a fourth criterion for award of Chartered Statistician status which may be used in exceptional circumstances. Detailsare in the Annex to this document.


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Chartered StatisticianCriteria for professional development

Applicants for Chartered Statistician status have to demonstrate professional developmentconsisting of appropriate refereed professional statistical training and experience. It isacceptable for the training to be partly or wholly experiential, i.e. on-the-job.

Typically at least five years of a statistical career will be required to complete the necessaryoverall professional development. Applications should therefore normally be based on a five-year (full-time equivalent) history of professional statistical training and experience, normallysince the date of the firstacademic award which would have qualified the applicant for GraduateStatistician status. Applicants must show that sufficient training and experience, in line with theSociety's continuing professional development policy, have been acquired to satisfy theProfessional Affairs Committee.

Any study, full-time or part-time, for a higher degree or any other qualification after the first onwhich Graduate Statistician status could have been awarded may be included in the period. Inthe case of PhD study, the norm is to allow this to count as one year of training/experience, onthe basis that it is usually very deep but narrow. Any part-time work carried out alongsidefurther full-time study can be included; details are needed.

In the very large majority of cases, the practical professional training/experience is acquiredafter the date of the first academic award which would have qualified the applicant for GraduateStatistician status. Occasional cases arise where an applicant has a five-year period ofprofessional statistical training or experience at an appropriate level before the date of thatacademic award, or spanning the time when a qualification was earned. An example might be aperson who graduated in Mathematics from a course that contained only a little statistics,

entered a professional statistical career and subsequently took an MSc in Statistics or perhapscompleted the Society's Graduate Diploma. Such "retrospective" cases are considered by theProfessional Affairs Committee. Applications should be made in the standard way as outlined inthese Notes for Guidance, but the applicant should make clear exactly what period(s) ofprofessional training/experience are being offered, and how these relate to the date(s) ofacademic award(s). The training that led to the qualifying degree for Graduate Statisticianstatus cannot be used as part of the five-year period.

Professional experience for Chartered Statist ic ian

Any relevant practical professional statistical experience will be considered. The following list isindicative of types of experience but it is not exhaustive.

Managing a statistics section

Leading projects with a substantial amount of statistical analysis or modelling

Undertaking statistical analysis of data and reporting on the results

Having responsibility for the interpretation and presentation of statistical information

Designing statistical databases and reporting systems

Teaching statistical theory and methods, and their applications, in a practicallyoriented way; the teaching must normally be at or above a level equivalent to a UKHonours Degree in Statistics or the Royal Statistical Society Graduate Diploma

Unsupervised statistical consultancy

Generally recognised as having made a substantial contribution to the subject ofstatistics.

The experience must be refereed see below.


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Professional training fo r Chartered Statist ic ian

Applicants must provide details of the professional statistical training, on-the job and/or formal,in which they have been engaged. On-the-job training and the resulting professionaldevelopment must be refereed see below.

Formal training might for example include studying for a further qualification, or it might consistof attending short training courses or seminars of relevance to the job. Details of formal trainingshould be provided by a profile indicating what has been done, and such a profile must beprovided as part of any application which includes formal training. It may be included on theapplication form itself or provided separately. Its purpose is to provide a summary of activitiesundertaken. Applicants are strongly advised to consult the one-year exemplar continuingprofessional development (CPD) profiles for statisticians in various careers and at variousstages in their careers that are available on the Society's website by following links fromhttp://www.rss.org.uk/cpd.

Applicants will also keep appropriate documents and other supporting material, and are stronglyadvised to maintain a portfolio for this purpose. The contents of such a portfolio are at theapplicant's discretion, but should be seen as a selection of key material. The Society does notbelieve that it will commonly be necessary or desirable for applicants to maintain extensiveportfolios. Compact but informative portfolios are encouraged. A portfolio might contain aselection of the following items, or others, depending on the career of the applicant. The itemsin this list are offered as guidelines. The list is not intended to be prescriptive, nor should it beinterpreted as an order of importance.

(a) Publications, refereed.(b) Publications or presentations at conferences.(c) Internal organisation reports.

(d) Internal presentations.(e) Training material, internal or external.(f) Other material in which the role of the applicant is acknowledged.(g) Extramural statistical work (this might include appropriate service on

committees).

The portfolio should not be included as part of the application, but it must be available onrequest; the Professional Affairs Committee reserves the right to require sight of part or all of it.The Professional Affairs Committee also reserves the right, exceptionally, to seek furtherinformation from candidates in respect of their applications by means of an interview1.

1

It is stressed that interviews will be exceptional. In all normal circumstances the Committee will rely entirely on the documentationsubmitted. Any interviews would be held in London and would normally be conducted by three members of the Committee; noticeof at least one month would be given. No fee would be involved, but interviewees would bear their own expenses. Alternatively,applicants called for interview may contact the Office with a view to the interview being held by video-conference (not by telephone-conference).


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Referees

At least two referees are required, and the referees must between them span the entire periodon which the application is based. They must be able to comment authoritatively on thestatistical aspects of the applicant's work and on the professional experience and any on-the-jobprofessional training of the applicant. At least one referee should be in a position of seniority.

It is expected that in the majority of cases two referees will be sufficient, but this depends on thecareer development of the applicant. It is the responsibility of the applicant to provide sufficientreferees.

Normally, all referees should themselves be statisticians and where possible should hold theprofessional qualification of CStat. It is however appreciated that some applicants will not beable to provide such referees, though in such cases applicants should endeavour to providereferees holding equivalent status in other professions.


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ANNEX

CRITERION 4

FOR THE AWARD OF CHARTERED STATISTICIAN STATUS

GUIDANCE FOR APPLICANTS

1. Applicants for Chartered Statistician status who may not possess an approved formalqualification can request to be considered under criterion 4. Applications under criterion 4are expected to be rare. Furthermore, it is a condition of the recognition of CharteredStatistician status as a diploma under EU directives2that awards under criterion 4 should beexceptional.

2. Criterion 4 for the award of Chartered Statistician status recognises that, exceptionally,applicants without the required qualifications might have made a substantial anddistinguished contribution to statistics. Applicants under this criterion must have at least tenyears practical experience in applying statistics at a level of responsibility beyond that ofroutine analysis, covering a wide range of statistical methods. They must be able to provideacceptable evidence of substantial knowledge and competence and of high-quality andoriginal contributions to the subject and its applications. This evidence might, for example,consist of a range of organisation reports and internal or external publications, or a breadthof publications in peer-reviewed journals, demonstrating clearly the applicant's contributionto statistics. Applicants must have knowledge and experience of a range of statistical

methods, and not just be expert in one area of application. It is acceptable for applicants towork in a narrow field but breadth of experience will always be expected in respect of thestatistical methods used. Applicants should be aware that award of Chartered Statisticianstatus under this criterion is expected to occur infrequently and that the additional five yearsof experience compared with that required under the other criteria is not to be regarded as inlieu of qualifications.

3. Applications under Criterion 4 use a special application form giving the following information:

Name, address, contact information

Statement of academic qualifications

Brief statement of employment history (names of employers and dates ofemployment)

In addition, a full CV must be submitted. A full CV would include details of academicqualifications, full employment history (including detailed roles and responsibilitiesundertaken in the last 10 years), evidence of professional contributions and developmentundertaken in at least the past 5 years

At least three referees must be nominated. They must be able to cover the last 10 yearsand comment authoritatively on the statistical aspects of the applicant's work and

2Originally this was EU Directive 89/48/EEC(a). This was replaced by directive 2005/36/EC, which came into effecton 20 October 2007. Information is available on the Chartered Scientist website. The exact URL in March 2011 washttp://www.charteredscientist.org/about-csci/eu-directive.


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experience. At least one referee must be a holder of Chartered Statistician status (orequivalently a Member or Fellow of the Institute of Statisticians).

4. Following review of the Criterion 4 application form and the full CV, the Professional AffairsCommittee may consider that further information is needed. If so, the Director ofProfessional Affairs will communicate with the applicant with specific requests for theinformation that is needed.

The information requested may be needed to amplify aspects of the CV or provide additionaldetail regarding the applicant's professional development as a statistician. The itemsrequested may include some of the following items, or others, depending on the career ofthe applicant. The items in this list are offered as guidance as to what items might berequested (and are not given in order of importance). It is for the applicant to supply suchinformation as is considered appropriate, if the request for additional information is made

(a) Publications, refereed.(b) Publications or presentations at conferences.(c) Internal organisation reports.(d) Internal presentations.(e) Training material, internal or external.(f) Other material in which the role of the applicant is acknowledged.(g) Extramural statistical work (this might include appropriate service on

committees).(h) A full statement of CPD (continuing professional development) undertaken in at

least the last five years.

5. The Professional Affairs Committee reserves the right to nominate an additional referee ofits own choosing. In such cases, the applicant will be informed and will be given theopportunity to make a reasoned objection to the referee or to withdraw the application. It isenvisaged that this right will only be exercised rarely. The Committee also reserves theright, exceptionally, to consult beyond its own membership if it feels it needs further adviceabout a specialised area of professional statistical practice. It is envisaged that this rightalso will only be exercised rarely, and it will always be in strictest confidence.

6. If there are issues of extreme confidentiality or the need for security clearance, applicantsshould discuss the situation in advance with the Chairman of the Professional AffairsCommittee, contact being made through the Director of Professional Affairs.

7. The application will be considered at a meeting of the Professional Affairs Committee. Theapplicant will be informed of the outcome in writing by the Director of Professional Affairs.

cstat-gradstatnotesforguidanceaugust2013 (1)

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