Effat University

Overview

Effat University

Effat University is a non-profit private university for women located in Jeddah, Makkah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was established in 1999 and it is the first private women-only higher institution in the country. It is known for training and empowering women to become future leaders and upholding the values of its founder, Queen Effat Al-Thunayan Al-Saud. The university is among the top-ranked higher institutions in the country.

Effat University Key Statistics

The university comprises four undergraduate colleges, namely, the Effat College of Engineering, the Effat College of Architecture and Design, the Effat College of Science and Humanities, and the Effat College of Business. The institution also offers 13 undergraduate degree programs and four master’s degree courses such as electrical and computer engineering, finance, and architecture.

The student population at Effat university is 1,316 and it has 221 administrative staff. It likewise has facilities commonly provided in all-female academic institutions, such as a child development center and student residences.

The Effat Library and Cultural Museum is home to 30,000 collections in both Arabic and English languages. Among the volume of books are rare collections obtained from the Dar Al Hanan Library, which is the first library Queen Effat had established. It also has a large online database of about 350,000 research materials available to students and staff.

Other Effat University key statistics include membership with international organizations like the Global Liberal Arts Alliance and the International Association of Universities.

Effat University Research

The university is highly invested in scientific and applied research. As one of the leading higher institutions in Saudi Arabia, the university has a high research output. In 2013, its Virtual Reality Research Center received a research grant of 1.300.000SAR from NEMSA.

The top three research fields of Effat University are computer science, artificial intelligence, and pattern recognition. The university has published in major international journals such as arXiv: Information Theory, IEEE Access, and Neural Computing and Applications. Its researchers have been privileged to attend and/or present at distinguished conferences like the Global Communications Conference, the Vehicular Technology Conference, and the International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications.

The most cited research output of the university is Haghighat et al.’s (2016) “Discriminant correlation analysis: Real-time feature level fusion for multimodal biometric recognition,” published in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security. It has an estimated 272 citations. The university's second most cited publication is Brahimi and Sarirete’s (2015) “Learning outside the classroom through MOOCs,” published in Computers in Human Behaviour. It has a total of 221 citations. The third most cited publication of the university is Rashid and Asghar's (2016) paper, “Technology use, self-directed learning, student engagement and academic performance,” published in Computers in Human Behaviour. It has 176 citations.

The university has four research centers, namely, the Virtual Reality Research Center, the Smart Buildings Research Center, the E-Arabization Research Center, and the Business Innovation & Entrepreneurship Research Center.

Other Effat University research statistics include its various awards and certifications such as the 2015/2016 King Abdulaziz Quality Award as well as the 2019 International Certification for the Department of Architecture.