System z

Academic Initiative courseware

There are many professionally developed mainframe courses in the Academic Initiative Courseware Repository, which members can download at no charge. The Academic Initiative program provides you with the flexibility to use these course materials with what will work be for your particular program. You are free to modify the materials and incorporate the resources as is or only use a subset of the material in existing curriculum. The courses range from beginner to advanced topics.

• System z courses: We recommend "Introduction to the Mainframe: z/OS Basics", the foundational System z course, which enables students to begin using the basic facilities of a mainframe system in one semester. Other courses include large scale commercial computing, networking, security, data management, transaction management, and VSAM storage management, plus programming languages such as COBOL, Assembler, JCL, and ISPF. They cover the Linux and UNIX operating systems, as well as z/OS and z/VM. Some courses are offered in Spanish and in audio versions.
• Tivoli courses: These include courses on security, system automation, networking, workload scheduling, and storage management.
• Data and Information Management courses: These include courses on cross-product DB2 fundamentals and SQL, as well as DB2 for z/OS courses on programming and database administration.
• WebSphere courses: These include courses for WebSphere MQ (for connecting mainframe applications to business data using messaging) and WebSphere Application Server (for serving Web applications from a mainframe system).

Additional IBM courses and resources

You may find these additional courses, tutorials and books helpful when creating your own teaching materials.

• For System z architecture

  IBM course: System z Architecture IBM book: z/Architecture Principles of Operation (SA22-7832) IBM book: z/Architecture Reference Summary (SA22-7871)

• For database topics

  IBM Press book: Your Complete Guide to IBM's Information Management System Tutorial: Developing a batch DB2 for z/OS COBOL application using Rational Developer for System z

• For mainframe programming topics

  Technical article: Writing Java on z/OS Self-study course: REXX Self-study course: CMS Pipelines tool (REXX, Assembler and CGI scripts for Web servers) COBOL Cafe Sample code: System z ASSEMBLER code

• For System z on Linux, z/VM and z/VSE operating systems

  Getting started with Linux on z Live Virtual Classrooms (and playbacks)

• For mainframe security

  IBM Press book: Getting Started with RACF

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Get remote access to mainframe systems

Academic Initiative members can get no-charge remote access to an IBM mainframe system for themselves and their students. You can explore, learn and perform course lab exercises in a real mainframe environment without having to install and maintain the system.

Send an email to zskills@us.ibm.com

Note: Please specify which courses you plan to teach and the number of educator and student IDs you need.

Download Rational Developer for System z

Rational Developer for System z is an excellent tool for developing traditional mainframe, Web and composite applications. It accelerates the development of Web applications, traditional COBOL and PL/I applications, Web services and XML-based interfaces. Members can download it from the Academic Initiative Software Catalog.

Download and install instructions (295KB)

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Academic Initiative members can request also discount for their students on some IBM Professional Certification tests at Thompson Prometric Centers. Professional certification or a mastery test automatically qualifies students to post their resumes in the IBM Student Opportunity System. But, you can personally qualify students who have taken a course on IBM or open source technologies.

• Find out more

  IBM System z Entry Level for z/OS System Programmer Mastery Test (Test Z01) IBM Certified Database Administrator - DB2 Universal Database V8.1 for z/OS (Test 702) IBM Certified Database Administrator - DB2 9 for z/OS (Test 732) Academic Initiative certification discounts Student Opportunity System

Tell your students about Master the Mainframe contests. They can build their mainframe skills and have fun while competing for valuable prizes.

Student contests

Help your students get mentoring. This flyer has profiles of dozens of zNextGen mainframe professionals who have volunteered to connect with students to discuss careers in enterprise computing. Download it and hand it out.

zConnections (465KB) zNextGen community

Let your students know about scholarship opportunities.

Destination z Enterprise Computing Scholarship

Encourage your students to learn and grow their mainfrme skills with these resources.

Introduction to the Mainframe (PDF, 1.095MB) Enterprise Systems: IBM System z Student Quickstart ( PDF 110KB) Careers in mainframe (1.6MB)

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