Practices of Mainframe Education in Tongji University

1
Practices of Mainframe Education in Tongji
University

• Dr. Gene Fuh
• Guest Professor of TongJi University
• 2009.6.22

2
Outline

• Request for mainframe skilled talents
• Role of School of Software Engineering (SSE)
• Foundation of mainframe education
• Characteristic of mainframe education
• Mainframe curriculum in SSE
• Conclusions

3
Request for mainframe skilled talents

• Lack of mainframe professionals
• Especially young engineers
• Two cases
• One of Top 5 Commercial Banks in China planed to
  recruit 10 mainframe application developers in
  2006, half a year passed, they had not received
  enough applicants, only 5 applicants sent their
  applications.
• A large outsourcing company ISSC in shanghai had
  not finished the plan in mainframe personal
  resource by the end of 2007, originally the
  company want to hire 80 programmers in developing
  mainframe outsourcing projects.

4
Role of School of Software Engineering (SSE)

• SSEs two functions
• Talent Education
• Provide services to industry
• Talent Education
• Mainframe education included in the major of
  Enterprise Computing
• Provide Mainframe courses for both of
  undergraduates and graduates in East China,
  including Tongji University, Southeast
  University(Nanjing)
• Most of students come from the major of software
  engineering, computer science, information
  management, machinery engineering etc.
• Create education base with mainframe users and
  industry partners for students internship and
  employment
• Industry Employee Training
• Mainframe basic application technologies training
  ,mainly for enterprise new emploees

5
Foundation of mainframe education

• Faculty
• 1/3 6 Fulltime teachers, IBM center of Tongji
  University
• 1/3 6 overseas experts
• Most of them from IBM, including IBM SVL and IBM
  CDL
• 1/3 5 domestic experts
• All experts from mainframe users in P.R.China
• Infrastructure
• Mainframe hardware and software offered by IBM
  Great China
• Mainframe maintenance supplied by IBM vendors
• Courses developed and taught by IBM SVL, CDL and
  other vendors
• Supports from MOE and Tongji university
• In course development, funds, logistics and site

6
Characteristics of mainframe education

• Theatrically courses
• These courses share the same fundamental
  concepts, for example,
• Principles of Computer System and Architecture
• Theory of Operating System
• Principles of Computer Organization
• Database Theories
• Project Management
• Special courses for large scale business
  applications
• Students need to learn a number of mainframe
  skills through several courses before they could
  start to develop applications on mainframe
  platform
• Emphasis on mainframe performance, concurrency,
  security, scalability and reliability
• Highly practical courses- Learning by Doing
• Case study
• MiniBanking teaching library, developed by IBM
  SVL,IBM CDL, Tongji Uni.and UESTC
• Simulating real commercial bank jobs, exp.
  Deposit, Loan, Credit card and so on

7
Mainframe curriculum in SSE

• MOE Ministry of Education of PR China(MOE)
• MOEIBM Model course, which is a qualification
  honored to selected outstanding courses in IBM
  technology, and is promoted by MOE to all Chinese
  Universities.
• Fundamentals and principles (F), Practical
  technologies (P), Integrated courses (I)

8
Conclusions

• Established the foundation of mainframe education
  system in east china universities
• Over 500 undergraduates and postgraduates had
  learned at least one mainframe skill course, 30
  of them passed mainframe certificated tests,
  most of them had gained a mainframe job in large
  firms
• A good beginning of solving the contradiction
  between demand and supply of qualified mainframe
  engineers
• More new mainframe technology courses will be
  developed in next three years, for example IMS
  database and IMS TM
• Hope to establish and keep communication with
  industries and universities in mainframe
  education

9

• Thank You