Previous chapters have talked about "submitting JCL streams for execution at NWRDC." Implicit in this statement is the successful transmission of the student records to and from NWRDC over FIRN2. Fairly sophisticated JCL streams must be written to accomplish this purpose. Even institutions using MVS JCL on a regular basis (and most institutions do not) find the creation of such JCL streams a challenging proposition. A user initiation procedure has therefore been developed to assist users in the creation of the JCL streams that execute the System's programs.

When your institution is ready to participate in the System, contact the FASTER Technical Contact at OADS and schedule an initiation session. The technical contact can then communicate with your institution's computer systems staff to work out the technical details of user initiation. They will provide your institution with a logon ID to TSO at NWRDC (the automated initiation procedure is managed under TSO).

The TSO password you will receive from the FASTER Technical Contact should be changed when you first logon to NWRDC. Thereafter, it should be updated periodically to insure that security and confidentiality are preserved. To change your TSO password, access TSO at NWRDC, engaging a screen displaying the following message at the top:

Type your logon ID and press the "return" key. The following line will be added to the screen:

Type your old password, a slash ("/"), and your new password (at least 4 characters long). Do not worry that you do not see any of these characters as you type them. This is a security feature. Simply type these characters (for example, XZDD/UKBFG if XZDD was your old password and you wanted to change it to UKBFG) and press the "return" key. The following line will be added to the screen:

Type your new password in again (and again you will not see the characters you type) and press the "return" key. One by one, the following lines will be added to the screen:

At this point you will have completed the password update. Press the "return" key and proceed with your interactive session. If you do not see the above messages, an error has occurred and you should attempt to start over. Contact the technical contact if you have any trouble changing either of your passwords.

When you have successfully logged on to the System, you will have accessed the FASTER main menu. From this point you can perform a number of online procedures as well as generating, editing or submitting the JCL for batch jobs. To logoff the System, press the PF3 key, or type "END" in the command line and press the "return" key, and this will bring you to the NWRDC main menu. If you are interested in using the ISPF services available to your System logon ID, enter "1.1" in the command line and press enter to access a tutorial session. If you wish to return to the System, type "Z" and press the "return" key. To logoff the ISPF session, press the PF3 key, or type "END" in the command line and press the "return" key, and this will take you out of the ISPF session and into native TSO, to a "READY" prompt. From this point, you may exit by typing "LOGOFF" and pressing the "return" key. To return to ISPF, type "ISPF" and press the "return" key. You may also type "=BYE" at the ISPF command line to logoff of both your ISPF session and exit NWRTSO with one command.

Prior to user initiation, technical staff will work with your institution's computer systems staff to complete all preliminary procedures for having your institution's computer terminals access TSO at NWRDC. Technical staff will also establish a default System profile for your institution (it is this default profile that you will alter during the initiation session, tailoring it to your needs).

Also prior to the initiation session, your institution should prepare a set of record requests and responses with which to conduct initiation testing. You should also determine which network node and remote ID you wish to use to receive printed reports and PUNCH output. This information will be entered into the System to update the above profile, which will direct the flow of printed reports and PUNCH output (principally in the form of JCL streams) back to your institution.

Those institutions able to use the IBM File Transfer Program (FTP) Version 2 or NetView FTP for data transmission also need to ask their computer systems personnel for certain information concerning FTP logical unit name, datasets and libraries. Institutions with DOS/VSE operating systems should learn their FTP Checkpoint Restart VCAT. Institutions with remote MVS operating systems should learn their FTP Load Library Name. Both DOS/VSE and MVS institutions should learn their FTP Checkpoint Restart DSN (data set name). This information will be needed during the initiation procedure.

For data transfer purposes, institutions are grouped into six categories, each of which will have a separate initiation procedure. The next six chapters go through each of these procedures. Institutions will only need to read the chapter(s) that pertain to their data transfer type. The six types are as follows:

School districts and State Colleges will fall in the same data transfer category as they do for data transfer to the DOE Student Information and State Colleges Data Bases. Of the nine State Universities, six use NWRDC for student record processing: Florida State, Florida A&M, Florida International, Florida Atlantic, Central Florida, and West Florida. The Universities of Florida, South Florida, and North Florida fall into the MVS-FTP category. If you do not know which category your institution falls into, ask your local computer systems staff. You may also contact technical staff if there is any uncertainty.

The initiation procedures in the chapters that follow will produce JCL streams that will permit users to access the System in batch. The initiation procedures create the streams, permit the user to edit them using the NWRDC's ISPF full-screen editor, and then permit the user to save the edited streams for later use at NWRDC and/or to have them downloaded to the user's local site. The user may then use the JCL streams as written, or may choose to modify them further. Those who choose to write their own JCL should consult Appendix W for the return codes used in the System's programs.