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Student Print Accounting Project

Dawn Bush Director of Academic Technology Calvin College. Student Print Accounting Project. What led us to this project?. Students doing more printing. Growth in use of technology over previous 5-7 years Students doing research online and printing results

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Student Print Accounting Project

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  1. Dawn BushDirector of Academic TechnologyCalvin College Student Print Accounting Project

  2. What led us to this project?

  3. Students doing more printing • Growth in use of technology over previous 5-7 years • Students doing research online and printing results • Faculty building more and more content into Blackboard • Use of online textbooks – some students still need to print to study

  4. Printing was out of control • Hundreds of pages a day printed by students • Students abandoning print jobs • Cost of student public printing going up 12% to 15% a year • Students doing non-course related printing • Printing flyers for their own small businesses • Printing for off-campus non-profit businesses • Students from other colleges printing at Calvin • No easy way to measure printing

  5. Phase 1Getting ready for print accounting • Limit printing to Calvin students only – required logins in all labs • Open project with the goal to “limit unnecessary printing”

  6. Project requirements • Must be • Convenient • Fair • Easy to administer • Cover printing cost for a “typical” student • Anticipate “boogey men” • New Activities and Technology Fee of $112.50 per semester • Approvals (Buy-in) • Information Services Committee • Representative of Student Senate • Information distribution • Provost / deans • Academic department chairs

  7. Phase 2Research (Spring 2005) • Researched hardware and software solutions • Purchased and installed a software solution, pCounter • Benchmarked printing silently on all student accounts • Researched quotas at other colleges

  8. What we learned • 900,000 pages were printed • 3 top students printed • 3,391 pages • 3,041 pages • 2,953 pages • Average student printed 250 pages • 10% of our students would have exceeded a quota of $25.00 (500 b&w pages)

  9. Phase 3No Charge Pilot (Fall 2005) • Established preliminary quotas and charges • $25.00 printing per student (500 b&w pages) • $.05 a page • $.08 duplex page • $.35 per color page • Built in 10% or $2.50 allowance for printing errors (i.e. misfeeds)

  10. Ran print accounting on all student accounts (no charge) • Print accounting window each time a student printed • Indicated their current Student Print Accounting status • The cost of the current print job. • The opportunity to continue to print or cancel the print job

  11. Advertised the pilot • Calvin Chimes (student newspaper) • daily student listserv • CIT web pages

  12. What we learned • When student’s were aware we were tracking printing • Printing didn’t increase usual 12% – 15% • 18% reduction in printing from spring semester (900,000 to 727,000 pages) • Only 1.6% of the students would have exceeded a quota of $25.00

  13. Phase 4Implementation (Spring 2006) • Ran print accounting on all students (with charges) • Minimal issues • Project closed and ongoing support passed to HelpDesk

  14. What we learned • Easier than we thought to get student attention when money is involved • 2 student organizations got involved • Calvin Chimes – student newspaper • Student Senate –Policy and Issues Committee • Additional 6% reduction (681,000 pages) since fall semester • Almost 25% reduction since beginning of project • Only 3% of students exceeded the quota • $1,054 collected to help cover costs of public printing • Interesting note: enterprising pre-law student

  15. Results • Met primary goal of limiting unnecessary printing • Reduced student printing by over 250,000 pages a semester • Estimated to save the college $12,500 a semester

  16. Did we meet our project requirements? • Our solution • convenient • fair • easy to administer • covers printing cost of a typical student

  17. What we did right • Long lead-in time • “no surprises” – student’s knew ahead of time • 2 semesters to adapt to idea • 10% buffer for printing errors • virtually eliminated student complaints • Quota of $25.00 • more generous than most other schools • high enough to affect only small portion of student body • Implemented in all student labs • all student labs at the same time eliminated students ability to print to areas where charges were not in effect • Selected a software solution, pCounter, instead of a hardware solution • far less cumbersome than available hardware

  18. Issues we encountered • Charging students with new Student Activities and Technology Fee while limiting printing • Student employees • Had to find a way for student employees to print to departmental printer while working • Faculty/Staff printing to lab computers

  19. Resources • iPrint • http://www.novell.com/products/netware/printing/quicklook.html • pCounter • http://www.pcounter.com.au/web/ • Calvin iPrint web pageshttp://www.calvin.edu/it/services/studentnetworkservices/printing/ • Dawn Bush (dcbush@calvin.edu)

  20. Questions?

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