IT to establish printing limit come spring
Students, enjoy the unlimited free printing in campus IT pods while you can.
Starting in the spring, Information Technologies is imposing a limit on the number of sheets of paper students can print.
The printing quota restriction is an effort to reduce waste on campus and discourage students from excessive printing, said IT Director Moira Gerety. She said the printing limit should compel teachers to re-evaluate their printing requirements and alter their teaching habits so students will not be affected academically by the printing costs.
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“We very much hope that faculty will look at what they are requiring kids to print,” Gerety said. “It becomes a cost shift from academic departments to IT, because it’s not fair to IT to assume that we can just continue to absorb the impact of professors deferring printing responsibilities to their students, who in turn use an IT lab.”
The new restrictions will replace the policy in campus libraries, where students have to pay to print.
She said each student will get $10 of Lobo Cash that can only be used for printing. Students can print 250 pages for free, but after that printing a single-sided sheet will cost $0.05, and a double-sided sheet will cost $0.08.
ASUNM Senator Laz Cardenas said he supports the concept of sustainability but is concerned about the academic effects of the printing policy change.
“I don’t think the idea itself is bad. We do need to conserve paper,” he said. “But for the students that need to print out those papers because the teachers require them to — if they don’t have a print out copy they get marked off and their grade suffers. They could fail the class because of it.”
Gerety said IT gathered data on student printing habits, and the data shows that most students will not be affected by the regulation.
“Eighty percent of students were printing less than 250 pages a semester and the majority of prints were from the remaining 20 percent of the users,” she said. “Most students won’t even notice the change. It will be those folks that have been excessively printing that will see the impact.”
Student Meredith Porter said the limit is reasonable for her printing needs.
“Most semesters I wouldn’t get anywhere near 250 pages,” she said. “I’ve seen people printing 50 pages at a time, and who knows how often they do that. I think that’s kind of excessive.”
One student printed 50,000 pages in one semester, Gerety said, and it is that type of behavior that does not fit with UNM’s sustainability goals.
“In the end we are looking for sustainability — not just budget-wise, but from a green perspective,” she said. “We just want to cut down on the abuse.”
Student Patille Bingham said the restrictions might be tough for money-strapped students.
“I don’t think we should be charged to print because of everything else we already have to pay for,” she said. “Some people can’t afford printers, so they have to come here. I know I go to the Lobo Lab all the time.”
Gerety said no student fees support IT services, and the department is willing to examine the success of the printing quota and work with students and faculty to improve the policy.
“We want to work through any issues that this program causes,” she said. “We are open to communicating with students, with faculty, with whoever. We look for that engagement.”
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by PharmStudent
This is gonna kill pharmacy students. We already are paying more tuition and getting less for our student fees. This just takes one other thing that we pay for away from us.
by Realist
Kill pharmacy students? PLEASE! You can basically print 20 pages for $1. That means that after 250 pages plus another 250 pages worth from the $10 of LoboCash that you will have printed over 500 pages of paper (if you print double-sided, which most people should). That is a ridiculous amount and NO student whether pharmacy or English should even touch that amount. That is basically printing a lengthy book every single semester.
Besides, even if you DO happen to go over, it is only .08 cents per double-sided sheet. You could get another 250 pages for only $10. Cut back on two drinks when you go out or one movie. But then again, I guess students have to have their priorities.
This is sound policy and should have been instituted a LONG time ago.
by Casey
Personally, I don’t give a shit about the green hippie movement. I do however get very angry when I see students wasting paper in the computer pods just because they can. They are throwing our tax money down the drain. The student who printed 50,000 pages in a semester should be billed. That is rediculous. This should not be surprising however. The laws of economics clearly illustrate how this could occur. If you subsidize a behavior, free printing in this case, then it should be no surprise that some people will start wasting paper since they do not bear much of these costs directly. I’m glad the IT department is implementing this policy.
by Alex R.
I once had to wait while one person printed about 200 pages to print my single sided philosophy assignment. This individual, who I do not know, printed out about 400 slides on 200 pages.
The thing is that EVERY PAGE SHE PRINTED HAD TWO SENTENCES ON IT. Instead of printing, in smaller font, about 20-40 sentences a page saving a lot of time and paper.
Such individuals who use their asses instead of their brains should be charged!
by Hoity Toity
1) Ignorance can be remediated: Addressing student unfamiliarity with the print options would save a lot of paper. Be nice to have a mandatory ‘print preview’ screen – that would prevent mistakes and save a lot of paper
2) I’d like to see the limit upped for graduate students. We are under a different set of expectations.
3) Where can students check their printed pages totals? Or is this information classified?
by PharmStudent
Pharmacy students are required to have the notes for each leacture. Each leacture is 20 to 40 slides with diagrams and notes which we print two slides per side/ four slides per page. Giving us 5 to ten page print jobs for each lecture. We have four lecutes a day for a max of 40 pages per day (front and back). Pharmacy students will use up there 500 page limit in 12 days. Then we will have to pay 8 cents per double sided page for the rest of the semester. The semester is 80 days minus the twelve days of free printing means we would have to pay for 40 double sided pages every day for 68 days. That would be $217.6 per semester. I don’t know any student that has an extra $200 dollars they can spend just to make sure they have notes. I guess we could cut back on our printing not have our notes fail our classes and throw away $7000 dollars per semester it costs to attend pharmacy school.
by PharmStudent
And this is the conservative estimate and I am aware that these number work out to over 3000 sheets per semester.
by Roberto
I sympathize with Pharm students, but as per the article, it should be the department’s responsibility to make sure the burden does not fall on students. I feel paper conservation is a good thing and the numbers proposed are very reasonable. If it turns out that the pharm students will suffer from this, then perhaps the department needs to look at what it asks from students and provide some materials to them/change the format. Quite rightly, it is not ITS’ responsibility to subsidize the printing needs of pharm students.
That said, I think there should be a period of cross over where the costs are not immediately covered by students. But on the whole, I think the policy is spot on.
by Jacob
As a friendly neighborhood SCON who works in the computer pods, it is one of my responsibilities to make sure that each printer in each pod has paper in it. That said, I know firsthand the waste that happens in the pod. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to fill up an entire printer (that is 1000 sheets) just because someone feels like they are entitled to print out their online books, huge lab manuals, or pages and pages of notes from a lecture. Regardless of what is told to you at orientation, ITS DOES NOT receive money from student fees to pay for paper! That is just a flat out lie. I’ve had a student come in before and try to take a ream of paper out of a box because she thought that it was “her paper anyway from her fees”. This is just flat out not true!
and bump to Casey, absolutely people take advantage or printing in our pods simply because it is free. Printing in our pods is set up default to print on both sides, yet time and time again I see people printing out their single sided essays because their teacher requires it. Well, that is understandable, but seems like it should be something you need to talk to your teacher about. We print FREE, and when you manipulate the system and change options to effectively double the amount of paper your are using because you don’t want to pay the 5 cents a page at Zimmerman, well, this is what happens.
by Jacob
and to the PharmacyStudent up top, by your math, 40 sheets a day, 5 days a week, means that each student would use up a box of paper every 5 weeks, roughly 3 boxes of paper a semester. That is EACH student. I’m not aware of how many people are actually in the pharmacy program, but you can do the math. And this is just for one department.
I understand the situation you are in, my cousin is in pharm school, but who is to pay for all that paper? Right now it is coming out of the IT budget. Is that fair to them?
Just some food for thought
by lynn6
I’m okay with the new rules. I can imagine the amount of paper that gets wasted. In order for this to go smoothly though they need to work with teachers. I’m fine with downloading readings onto a USB to take home but it needs to be a readable format.
As for pharmacy students, maybe they can distribute like a lab manual with notes and spaces for adding your own. I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to print that much stuff at home. Essays and stuff my printer can handle but homework readings use so much ink.
I agree that maybe we should have a crossover period also. We need something like an online account to see what we average at each semester. That way we can have an idea about things we should scrape on and what things are necessary. I feel a little prepared for this,since we have had to start using ID’s to print.
Obviously though, this is going to hurt some people more than others.