[19] in Resnet-Forum
Printing services from dorm rooms
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Nov 2 08:31:24 1993
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1993 08:09:30 -0500 (EST)
From: "Dan Mather, OIT Technical Coordinator -- College of Business"
To: resnet-forum@MIT.EDU
X-Vms-To: IN%"resnet-forum@mit.edu"
We are currently in the planning stages of networking dorms and on-campus
networked workrooms (labs with network jacks only for those students with
portable computers). Most of these rooms are wired and we are now debating on
the services we will provide.
I would like your comments on the types of printing services you provide or
plan on providing to your students. JMU currently charges students a fixed
amount per page for laser printouts. At each laser printing station, we have
card readers that subtract the proper amount for each document as the document
prints. This fee covers the use of the card readers and our department doesn't
make any profit from this charge. The fee, for the most part, is to deter
students from wasted printing and to encourage final draft printing on the
laser printers and to direct rough drafts of documents to the cheaper,
dot-matrix printers.
We are debating on eliminating this charge all together for a few reasons.
1. Jobs cannot be submitted to the laser printer directly (eliminating
submitting jobs from dorm rooms) and must be submitted from a machine with an
attached card reader. At times, this can create a long line of students
waiting to print their documents.
2. The card readers have become expensive to rent and buying them for each lab
is not an option due to our limited budget.
We would like to eliminate charging for printouts completely to make it easier
to print from either the lab or dorm rooms. Since the charge goes directly
towards the card reader we currently provide the printing supplies out of our
existing budget. We are concerned that the cost incurred if free laser
printing was an option would be much greater than our budget can handle.
Those of you who are offering free laser printing, have students kept printing
to the lasers at a minimum while still using other, cheaper printers for rough
drafts? If not, how much has the cost of printing increased?
If you are charging for printouts, how are you handling the fees involved?
Thank you in advance,
Dan Mather
Office of Information Technology Computing Coordinator, College of Business
James Madison University
