ITS sets limit at 300 pages
Following the successful testing and implementation of the Responsible Printing Initiative in the computer clusters, Information Technology Services decided on a student-printing limit of 300 pages and a faculty limit of 20 pages for this semester.
Deciding on a limit was a very involved process, said Marty Hoag, ITS Management and Policy Development director.
“ We did that looking at the amount of money we had available and the usage last spring and what we know so far about the actual costs of paper and toner,” Hoag said.
Based on the money alone, ITS came up with a 200-page limit, but the average student prints 58 pages a month. The means a lot of people would have to pay to print, Hoag said.
“ We really would like only the smallest amount of people to ever run out of paper,” Jeff Gerst, ITS director, said.
Although many students and faculty feel the allocation is too low, Hoag said he doesn’t want the number of pages to get any higher because people will share their allocation and that will cost the university extra money.
The goal of the Responsible Printing Initiative is to reduce wasted paper and costs and help lower the technology fee.
If students reach their 300-page limit, additional pages can be printed for 5 cents each, using their Bison Bucks account.
“ The whole idea here is that the large print users would have to pay for their printing,” Hoag said.
In addition, pages not used during the fall semester will carry over to the next semester.
At the beginning of the next semester, the pages not used will be added to the 300-page limit.
All pages not used at the end of spring semester will be erased.
In comparison with UND’s 200-page semester limit, NDSU students are lucky, because UND students who don’t use their 200 pages lose them at the end of each semester, Hoag said.
Many students said they feel the GoPrint stations are helpful because they can find their document at a certain printer and make sure it prints out, Hoag said.
For a listing of programs and services the student technology fee currently supports, visit www.ndsu.edu/tfac.
For more information and background on the Responsible Printing Initiative visit www.ndsu.edu/its.