Students are abusing the free printer service at my university's faculty.

[amdguy]

I have a summer job with my school's (university of toronto) faculty of management and economics as a project manager and marketing coordinator. The faculty offers CO-op program and has a computer lab dedicated for job search, resume writing and free printing services. Mind ya...no dept offers free printing for students.

The computer only allows students registered in the program to access it and the students needs to login using his school computer account. Of course printing CRAP like personal e-mail, school assignments is not allowed and some students are obviously taking advantage of this free service and our toner runs out before you can even say WOOOTAAAH!!! The toner is rated at 5000 pages.

Today i caught a smart alex trying to install the printer driver and hooking HIS LAPTOP directly to the printer to print out powerpoint slides, some students use the lab computers directly to print out their own stuff..

so is there a way to stop this anarchy by like using a quota system for each students so that they are only allowed to print a certain amount per month?

please help!

thanks alot!

 

[BCYL]

It would help if you mention what kinda IT infrastructure you are running (what PCs, any mainframes, how are the PCs and printers hook up) etc...

 

[amdguy]

hmm the lab computers are dell Pentium4s with WinXP pro hooked up the school LAN and the printer is a shared printer via all the computers in the lab

 

[DaveSimmons]

in a 'nix setting with one box acting as a printer server, that box could log jobs by user and at least generate reports every so often.

For an all-Windows setting and a standalone printer you'd need to log jobs on every computer, feed the data into one database, then generate reports from that.

In both cases you probably can't enforce quotas, just punish students after the fact.

You might do some Googling of "windows print logging software" or something like that. Any commercial software you find might cost a lot more than the toner carts though.

Edit: one low-tech solution is to put the printer under the control of a staff member and have students show ID to collect their jobs. This probably only makes sense if you already have someone working there for the full time that the lab is open.

 

[XplosiV]

I did a quick google and found you a piece of printing management software. Here is the web page ... http://www.softwareshelf.co.uk/products/display2.asp?p=23 It lets you assign quota's to users by the $ or # of pages say per month, also number of pages per job, looks like it could help you, not sure about people connecting directly to the printer, but you should be able, on a network, to share the printer through admin and assign only University PC's to use the printer. Hope it helps.

 

[XplosiV]

UPDATE - they also do specificly 'Academic' printer management software , seems to have alot more in its features, and can be run as a domain server or localy, you can read all about it here ... http://www.softwareshelf.co.uk/products/display2.asp?p=121 and here is the price list ...
http://www.softwareshelf.co.uk/pricing/pricelist_detail_display.asp?p=121&n=Print%20Manager%20Plus%20-%20Academic
Also found another program that does a simalar job at Print Control But i couldnt see a price

 

[JavaMomma]

I am a student at a university that allows free printing. I worked as a lab monitor for several semsters and I would say very few students really abuse it. I mean is it a big deal if someone prints out a 2 page email that may or many not have anything to do with shcool? When I would say the biggest waste of paper and toner is people who do not know how to use the printer. Like people that print out all 10 pages of an essay because they need to reprint page 2.

And power point presentations sometimes need to be printed because many profs teach off of power point, the key there is to tile the presentation so 6 pages of power point to one page. That saves ink and makes it more readable.

Anyways, my suggestion is educating people how to print. I guess thats what lab monitors are for...

My school uses Win2K/XP PC with Novell and most students log in using a guest account, although I heard that may be changing this fall semester (maybe Novell lets you track printer ussage?)

 

[amdguy]

thanks alot for ya HELP! i'll look into the softwares u provided

 

[Kntx]

Don't you think people pay enough for school that they should be able to print anything they please?? Cause I do!

 

[Darein]

At the lab I work at we hand out paper to the students to print. Granted if they bring their own it won't work, but a lot of people don't being their own. Other labs keep the printers near the monitors so they can see what it coming out and cancel if need be.

 

[zerodeefex]

I got to UC Davis and we have a 200 pg quota throughout all the labs on campus. The system keeps track of everything you print and whenever you go over 200 pages each quarter you get to pay 2 cents for every extra page. It works really well except for finals time when you are trying to print out notes and all the bums who have their whole quota free surf gamefaqs and print out 170 pg guides to games. THAT slows down everyone and the print queue gets as long as an hour wait sometimes.

 

[XplosiV]

From what i can tell the only way to block printing of as mentioned, game FAQ's or e-mails, would be to block the student accounts / workstations from accessing the sites in the first place, might not be very practical tho

 

[episodic]

Originally posted by: Kntx
Don't you think people pay enough for school that they should be able to print anything they please?? Cause I do!

I feel you. Even if I used a toner's worth a year (I did not come close to this amount. . .) my printing bill would be ohh a case of paper and 1 toner - maybe 200$ (probably less), lets see what did I pay for school again?

What made me mad is when I'd print out all these notes I had ( I typed everything from a laptop ) and someone would eye me for excessive printing, yet they'd miss the guy who was printing a novel he downloaded so he did not have to spend 2.00 on some 'classic' for Freshman Comp. . .

 

[Steve]

At my school we have network-shared printers with console where you have to input your student ID number to print. Each student is allowed a certain quota of free pages per semester (I want to say 300 pages, or is it 600?) and above that quota the student's account is automatically charged ten cents a page (or maybe five?). Anyhow if something like that is worth considering, let me know and I'll ask for more details.