The Office of Information Technology has partnered with Ricoh printing to bring two new printing services to students this semester.
Students can now choose between using PrePay Printing, where students set up a prepaid account online, or they can use Kiosk printing by swiping their debit or credit card as they print their pages.
The PrePay Printing allows students to print directly from any on-campus lab computer or students can set up a printer queue on their personal Windows or Mac computers.
To print from Kiosk Printing, students have the option to email documents to print@printme.com, use a USB device or cloud services, or use a mobile app.
“The printer themselves, the biggest new feature is duplex printing, so you get to print on both sides of the paper,” said Seth Humphrey, manager of web and mobile development for OIT.
Color printing is another feature available now at all of the printing station.
Unlike the old service, the new printing services do not print a cover sheet, which students used to be charged for, Humphrey said.
“Another new feature would be, because the billing is no longer done by the University, it’s done by Ricoh, it can’t negatively impact your status to register for classes,” Humphrey said. “You can’t have a hold from printing charges.”
Black and white copies are 10 cents per sheet or 18 cents for double-sided printing, color printing is 50 cents per sheet or 90 cents for double-sided printing and scanning is free.
The printing station from last semester are still in the same place but there have been new locations added for more accessible printing.
After student requested for duplex and color printing, OIT evaluated their options to serve students’ printing needs.
“There were a number of factors that were looked at,” Humphrey said. “We wanted to make the service better and look at everything involved from availability of personnel, the cost of devices, so a couple systems were evaluated and this one made the most sense from both budgeting and the features.”
Humphrey said the students who are used to the old system had a bit of a transition to learn the new system, but the new students are having an easy time with it because it is all they’ve known.
Kelly Dekle, a sophomore studying pre-business, said the new printing services have been easy to learn and use.
“I’ve only used the PrePay service, but I was able to add money from my debit card quickly and printing in color from any printer has been really nice,” Dekle said.
Dekle said she was frustrated initially with the change, but after she used the printers she thought the added locations were convenient and thought the new features were a good change.
Humphrey said there will be frustrations with learning a new system, but overall the feedback has been positive.
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