Student Technology Fee
In 1998, the Associated Student Government proposed, and the students of the University accepted, a fee assessed for every student at two dollars ($2) per credit hour. This fee was specifically enacted to provide funding for technology having a direct impact on students. The fee has been used in the past to provide students with, among other things, computing labs and specialized computer equipment.  Read the Resolution

General Access Computing Labs Print Management

Printing is one of the major aspects and expenses of the University of Arkansas General Access Computing Labs. Each semester more than 2,000,000 pages are printed in the GACL labs. Students use the labs and printers to print out assignments, research articles, schedules, study material, projects, classroom notes and many other items. The cost of printing is rising significantly each year and will continue to do so as we move towards more and more web-based learning.  In addition to the cost of the paper, money is also spent on toner cartridges, maintenance and repairs to the printers.

Printing Costs 2002-2005

	2002-2003	2003-2004	2004-2005
Printers	$18,378.39	*	*
Repairs	$596.94	$2,344.57	$1,083.35
Paper/Toner	$55,666.16	$66,725.50	$82,030.01
* a 3-year printer replacement cycle running approx. $20,000 every three years

Printing Waste

A measure was kept for approximately one year of how much paper that was printed in the computer labs ended up in the recycling bins. We found that approximately 9% of the paper bought ended up being put in the recycling bin. In terms of printing costs that could be as much $8000 wasted yearly. That is more than the initial cost of the PCounter vending option.

 

Cost of PCounter Vending Option

Blackboard Pcounter Module	$2,995.00
Release Stations Upgrade	$1,000.00
Yearly Maintenance	$1,295.00
Total Cost	$5,290.00

 

Our goal for printing in the labs is to develop a print management system that involves a fair and reasonable quota of print use that is paid for by the Student Technology Fee. Anything printed over that quota would have to be paid for by the student. It would help eliminate unnecessary copy jobs, excessively large print jobs and printouts that are not really needed or wanted. With a generous quota system users would be more likely to make sure they only printed what was really needed.

Starting in August of 2005 a print management system called PCounter was put in place in the General Access Computing Labs. In addition to providing a professionally developed and supported print management system PCounter keeps track of every page printed in the labs. Using the program’s reporting tools we were able to take a close look at printing trends in the labs.

Distribution of Printing

93% of users printed less than 500 pages last semester The average user printed approximately 200 pages last semester One user printed over 10,000 pages 10,782 people printed in the labs with 1,873,981 pages total.