Student Printing Policy

All students are responsible for reading, understanding, and abiding by the guidelines presented in the Student Handbook and republished on this web page.

Student Printing Policy

The cover story on the October 4, 2002 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education listed the top ten ways for colleges to reduce Information Technology costs. Number one was, "Create limits or rules for students' printouts." Private and public higher education institutions deal with this issue in a variety of different ways. In the past eleven months increased costs related to student printing have been discussed with DAC (academic department heads), the academic technology liaison group, and Academic Affairs. As a result of those discussions, the following printing policy has been drafted and will be enacted starting in January 2006. This policy will:

  1. Promote resource sustainability (currently over 45% of the paper printed in the computing laboratories is not claimed by users and must be recycled).
  2. Discourage and reduce consumable resources waste.
  3. Reduce the cost associated with printing.

The goal of this policy is to ensure the most efficient use of printing resources for Ringling College and its users.


Procedures


Each student and faculty member will be allocated an initial credit for printing in academic computer laboratories for the current semester. Black and white printouts from the laser printers do not charge against this credit. Color laser prints on the campus laser printers cost $1.00 per page. Based on print usage statistics, we expect the vast majority of students to be able to easily meet their printing needs within their initial limit. Students or faculty members requiring additional print resources beyond this initial allocation should stop by the IT Help Desk.

What do Printing Charges Cover?


Please note that the technology fee only partially cover costs that are directly related to paper, toner, and maintenance of printers. Abuse of printing privileges financially reduces funds to support other computing initiatives and resources such as new hardware. Please take a look at the University of Richmond's (http://law.richmond.edu/faculty/initiatives/printsurvey.html) Printing Survey to find out what other colleges are doing about this same issue.

Print Monitor System
Students may monitor their own printing activities via our Web-based Print Monitor System. Check your current balance online via the Ringling College web portal, http://my.ringling.edu, after logging in under "Account Manager".

If a current print job in progress would exceed the remaining balance, the print job will not be printed at all.

STUDENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN PRINTING ACCOUNT

Institutional Technology will not be responsible if someone else has printed from another student's or faculty member's account. In order to prevent someone from accessing their printing account, students and faculty should not leave their lab workstations unattended and log out when they are done working

Printing Issues


Students or faculty can request a print credit if the printout is unreadable, the printout is wrinkled, or the printer queue goes down. In general, paper jams will not result in an additional charge because the printer will simply reprint the page without adding an additional charge. Students and faculty cannot request a credit for non-printer errors such as blank pages at the end of a document, color distorted printouts, print jobs that they changed their mind about, printing the wrong document, or spelling mistakes. Students must bring the flawed pages to the IT help desk to receive a print credit.

IT Support Hours

  • Monday - Friday: 8:30am - 4:30pm


phone: (941)359-7633

fax: (941)359-7615

online support requests (for current students, faculty, and staff): support@ringling.edu