So, I think that I have sufficiently tired everyone out from all my talk about printing. But stay with me people...one more thing. I wanted to thank Paul and all the other commentors for sharing their thoughts on improving the computer experience here at UB.
I was at another academic institution this week and actually had the ability to experience an idea that was brought up in my first post. It was said that OTS was looking into "adding a PIN keypad to the printers for authentication of print jobs," with the purpose of reducing waste and unclaimed jobs. I can't say I love the idea. It does fulfill both of those purposes--but creates its own problems, I think. The first trouble is a potential bottleneck at both the pin machine--and again at the printer itself sorting through papers. It adds a step. And the step requires you to stand with other people. It also means I can't print something big and do something else for a few minutes while it is printing. I guess this isn't huge, but what about my flow?? My print swagger is important. I'm just saying...
Again, I love the job our OTS staff and students are doing in creating a sweet comp lab.
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3 comments:
Yep. This is where we got stuck too. OTS is mindful of the student experience and we try to make things easy when it comes to printing. We know that the paper is due in 5 minutes and you just finished it and you don't have the time to wait in line to enter a PIN and then wait for it to print.
We also know that students print a lot. Just this past April 209,894 pages were printed. While double-sided printing will take a bite out of that, it is still an enormous amount of paper.
I can promise that we won't do anything without student input. Our swagger is all about providing a service that students find useful.
-Paul, OTS
Jason -- it's great that you feel passionately about this because it fuels ideas and changes.
Are you as tenacious with suggesting instructors accept papers electronically!
The real crux of the paper vs. green issue as it relates to lab printing is the amount of paper we need to hand in for assignments. I was elated when my Editorial Style instructor accepted papers electronically and graded/commented electronically as well. It was fantastic!
This is certainly the type of issue that can be improved with a multi-prong approach.
Wouldn't it be cool if we had fingerprint scanners at each computer that would release a print job and prompt you for a cover sheet? It's the lab of the future.
Imagine.
yo...so I will give some thought to the merit of online paper submission/grading. my gut tells me that no professor is going to want to read anything over about 3 pages online...but maybe there are still other options.
and regarding your fingerprint scanner...am I right to assume you are mighty trusting of others when it comes to your biographically identifable characteristics? Just thought I'd point out something traditionalists hate about "the future".
keep the ideas coming!
-J
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