Printing in today's academic labs: not exactly what Gutenberg had in mind

ABSTRACT

At the Ringling School of Art and Design, we have watched printing costs spiral out of control and beyond budgetary models. Yearly expenditures for both printer consumables and the labor required to maintain our printers have been substantial. With approximately 25 black and white and 11 color network laser printers in our academic labs, we required a user friendly, flexible, and stable method of print accounting.Over the past two semesters we examined and tested many print accounting solutions. Our first iteration of testing used a Macintosh OS X Server and subsequent tests included various Open Source alternatives. We ultimately deployed an off-the-shelf solution called Print Manager Plus installed on a Windows 2000 server with minor modifications to the reporting feature. Advantages of this solution include, but are not limited to, straightforward incorporation of our Active Directory Domain users and groups, maintaining a level of transparency to the users, and multi-platform support.Our quota system is based on academic year and major and all students are given a number of free prints based on these criteria. Students may also purchase additional prints via a web interface if necessary.Print Manager Plus was not our first choice, or even our second, but proved to be the best choice overall. This paper will share our mistakes as well as our successes and will hopefully help our peers control their rising printing costs.

REFERENCES

• 1: Apple Mac OS X Printing, http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/printing/.
• 2: Apple Mac OS X Server Features, http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/fileprint.html/.
• 3: Common UNIX Printing System, http://www.cups.org/.
• 4: Crystal Reports Solutions, http://www.businessobjects.com/solutions/crystalreports/default.asp.
• 5: Hewlett Packard Print Server Appliances, http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02a/18972-236253-64451.html/.
• 6: Pcounter, http://www.andtechnologies.com/pcounter.html/.
• 7: Pharos Uniprint, http://www.pharos.com/products/uniprint.asp.
• 8: Print Audit, http://www.printaudit.com/.
• 9: Print Manager Plus Academic, http://www.softwareshelf.com/files/products.asp?ID=121.
• 10: Pykota, http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/PyKota/action_Presentation/.
• 11: Ringling School of Art and Design, http://www.rsad.edu/.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.4 System Management
          Subjects: Centralization/decentralization

General Terms:
Design, Economics, Management

Keywords:
Macintosh OS X, print accounting, print manager plus, print quotas, print server, printing costs