Indiana University Bloomington
Tier2-2: Limiting Printing

The UITS printing allotment allows you to print in Student Technology Centers (STCs) and Residential Technology Centers (RTCs) if you have a UITS printing account. Allotments vary according to university status: -Undergraduate students: 650 pages per semester -Graduate and professional students: 1,000 pages per semester -Student organizations: 400 pages per semester -Faculty: 200 pages per semester Students and faculty automatically receive these allotments each semester. These allotments are designed so 85% of students will not incur any additional printing expenses. Student organizations must have a faculty or staff sponsor to be eligible for a printing allotment. If undergraduate, graduate or professional students exceed their print allotment, they will be charged four cents ($0.04) per page. At the end of each semester, student printing totals are tabulated and over quota printing fees are added to your bursar bill. Print Less Go Green Campaign Printing is and will always be a part of the university experience. The Print Less Go Green campaign was established to provide information to students regarding ways to reduce printing, while maintaining full access to printing services. The Student Technology Centers (STC's) are committed to finding more sustainable ways to provide you with printing on campus. The following are a few of the ways we are doing this. *Improved Wireless Access: UITS continues to improve the speed and availability of its wireless network. Rather than carrying paper documents with you, bring your laptop to campus and have electronic access to all of your course materials. *Improved Printer Accessibility: UITS has introduced printers in more convenient locations, so there is no need to print materials you might need later; there is always a printer nearby so you can print just the pages that you need to print. This also lessens the need for individuals in residence halls to own personal printers, which use large amounts of energy even in their idle state. *Adobe agreement: : In 2008, UITS entered into an agreement with Adobe Systems to make available to all students, faculty, and staff, the most popular Adobe software. Adobe Acrobat permits users to mark-up course materials which are downloaded from on-line resources and stored on the user computer or thumb drive. By using Adobe Acrobat, users can avoid printing these material altogether. For more information about the Adobe agreement with IU, please see http://kb.iu.edu/data/axuq.html. *Print Release Stations: In many locations (and more to come) UITS has introduced print release stations as a way to increase student productivity. Print release stations permit the user to avoid printing output: -sent to the printer by mistake -reprinted by mistake -which is longer than expected -when the printer is malfunctioning -when the line at the printer is too long to wait The number of forgotten or duplicate jobs has decreased so much that recycled paper bins which used to require emptying on a daily basis now only must be emptied weekly. We estimate a 10-25% reduction in paper waste as a result of print release stations! See http://kb.iu.edu/data/atsj.html for more information about print release stations and how to use them. *Duplex Capability: Duplex printing (two-sided output) reduces paper usage as well as solid waste. Duplex printing is available in all UITS Student Technology Centers (STCs) at IUB and IUPUI, and in all Residential Technology Centers (RTCs) at IUB. See http://kb.iu.edu/data/akez.html to learn more. *Remanufactured Toners: Printing uses more than just paper. The number of toners required to produce the crisp, clean printouts we have at IU is also reduced when we cut back on our printing. The STCs have been using remanufactured toners for many years. Benefits of using remanufactured toners over new toners include: -38,000 tons of waste are kept out of municipal landfills per year on average -New toners require 3 quarts of oil for their production. Remanufactured toners do not require oil for their production. -Our toner remanufacture even reuses the boxes, reducing cardboard waste -Purchasing remanufactured toners typically costs 30% to 50% less than new toners. Over the life of the average printer in the STCs this amounts to over $3500 in savings per machine. *Recycled content paper: UITS is currently piloting a project to better understand the impacts of using recycled-content paper in the STCs. By exploring maintenance and cost differences we can better understand if this is feasible on a larger scale in the STCs. In the spring of 2010 the STC located in the Union will serve as a test to evaluate this. We are always looking for ways to ensure reliable and affordable printing services while improving our environmental impact. *Duplex Printing Testing: UITS will pilot a project to better understand the impacts of setting our printers to duplex (print two sided) by default. This change has the potential to save millions of sheets of paper every year. However, we will explore how such changes affect student habits and our own maintenance patterns to ensure that we continue to meet student needs well. STC's offer 14 tips to help reduce printing: Tip # 1: Reading eReserves online: Reading eReserves online: Unless directed otherwise by your instructor, consider reading eReserves online. For portability, you can also download them to your laptop. Some materials are even suitable for reading on your PDA. Sometimes professors prefer that you bring printed eReserves to class for collaborative study. If you are not sure, ask your professor. Tip # 2: Use electronic storage: If you need to take it with you, save your document or file to My Workspace in Oncourse CL, store it on a USB flash drive, or burn it to a CD or DVD. You can also email documents to yourself as attachments and save them to your personal computer when you get home. For more about file storage options, see http://kb.iu.edu/data/ajay.html. Tip # 3: Consider printing double sided or two-up: To conserve paper, toner, and other printing resources (while stretching your IUB printing allotment or IUPUI Jagtag dollars), consider printing double-sided or 2-up (two pages per sheet). For instructions, see: http://kb.iu.edu/data/aprm.html Tip # 4: Submit assignments electronically: Ask your instructors to accept your assignments electronically (e.g., via Oncourse CL, FTP, or email). Many instructors will. Tip # 5: View document properties: Before printing a document, use print preview to verify that the page count and formatting is correct. This prevents printing blank or unwanted pages. Tip # 6: Copy documents to your PDA: If you need to have your documents and eReserves available to you when you can not access the Internet, copy these documents to your PDA or laptop. Tip # 7: Avoid printing email and web pages: Read email and web pages online. If you need to keep a copy, save it to some form of removable storage media. If you absolutely must print documents stored on the web, download them to your desktop before printing them. This will reduce printing bottlenecks and errors caused by network delays. Tip # 8: Print just once: Be patient when sending print jobs to STC printers. Do not resend the same job multiple times if your output is delayed. Report the problem to the STC consultant. At IUB, if a consultant is not on site, call 812-855-3802 for assistance. Tip # 9: Decrease font size: If you keep a printout for your own use, decreasing the font to the smallest legible size will reduce the number of pages printed. Tip # 10: Use duplex printing: Duplex printing (two-sided output) is effective for lengthy material. (This will not save pages of your IUB printing allotment or reduce your cost of printing at IUPUI, but it will reduce waste paper.) For more, see http://kb.iu.edu/data/akez.html. Tip # 11: Use print preview: Most applications in the STCs have a print preview feature that allows you to see how your printed document will appear so you can catch formatting errors or blank pages before you print. It is also particularly useful when you are printing web pages, which are often much longer than they appear to be. Tip # 12: Run spell check: Use your application#chr(39)#s spell checker to reduce mistakes and avoid reprints. Tip # 13: Print only final copies: Instead of printing draft copies of your work, edit your work online and print only the final copy. Tip # 14: Use smaller margins: Instead of use 1.25” margins, set your documents to use 1” margins to save paper and your allotment. More information regarding the Print Less Go Green campaign can be found at: https://stcweb.stc.indiana.edu/GoGreen/index.cfm