Southeast Missouri State University student publication

Printing availability has students questioning printing locations

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Printing availability around campus has students questioning how locations are determined and what steps can be taken to improve printing access.

Senator for the College of Education, Health, and Human Studies Renee Owens took a random survey asking students in her college what they felt could be done better, and printing had the highest amount of concern along with student teaching and advising.

Owens said printers can be found in Scully building, but there is not an area readily accessible where students who are education majors can go to use a printer.

“We don’t have a printer designated to us; psychology has two research labs and they have two printers, and we don’t,” Owens said. “A lot of people in my class and people I have talked to in our college tells me that is our biggest problem in the College of Education.”

Owens said students used to be able to go to the EDvolution Center located in Scully to print, but there was no funding, which resulted in them removing the printer from that location.

College of Education, Health and Human Studies dean Diana Adkinson said the department had to fund the printing in the EDvolution Center.

“We were spending three to four thousand dollars on paper and toner,” Adkinson said.

Owens said a lot of students pay to use the printer on the third floor of Scully and that money goes back to the psychology department.

Assistant vice president of Information Technology Floyd Davenport said the locations of printers are not predetermined, other than in open labs on campus.

“We have printers in our open labs, and we work with departments and other service providers to provide printers where they think they are needed,” Davenport said.

He said if a department feels printing is necessary for their building, all they have to do is contact Information Technology and they can come up with a plan on how to provide printing to the building.

Davenport said Information Technology provides software that is optional for students to use and it is connected throughout the campus.

There are funds added to student accounts at the beginning of each semester that can be used for printing. When the funds are depleted the student account is charged, and that money goes back into the software, Davenport said.

“We do that to help provide printing services for students, so they can go to different departments and use printers that are designated for their use,” Davenport said.

He also said it helps to manage the cost.

Davenport said if printing is not managed, students will go anywhere to print and they will print large amounts.

He also said the departments are responsible for buying the printer and supplies.

Davenport said Information Technology works with the departments where there is a need to support their students.

Adkinson said some solutions for student printing issues could be resolved by changing the way papers are graded.

“Papers could be uploaded into Moodle and accessed through a device,” Adkinson said.

“I can grade a paper online and put comments.”

Another solution she had was a print kiosk where students can send their papers through a device to be printed.

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