Photocopiers

[ticker]

In the school i work at the majority of staff are using their printers as glorified photocopiers, in part because they believe the photocopying charges for B&W and Colour are more than putting it through their department printers, i would like to know if fellow edugeeks are willing to share what their schools charge per A4 page for both B&W and Colour ours are currently 2p for B&W and 20p for Colour.

[round2it]

"glorified photocopiers"

 

 

SAME here

 

We have a repro lady who does stuff for them but they hardly ever use the facility they just print 30 copies off with out thinking of the cost

 

The problem lies in lack of planning on the teachers part that is where i am trying to tackle the glorified photocopiers problem.

[3s-gtech]

I have tackled this problem head on - with Papercut. For the most part, it has worked - they can't print off whole class sets. One department thought they'd try and get round this by breaking the print jobs into smaller chunks, which was also stopped - the policy from the top is to do all repro through the copiers as it's much cheaper.

[powdarrmonkey]

I don't have the exact figures to hand, but I think we decided high volumes of black and white were a whole magnitude of cost cheaper on a photocopier.

[localzuk]

We have it set up differently here - departments pay for their own printers, and their own toners if they wish to have that convenience. Otherwise they can all use the central copiers, without a charge to their depts.

 

We get charged 3.9p per colour, and 0.33p per mono on our main copiers, compared to running costs of anything between 5p and 40p per sheet for normal printers around the school. The majority of printing, therefore, is done on the copiers!

[Jamman960]

I've found that its partly down to lazyness and also due to staff knowing that copying has a cost attached to it per page where as printing dosen't usually... other than the cost of toner which they often don't know anyway.

 

We've also implimented print accounting via papercut, it immediatly helped us to spot the few teachers that were hammering our printers(paid for by the IT Dept at the time!) We plan in future to start billing departments based on figures from Papercut

[ticker]

That’s what it mainly comes down to lack of planning one of the teachers that i car share with admitted this and also because of the convenience of having a printer right next to them. I have just introduced some print management software to manage and control printing and as you say to get people thinking about printing but it’s caused a really issue with staff.

 

 

 

"glorified photocopiers"

 

 

SAME here

 

We have a repro lady who does stuff for them but they hardly ever use the facility they just print 30 copies off with out thinking of the cost

 

The problem lies in lack of planning on the teachers part that is where i am trying to tackle the glorified photocopiers problem.

[round2it]

That’s what it mainly comes down to lack of planning one of the teachers that i car share with admitted this and also because of the convenience of having a printer right next to them. I have just introduced some print management software to manage and control printing and as you say to get people thinking about printing but it’s caused a really issue with staff.

 

Awwwwwww poor staff they have to think about what they are printing now........

[ticker]

Bar for ICT dept and Heads of Year, depts have to pay for their own cartridges and paper, and even if they want a new printer they have to pay but it still doesn't stop them. Considering in a 12 month period we spent nearly 14k on cartridges across the whole school.

 

I've found that its partly down to lazyness and also due to staff knowing that copying has a cost attached to it per page where as printing dosen't usually... other than the cost of toner which they often don't know anyway.

 

We've also implimented print accounting via papercut, it immediatly helped us to spot the few teachers that were hammering our printers(paid for by the IT Dept at the time!) We plan in future to start billing departments based on figures from Papercut

[Andrew_C]

On the whole I agree with all the above, but don't forget that there are other issues. In a science lab, the teacher can't leave to go the to copiers leaving the kids. Secondly, a teacher's time doesn't come cheaply. A walk down 3 flights of stairs and back vs 20 prints...

[Cmd.exe]

We have the exact same problem here. I brought in papercut to track printing from september and am just about to inform departments how much they would have been billed if I had charged since then. We will then bill departments for printing from april (with financial year) in the same way as reprographics does.

 

I actually overheard a teacher compaining to our repro tech that the toner in the staff room was out of toner and that she had to come and get stuff photocopied!

[round2it]

On the whole I agree with all the above, but don't forget that there are other issues. In a science lab, the teacher can't leave to go the to copiers leaving the kids. Secondly, a teacher's time doesn't come cheaply. A walk down 3 flights of stairs and back vs 20 prints...

 

why would the science teacher have to leave if he/she had planned the lesson and resources needed before hand.

 

are you a teacher ?

[localzuk]

On the whole I agree with all the above, but don't forget that there are other issues. In a science lab, the teacher can't leave to go the to copiers leaving the kids. Secondly, a teacher's time doesn't come cheaply. A walk down 3 flights of stairs and back vs 20 prints...

 

This is why teachers have PPA time, and get long holidays - because they're expected to plan in advance...

[round2it]

This is why teachers have PPA time, and get long holidays - because they're expected to plan in advance...

 

Spot on !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Soulfish]

We have the exact same problem here. I brought in papercut to track printing from september and am just about to inform departments how much they would have been billed if I had charged since then. We will then bill departments for printing from april (with financial year) in the same way as reprographics does.

 

I actually overheard a teacher compaining to our repro tech that the toner in the staff room was out of toner and that she had to come and get stuff photocopied!

 

Exactly what we're doing here down to tracking them since September and charging them in April

 

Just started using the papercut client tool to more accurately track people in multiple departments. People got a bit of a shock when the tool started indicating the print cost!

[RTFM]

Papercut is immense. The teachers moan for a while but they'll get used to it.

 

We have it so people cannot print more than 4 pages to any network printer except photocopiers, they cannot print an untitled document, they cannot print more than 3 copies of the same thing etc etc. Basically made it very difficult for them to spend a fortune using small desktop laser printers.

 

Like i said, they moaned for a while but they have now got used to it and are getting on with it.

[dave.81]

We've recently changed our policy on dept printers, we've got rid of them all in favour of a few MFD in key areas, most buildings only have 1 MFD now. The only expections have been SMT/Finance/Admin areas who do have a couple of printers left.

 

There was a huge uprising after we did this but we are now just over a term into this and the morning has mostly stopped and waste of ink and paper has dropped massively.

 

Cost wise we used to charge a straight 8p per sheet on all printer, now it's 2.5p mono and 5p colour on the MFD's and 8p on all other printers.

[Cmd.exe]

Just started using the papercut client tool to more accurately track people in multiple departments. People got a bit of a shock when the tool started indicating the print cost!

 

This is the next thing I need to work out with Papercut! - with photocopiers obviously a teacher can have 2 codes for 2 different subjects, but wth printing they just click print. a lot.

 

Cost wise we used to charge a straight 8p per sheet on all printer, now it's 2.5p mono and 5p colour on the MFD's and 8p on all other printers.

 

Is 8p based on real figures, or tweaked to deter printing? Does that also include the cost of paper?

[dave.81]

This is the next thing I need to work out with Papercut! - with photocopiers obviously a teacher can have 2 codes for 2 different subjects, but wth printing they just click print. a lot.

 

We use papercut and when staff print they are asked to input a code of the department they wish to charge to, these match the copier codes.

 

Is 8p based on real figures, or tweaked to deter printing? Does that also include the cost of paper?

 

A made up figure, it doesn't cover the cost of colour but more than covers the cost of mono so overall works ok for the type of printers we have left.

[jtotheb]

The relatively new Kyocera copiers that we also use as printers have a setting in the driver to prompt for the teacher's copier code on screen when a print job is sent from the PC.

[laserblazer]

The relatively new Kyocera copiers that we also use as printers have a setting in the driver to prompt for the teacher's copier code on screen when a print job is sent from the PC.

 

Our Canons do that as well. You can also print to a mailbox or a secure area. The mailbox is vital because invariably the admin staff are doing long runs and it means the stuff can be printed when you want it.

[localzuk]

Our Canons do that as well. You can also print to a mailbox or a secure area. The mailbox is vital because invariably the admin staff are doing long runs and it means the stuff can be printed when you want it.

 

Bear in mind that with the Canons, users can choose to print directly out - and from the experience we had, it will come out as soon as possible. We often had a situation where the copier was in full use doing certificates on expensive media and someone would send their stuff to print, it would come out on that paper as they didn't check first...

 

With something like Papercut, everything is sent to 'store' by default, so this can't happen (unless you let them use a print and release station external to the machine).

[laserblazer]

I've configred all of ours to default to the mailbox. Trouble is getting staff to delete stuff when they have printed it.

[localzuk]

I've configred all of ours to default to the mailbox. Trouble is getting staff to delete stuff when they have printed it.

 

Ah, configuring it doesn't stop them (or didn't with us) changing it to print straight out. Also, with the deleting, IIRC there is a setting on the copier to delete jobs after a pre-set time.

[adampat84]

We had the same problem.. Teachers using printers as there own personal photocopiers..

 

sooo...

 

this has been our first week using papercut.. it has been very hard work plicating teachers but was worth it.. after many annoyed teachers an even crying teachers:confused:, we have made it to the end of the first week!!

 

SUCCESS.

 

We have dragged the environmental impact widget out of the db an incorporated it onto our digital signage so teachers an pupils can see what thet're printing...

 

4 days of monitoring... 16, 797 pages printed.. amazing!!

 

Pupils are asking teachers if the can format they're documents with smaller text so it cost them less!!

 

Our canon's cost us 1.5p for black and 2p for colour.. bargin..