ITWombat

What software and policies have people used here to facilitate student printing. There is a major problem when particular PC clusters are located within particular departments. These departments are natrually reluctant to pickup the consumables tab for student printing related to the teaching in other departments. There is then stalemate where some well endowed departments e.g. ICT, Art etc allow their students to print but other less fortunate subject areas have to do without. One solution could be to centralise consumable management in the hands of the network manager. The problem is then how to stop some departments taking the mick just because they more access to computer rooms and know they don't have to pay. In time of tight budgets the temptation could be use student consumables to do departmental admin printing.

In most organisation the general trend is to have locked down network clients. The problem comes with what to do with laptops given to teachers and students with special needs. They can reasonably argue that they need to install ISP software or drivers drivers for home hardware e.g. printers. Teachers may say they also need to 'try out' new software. What to do? How to strike the balance between enabling students and teachers to get full benefit of 'their' machines and the need to protect the school network from sleep walking malware vectors.